JB/104/154/001

Click Here To Edit

27 June 1810
Fallacies Ch. 2 Ancestor-worship
§.2. Experience

4

So, as between all
other ages, the
older wiser than
the younger, and
caeteris paribus
in proportion to age

[This being true of every man individual taken by himself, the consequence is
that where when if the differences produced by between
individual and individual by original constitution and
situation in life are had out of the account, so it
will be as between an any individual and any other
inasmuch that if of two individuals of which nothing
more is known than that the age number of years lived of one of them
is five and twenty years by one of them is five and twenty years and no more, and that of the other fifty,
no the question were asked which is likely to be the
wisest, no rational person would think of pointing
out any other than the older of the two as the only
one of the two to which that superior attribute probability could
be ascribed.]

Here then is a very sufficient and universally
satisfactory reason why as between two persons living
together at any one given point of time, both being alike unknown the older should be regarded
as superior in wisdom to the younger.

9
So caeteris paribus
as between men
of the same age
in different periods,
setting aside so
much wisdom as
is derived at extra from
reports of others

But now take the case of two persons taken
at the same age (fifty) and considered as living or living or
having lived in two different portions of time: one
suppose Ao 1500, the other Ao 1800. Here at the
same age you have the objects of comparison to compare with one another the inhabitant of modern time
and the inhabitant of antient time: will 1 any one
take upon him to say pronounce as between them
that the probability of superior probable superiority wisdom is on the side of
him whose situation in the scale of time past is the more
distant from our own? no one surely who is capable of mature reflection
by whom any portion
of attention is bestowed
upon the subject.

Identifier: | JB/104/154/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 104.
Date_1	1810-06-27	Marginal Summary Numbering	8-9
Box	104	Main Headings	fallacies
Folio number	154	Info in main headings field	fallacies
Image	001	Titles
Category	text sheet	Number of Pages	1
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering	e4
Penner	jeremy bentham	Watermarks
Marginals	jeremy bentham	Paper Producer
Corrections		Paper Produced in Year
Notes public		ID Number	34125
Box Contents