There was less divergence in the definitions themselves than there was in the propositions that were deduced from them. That is to say, there was a verbal agreement as to definitions which was not a real agreement of ideas: the same words were found on examination to cover different areas of thought. But whether the difference lay in the definitions themselves or in the deductions made from them, there was nothing to determine which of two contrary or contradictory propositions was true. There was no universally recognized standard of appeal, or _criterion_, as it was termed. Indeed, the question of the nature of the criterion was one of the chief questions at issue. Consequently, assertions about abstract ideas and wide generalizations could only be regarded as the affirmations of a personal conviction. The making of such an affirmation was expressed by the same phrase which was used for a resolution of the will—“It seems to me,” or “It seems (good) to me” (δοκεῖ μοι): the affirmation itself, by the corresponding substantive, _dogma_ (δόγμα). But just as the resolutions of the will of a monarch were obeyed by his subjects, that is, were adopted as resolutions of the will of other persons, so the affirmations of a thinker might be assented to by those who listened to him, that is, might become affirmations of other persons. In the one case as in the other, the same word _dogma_ was employed.[205] It thus came to express (1) a decree, (2) a doctrine. The latter use tended to predominate. The word came ordinarily to express an affirmation made by a philosopher which was accepted as true by those who, from the fact of so accepting it, became his followers and formed his school. The acquiescence of a large number of men in the same affirmation gave to such an affirmation a high degree of probability; but it did not cause it to lose its original character of a personal conviction, nor did it afford any guarantee that the coincidence of expression was also a coincidence of ideas either between the original thinker and his disciples, or between the disciples themselves.[206]