Chauncey Wright — American Philosopher born on September 10, 1830, died on September 12, 1875

Chauncey Wright was an American philosopher and mathematician... (wikipedia)

Let one persuade many, and he becomes confirmed and convinced, and cares for no better evidence.
The questions of philosophy proper are human desires and fears and aspirations - human emotions - taking an intellectual form.
All observers not laboring under hallucinations of the senses are agreed, or can be made to agree, about facts of sensible experience, through evidence toward which the intellect is merely passive, and over which the individual will and character have no control.
The accidental causes of science are only accidents relatively to the intelligence of a man.
And we owe science to the combined energies of individual men of genius, rather than to any tendency to progress inherent in civilization.