ore, absolutely speaking, never voluntary, although
the will very often contributes towards them indirectly, owing to the
pleasure one takes in giving oneself up to certain thoughts, or owing to
the aversion one feels for others. Beautiful print in a book will help
towards making it persuasive to the reader. The air and manner of a speaker
will win the audience for him. One will be inclined to despise doctrines
coming from a man one despises or hates, or from another who resembles him
in some point that strikes us. I have already said why one is readily
disposed to believe what is advantageous or agreeable, and I have known
people who at first had changed their religion for worldly [436]
considerations, but who have been persuaded (and well persuaded) afterwards
that they had taken the right course. One sees also that stubbornness is
not simply wrong choice persevering, but also a disposition to persevere
therein, which is due to some good supposed to be inherent in the choice,
or some evil imagined as arising from a change. The first choice has
perchance been made in mere levity, but the intention to abide by it
springs from certain stronger reasons or impressions. There are even some
writers on ethics who lay it down that one ought to abide by one's choice
so as not to be inconstant or appear so. Yet perseverance is wrong when one
despises the warnings of reason, especially when the subject is important
enough to be examined carefully; but when the thought of change is
unpleasant, one readily averts one's attention from it, and that is the way
which most frequently leads one to stubbornness. The author wished to
connect stubbornness with his so-called pure indifference. He might then
have taken into account that to make us cling to a choice there would be
need of more than the mere choice itself or a pure indifference, especially
if this choice has been made lightly, and all the more lightly in
proportion to the indifference shown. In such a case we shall be readily
inclined to reverse the choice, unless vanity, habit, interest or some
other motive makes us persevere therein. It must not be supposed either
that vengeance pleases without cause. Persons of intense feeling ponder
upon it day and night, and it is hard for them to efface the impression of
the wrong or the affront they have sustained. They picture for themselves a
very great pleasure in being freed from the thought of scorn which comes
upon them eve