On Convincing People by Hilaire Belloc — Read

I have just been working at the "Provincials" of Pascal. They are full of lies, and full of errors. They would not convince the stupidest of readers who should seriously compare them with the original documents which Pascal attacked. But no reader has ever done so. My object in reading Pascal's book was to expose it, and therefore my object on a small stage was to do what Pascal did on a large one, that is, to convince people: with this only difference. Pascal had only to convince those who agreed with him in believing something that was not true, to wit, that Casuistry was immoral. But I set out to convince, of something that _was_ true (to wit, that Casuistry was both moral and necessary) those who heartily, save Maynard and Derome, disagreed with me.

This amiable exercise has set me thinking about the art of convincing people; and I say "of convincing" and not "of persuading," for I think that the two arts stand for two different processes. You can persuade a man to do a thing though he still disapproves of it in conscience and intellect. But conviction is something higher.