Authority in speeches [ les discours ] and writing . By authority in discourse [ le discours ], I mean the right to be believed in what one says: thus, the more one has the right to be believed in what one says, the more authority one has . This right is founded on the degree of science and good faith recognized in the speaker. Science prevents one from deceiving oneself, and helps one avoid the error that could be born out of ignorance. Good faith prevents one from deceiving others, and suppresses lies to which malevolence would seek to give credence. It is thus enlightenment and sincerity which are the true measures of authority in discourse. These two qualities are essentially necessary. Even the most learned and the most enlightened of men no longer deserves to be believed, as soon as he is dishonest; no more than the most pious and saintly man, as soon as he speaks about that of which he knows nothing; such that Saint Augustine was right to say that it was not the number, but the merit of authors that should carry weight. To conclude, merit must not be judged by reputation, especially in regard to people who are members of a corps, or who are carried away by an agenda. The true touchstone, when one is able and in a position to make use of it, is a judicious comparison between discourse and its subject matter, taken on its own terms: it is not the name of the author upon which the work is valued; it is the work that must oblige us to render justice to the author.

Authority does not have any power and is not appropriate, in my sense of the word, except in regard to facts, religious matters, and history. Elsewhere, it is useless and irrelevant. What difference does it make if others have thought the same or differently than we have, provided that we think correctly, according to the rules of common sense, and in accordance with the truth? It makes little difference that your opinion is that of Aristotle, as long as it follows the laws of the syllogism. What good are these frequent citations, when it’s a question of things that depend solely on the testimony of reason and the senses? What good does it do me to assure myself that it is day when my eyes are open and the sun shines? Great names are good only for dazzling the people, tricking small minds, and providing chatter among the semi-educated. The people, who admire everything they do not understand, always believe that he who speaks the most and speaks the least naturally is the most skillful. Those who lack a mind broad enough to think for themselves are content with the thoughts of another and simply count the votes. The semi-educated who do not know how to be quiet and who take silence and modesty as symptoms of ignorance or imbecility, make for themselves inexhaustible stores of citations.

Nevertheless, I do not claim that authority is absolutely useless in the sciences. I want only to make clear that it must serve to support us and not to lead us; and that, otherwise, it would usurp the rights of reason: the latter is a torch lit by nature and destined to enlighten us: the former is no more than a stick, that comes from the hands of men, and good to support us in case of weakness, on the path that reason shows us.

Those who conduct themselves in their studies by authority alone resemble blind people who walk under the guidance of another. If their guide is bad he sends them down the wrong path, where he leaves them, tired and weary, before having taken one step along the true path of knowledge. If he is skilled, he in fact helps them cover a lot of ground in a short time, but they have had the pleasure of noting neither the goal to which they were headed, nor the objects that embellished the sides of the road, and made it pleasant.

I imagine those minds that do not want to owe anything to their own thoughts, and who are guided always by the ideas of others, to be like children whose legs never become strong, or the ill who never emerge from their state of convalescence, and never take a single step without leaning on the arm of another.