Sword of Truth

[vitis]

Wizard's Third Rule: "Passion rules reason."

This Wizard has been reading his Hume:

Reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.

David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature

Although, as Josh points out, he has not entirely taken him to heart:

Wizard's Sixth Rule: "The only sovereign you can allow to rule you is reason."

Not necessarily a contradiction though. Rule 3 seems to be a descriptive claim ("reason is ...") while 6 may be meant as normative, i.e., a denial of Hume's "and ought always to be". In other words, 'in your dealings with others assume that they are driven by passion; for yourself, live by reason.' Something like that?

See the Ninth rule, Gee3666?

Wizard's Ninth Rule: "A contradiction cannot exist in reality. Not in part, nor in whole."

It is hard to read it as an endorsement of contradiction. I read it as a rather ponderous and inelegant expression of the principle of non-contradiction: a thing canot both be and not be. Not (A and not A). Not at all Walt Whitman's:

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes).

'Song of Myself,' Leaves of Grass

Which I find less annoying that I used to when I was young and zealous.