Montaigne on the fabrications of philosophers: “There is no more retrogradation, trepidation, accession, recession, reversal, in the stars and heavenly bodies, than they have fabricated in this poor little human body. Truly they had good reason therefore to call it the little world, so many pieces and facets have they used to plaster it and build it. To accommodate the impulses they see in man, the diverse functions and faculties that we sense in us, into how many parts have they divided our soul? How many seats have they assigned to it? Into how many orders and stages have they split this poor man, besides the natural and perceptible ones, and into how many functions and occupations? They make him an imaginary republic. He is a subject that they hold and handle; they are allowed full power to take him apart, rearrange him, reassemble him, and stuff him, each according to his fancy; and yet they still do not have him. Not only in reality, but even in daydreams they cannot so regulate him that there will not be some cadence or some sound that escapes their architecture, prodigious as it is, and patched with a thousand false and fantastic bits.” (Frame)

Jacques Barzun on the fabrications of social scientists: “Removing man from the science of man is much harder than removing him from the science of nature… Equally unsatisfactory is the method of keeping man in view but splitting him into as many separate ‘men’ as he has functions, and then dealing with each slice as if it belonged to a class of similar pieces. How does one discern them in the first place? How does one name them, classify them? … After ‘economic man’ had been split off, boxed, labeled, and told how he would infallibly behave, the subject had no difficulty disregarding the ‘laws’ he was supposed to exhibit.” (Science: The Glorious Entertainment, 1964)

“Moy à cette heure et moy tantost sommes bien deux; mais quand meilleur, je n’en puis rien dire. Il feroit beau estre vieil si nous ne marchions que vers l’amendement. C’est un mouvement d’yvroigne titubant, vertigineux, informe, ou des joncs que l’air manie casuellement selon soy.” #Montaigne

“Myself now and myself a while ago are indeed two; but when better, I simply cannot say. It would be fine to be old if we traveled only toward improvement. It is a drunkard’s motion, staggering, dizzy, wobbling, or that of reeds that the wind stirs haphazardly as it pleases.” (Frame, 1957)

“I at the present moment and I a little while ago are indeed two different persons; but at which stage better, I cannot really say. It would be a fine thing to be old if the path of the years led only to improvement. It is a drunkard’s motion, reeling, dizzy, unsteady, or like that of reeds, which the wind agitates at its pleasure.” (Zeitlin, 1936)

“‘I’ now and ‘I’ then are certainly twain, but which ‘I’ was better? I know nothing about that. If we were always progressing towards improvement, to be old would be a beautiful thing. But it is a drunkard’s progress, formless, staggering, like reeds which the wind shakes as it fancies, haphazardly.” (Screech, 1991)

“Myself now and myself then are two persons; which the better? I do not at all know. It would be a fine thing to be old if we progressed only toward improvement; it is the motion of a drunken man, staggering, dizzy, tortuous, or of reeds which the wind sways casually as it lists.” (George Burnham Ives, 1925)

“I now, and I anon, are two several persons; but whether better, I cannot determine. It were a fine thing to be old, if we only travelled towards improvement; but ’tis a drunken, stumbling, reeling, infirm motion: like that of reeds, which the air casually waves to and fro at pleasure.” (Cotton, ed. Hazlitt, 1877)

“My selfe now and my selfe anon are indeede two; but when better, in good sooth I cannot tell. It were a goodly thing to bee old if wee did onely march towards amendment. It is the motion of a drunkard, stumbling, reeling, giddie-brain’d, formeles, or of reedes, which the ayre dooth casually wave to and fro what way it bloweth.” (Florio, 1603)

“Chaque homme porte la forme entiere de l’humaine condition.” #Montaigne

“Each man bears the entire form of man’s estate.” (Frame, 1957)

“Every man bears the whole Form of the human condition.” (Screech, 1991)

“Every man carries in himself the complete pattern of human nature.” (JM Cohen, 1958)

“Every man has in himself the whole form of human nature.” (Ives, 1925)

“Every man carries the entire form of human condition.” (Cotton, ed. Hazlitt, 1877)

“Every man beareth the whole stampe of humane condition.” (Florio, 1603)

“Voilà ce que la memoire m’en represente en gros, et assez incertainement. Tous jugemens en gros sont laches et imparfaicts.” #Montaigne

“That is what my memory of Tacitus offers me in gross, and rather uncertainly. All judgments in gross are loose and imperfect.” (Frame, 1957)

“That is, grosso modo, the Tacitus which is presented to me, vaguely enough, by my memory. All grosso-modo judgements are lax and defective.” (Screech, 1991)

“This is what my memory of Tacitus presents to me in a general way, and with no great certainty. All general judgements are weak and imperfect.” (JM Cohen, 1958)

“This is what my memory of Tacitus presents to me in gross and with much uncertainty. All general judgements are weak and imperfect.” (George Burnham Ives, 1925)

“This is what my memory presents to me in gross, and with uncertainty enough; all judgments in gross are weak and imperfect.” (Cotton, ed. Hazlitt, 1877)

“Loe here what my memory doth in grose, and yet very uncertainely present unto me of it. In breefe, all judgments are weake, demisse and imperfect.” (Florio, 1603)

Anyone who would aim straight at a cure and would reflect on it before taking any action, would be likely to cool off about setting his hand to it. Pacuvius Calavius corrected the error of this procedure by a signal example. His fellow citizens were in revolt against their magistrates. He, a person of great authority in the city of Capua, one day found means to lock up the Senate in the palace, and, calling the people together in the market place, told them that the day had come when in full liberty they could take vengeance on the tyrants who had so long oppressed them, and whom he held alone and disarmed at his mercy. He advised them that these men should be brought out one by one, by lot, and that they should decide about each one individually, and have their sentence executed on the spot; with this provision also, that at the same time they should decide to appoint some honorable man in the place of the condemned man, so that the office should not remain vacant. They had no sooner heard the name of one senator than there arose a cry of general dissatisfaction against him. “I see very well,” said Pacuvius, “that we must dismiss this one; he is a wicked man; let us have a good one in exchange.” There was a prompt silence, everyone being much at a loss whom to choose. The first man bold enough to name his choice met a still greater unanimity of voices to refuse him, citing a hundred imperfections and just causes for rejecting him. These contradictory humors having grown heated, it fared still worse with the second senator, and the third: as much disagreement about election as agreement about dismissal. Having tired themselves out uselessly in this dispute, they began bit by bit, one this way, one that, to steal away from the assembly, each one bearing away this conclusion in his mind, that the oldest and best-known evil is always more bearable than an evil that is new and untried. (Montaigne, Essays, III, 9)

Another source of mistakes in belief formation is selection bias. Patients in dialysis centers are often surprisingly reluctant to be on the waiting list for a kidney transplantation. One reason is that all the transplanted patients they ever see are those for whom the operation failed so that they had to go back on dialysis. Montaigne was citing a bias of this kind when he referred to Diagoras as being “shown many vows and votive portraits from those who have survived shipwrecks and… then asked, ‘You, there, who think that the gods are indifferent to human affairs, what have you to say about so many men saved by their grace?’ — ‘It is like this,’ he replied, ‘there are no portraits here of those who stayed and drowned — and they are more numerous!'” Similarly, a psychiatrist who claims that “no child abusers ever stop on their own” neglects the fact that if any does he is unlikely to have met them. (Jon Elster, Explaining Social Behavior)