148

20

all our reasoning was of this kind:
Drawing the conclusion C from the premises P1 P2 etc feels good.
therefore C is true,
if that is what they meant, their doctrine would be monstrously false, but it would not be absurd; and it certainly would follow that, all reasoning being exactly alike, there would be no distinction between good reasoning and bad.
But that cannot be what they do mean, since they say that it is unthinkable that a person should reason otherwise.
For, although the world swarms with people who never properly speaking reason at all, never exercize critical self control near their thoughts, but simply believe what they feel inclined to believe, yet no genuine reasoner, in any ordinary reasoning takes any account of the joy or the poignant grief his inference may be [?ig] to him, as one of