of following up every principle with its,
counter-statement, the matter denied when the principle is affirmed. If
knowledge is a thing superlatively good, ignorance--the opposite of
knowledge--is a thing superlatively bad. There is no middle standing
ground.

* * * * *

In the way that people use the argument from Authority, there is often
an unfelt contradiction from not adverting to the correlative
implication. If I lay stress upon some one's authority as lending weight
to my opinion, I ought to be equally moved in the opposite direction
when the same authority is against me. The common case, however, is to
make a great flourish when the authority is one way, and to ignore it
when it is the other way. This is especially the fashion in dealing with
the ancient philosophers. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle are quoted with
much complacency when they chime in with a modern view; but, in points
where they contradict our cherished sentiments, we treat them with a
kind of pity as half-informed pagans. It is not seen that men liable
to such gross errors as they are alleged to have committed--say on
Ethics--are by that fact deprived of all weight in allied subjects, as,
for example, Politics--in which Aristotle is still quoted as an
authority.

* * * * *

[DIGNITY OF ALL LABOUR ABSURD.]

Many of the sins against Relativity can be traced to rhetorical
exaggeration. Some remarkable instances of this can be cited.

When a system of ranks and dignities has once been established, there
are associations of dignity and of indignity with different conditions
and occupations. It is more dignified to serve in the army than to
engage in trade; to be a surgeon is more honourable than to be a
watchmaker. In this state of things a fervid rhetorician, eager to
redress the inequalities of mankind, starts forth to preach the dignity
of _all_ labour. The device is a self-contradiction. Make all labour
alike dignified, and nothing is dignified; you simply abolish dignity by
depriving it of the contrast that it subsists upon.

Pope's lines--

Honour and shame from no condition rise;
Act well your part; there all the honour lies--

cannot be exempted from the fallacy of self-contradiction. Differences
of condition are made by differences in the degree of honour thereto
attached. If every man that did his work well were put on a level, in
point of honour, with every o