To avoid the various foolish opinions to which mankind are prone, no superhuman genius is required. 31______.

    32______. Aristotle could have avoided the mistake of thinking that women have fewer teeth than men, by the simple device of asking Mrs. Aristotle to keep her mouth open while he counted. 33______. Thinking that you know when in fact you don’t is a fatal mistake, to which we are all prone. I believe myself that hedgehogs eat black beetles, because I have been told that they do; but if I were writing a book on the habits of hedgehogs, 34______. Aristotle, however, was less cautious. Ancient and medieval authors knew all about unicorns and salamanders; not one of them thought it necessary to avoid dogmatic statements about them because he had never seen one of them.                                                                                                                                                                                   

    Many matters, however, are less easily brought to the test of experience. If, like most of mankind, you have passionate convictions on many such matters, there are ways in which you can make yourself aware of your own bias. 35______. If some one maintains that two and two are five, or that Iceland is on the equator, you feel pity rather than anger, unless you know so little of arithmetic or geography that his opinion shakes your own contrary conviction. The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way. Persecution is used in theology, not in arithmetic, 36______. So whenever you find yourself getting angry about a difference of opinion, be on your guard; you will probably find, on examination, that your belief is going beyond what the evidence warrants.

37______. When I was young, I lived much outside my own country—in France, Germany, Italy, and the United States. I found this very profitable in diminishing the intensity of insular prejudice. If you cannot travel, seek out people with whom you disagree, and read a newspaper belonging to a party that is not yours. 38______, perverse, and wicked, remind yourself that you seem so to them. In this opinion both parties may be right, but they cannot both be wrong. This reflection should generate a certain caution.

    39______. This has one advantage, and only one, as compared with actual conversation with opponents; this one advantage is that the method is not subject to the same limitations of time or space. Mahatma Gandhi deplores railways and steamboats and machinery; he would like to undo the whole of the industrial revolution. 40______, because in Western countries most people take the advantage of modern technique for granted. But if you want to make sure that you are right in agreeing with the prevailing opinion, you will find it a good plan to test the arguments that occur to you by considering what Gandhi might say in refutation of them. I have sometimes been led actually to change my mind as a result of this kind of imaginary dialogue, and, short of this, I have frequently found myself growing less dogmatic and cocksure through realizing the possible reasonableness of a hypothetical opponent.

                                           (From How to Avoid the Foolish Opinions)

A.You may never have an opportunity of actually meeting any one who holds this opinion

B.Be very wary of opinions that flatter your self-esteem

C.If an opinion contrary to your own makes you angry, that is a sign that you are subconsciously aware of having no good reason for thinking as you do

D.He did not do so because he thought he knew

E. For those who have enough psychological imagination, it is a good plan to imagine an argument with a person having a different bias

F. If you are a man, you can point out that most poets and men of science are male; if you are a woman, you can retort that so are most criminals

G. A few simple rules will keep you, not from all error, but from silly error

H. I should not commit myself until I had seen one enjoying this unappetizing diet

I. A good way of riding yourself of certain kinds of dogmatism is to become aware of opinions held in social circles different from your own

 J. because in arithmetic there is knowledge, but in theology there is only opinion

K. If the people and the newspaper seem mad

L. If the matter is one that can be settled by observation, make the observation yourself

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