, the art of attaining the appearance of truth, regardless
of its substance? That is, then, as I put it above.

Aristotle divides all conclusions into logical and dialectical, in the
manner described, and then into eristical. (3) _Eristic_ is the method
by which the form of the conclusion is correct, but the premisses, the
materials from which it is drawn, are not true, but only appear to be
true. Finally (4) _Sophistic_ is the method in which the form of the
conclusion is false, although it seems correct. These three last
properly belong to the art of Controversial Dialectic, as they have
no objective truth in view, but only the appearance of it, and pay
no regard to truth itself; that is to say, they aim at victory.
Aristotle's book on _Sophistic Conclusions_ was edited apart from the
others, and at a later date. It was the last book of his _Dialectic_.]

If the reader asks how this is, I reply that it is simply the
natural baseness of human nature. If human nature were not base, but
thoroughly honourable, we should in every debate have no other aim
than the discovery of truth; we should not in the least care whether
the truth proved to be in favour of the opinion which we had begun by
expressing, or of the opinion of our adversary. That we should
regard as a matter of no moment, or, at any rate, of very secondary
consequence; but, as things are, it is the main concern. Our
innate vanity, which is particularly sensitive in reference to our
intellectual powers, will not suffer us to allow that our first
position was wrong and our adversary's right. The way out of this
difficulty would be simply to take the trouble always to form a
correct judgment. For this a man would have to think before he spoke.
But, with most men, innate vanity is accompanied by loquacity and
innate dishonesty. They speak before they think; and even though they
may afterwards perceive that they are wrong, and that what they assert
is false, they want it to seem the contrary. The interest in truth,
which may be presumed to have been their only motive when they stated
the proposition alleged to be true, now gives way to the interests of
vanity: and so, for the sake of vanity, what is true must seem false,
and what is false must seem true.

However, this very dishonesty, this persistence in a proposition which
seems false even to ourselves, has something to be said for it. It
often happens that we begin with the firm conviction of the truth
of our