Critical History of Eclecticism

—ties, which would no longer be duties for us if she The author continues the personification of "Truth" as a feminine figure. did not prescribe them to us. Thus, what more fertile cause of evil is there than to accustom oneself, and to accustom others, to obscure the truth, and to shroud it in clouds that prevent us from discerning it from that which bears only some deceptive resemblance to it!

Truth, often bothersome and inconvenient, knows neither compromise nor indulgence for our inclinations, or for our weaknesses. It is an iron rule that cannot be bent; and such is the strength of its dominion that one would not dare to declare oneself its enemy. When one wages war against it, it is under its own banners, and while claiming to be faithful to it. One even protests this loyalty while yielding to the fallacious arguments that combat it, and by cherishing the sophisms A sophism is a clever but false argument, often used deliberately to deceive or mislead others while appearing plausible. which put at its