Why does error triumph often in this world?

Why does error triumph often in this world?

Let us beware of the fact that error offers no danger when it is not difficult to discover or refute it. Coarse or specious, error always has a certain force because it finds in the passions a complicity which serves it.

There are some who readily imagine that the truth has only to be heard to be, at the moment, accepted by all: vain illusion that the experience of centuries and the study of history should it seems to have dissipated a long time ago.

Doubtless, man is born for the truth: he feels a natural inclination to know it and to seek it, he tastes an intimate satisfaction after having found it.
But if, on the one hand, he feels inclined towards her, the bad instincts of his fallen nature find him far away. He fears it and flees it, because it imposes on him obligations that hinder him.

That is why error has so much hold on the human mind ... You will understand what it takes to the truth of time and effort to triumph in the world.

Bishop Freppel - Life of Apollonius of Tyana by Philostratus (circa 1860)