There are persons who go by the latest edition, and thereby go to irrational extremes. Their feelings and desires are of wax: the last comer stamps them with his seal and obliterates all previous impressions. These never gain anything, for they lose everything so soon. Every one dyes them with his own colour... they halt along cripples in will and thought.
Baltasar Gracián, 1647 (tr. Joseph Jacobs, 1892)
Some people have no settled position of their own; whoever spoke to them last has shaped their view, and the next speaker will reshape it again, wiping out what came before. Their opinions are wax, taking every seal and holding none, so they swing to irrational extremes and never actually gain anything, because each new conviction is lost as soon as the next person arrives. Everyone dyes them their own colour, which is to say they have no colour of their own. The cost is a kind of crippling: a will and a mind that cannot hold a line, forever tottering from one side of the road to the other. The counsel is to weigh what the last speaker said, yes, but against your own settled judgment, so that you are informed by others without being overwritten by whoever happened to reach you most recently.
Practice
- Hold your own settled judgment; weigh the last speaker's view against it rather than letting them overwrite everything before (maxim 227 leaves room for the second hearing too).
- Notice when your conviction changes simply because someone spoke to you recently; recency is not evidence, and the wax mind mistakes it for insight.
- Build a position of your own on the things that matter, so you are informed by others without being dyed their colour.
Use this when
- Use this after any persuasive conversation, especially one that flipped you; ask whether the argument moved you or merely its recency.
- Use it when you are the one being lobbied by successive people; the last and loudest is not automatically the right one.
Ignore this when
- Don't harden this into never changing your mind; updating on genuine new evidence is strength, and the fault is being overwritten, not being persuaded (maxim 218's knowledge over obstinacy).
- Don't distrust every recent input; the caution is against having no settled view, not against listening.
A picture of it
Whoever briefs him last owns the decision, and a department head swings with each successive visitor: convinced by the morning's meeting, reversed by the afternoon's, reversed again by a corridor conversation, until his team stops trusting any direction he gives because it will not survive the next person through his door. His mind is wax, taking every seal and holding none. When he learns to hear each argument and then weigh it against a position of his own before deciding, the swinging stops, and his decisions finally hold long enough to be acted on. He had been informed by everyone and overwritten by everyone, which is to say he had been leading no one.
The wax mind takes every seal and keeps none. Weigh the last speaker against your own judgment, or you will be dyed a new colour every day.