John Locke — (1632-1704), A Man Ahead of His Time

There is another wrong measure of probability I shall take notice of, and which keeps in ignorance or error more people than all the other together.

The giving of our assent to the common received opinions, either of our friends, our party, neighbourhood or country. How many men have no other ground for their tenets than the supposed honesty, or learning, or number of those of the same profession? As if honest bookish men could not err, or truth were to be established by the vote of the multitude; yet this, with most men, serves the turn. If we could but see the secret motives that influenced the men of name and learning in the world, we should not always find that it was the embracing of truth for its own sake, that made them espouse the doctrines they owned, and maintained.