furnished a clear case of antecedent probability.

Lastly: Noah's fall was very likely to have happened: not merely in the
theological view of the matter, as an illustration of the truth that no
human being can stand fast in righteousness: but from the just
consideration that he imported with him the seeds of an impure state of
society, the remembered luxuries of that old world. For instance, among
the plants of earth which Noah would have preserved for future insertion
in the soil, he could not have well forgotten the generous, treacherous
Vine. That to a righteous man, little used to all unhallowed sources of
exhilaration, this should have been a stepping-stone to a defalcation
from God, was likely. It was probable in itself, and shows the honesty
as well as the verisimilitude of Scripture to read, that "Noah began to
be a husbandman, and planted a vineyard; and he drank of the wine, and
was drunken." There was nothing here but what, taking all things into
consideration, Reason might have previously guessed. Why then withhold
the easier matter of an afterward belief?




BABEL.


This book ought to be read, as mentally it is written, with at the end
of every sentence one of those _et ceteras_, which the genius of a Coke
interpreted so keenly of the genius of a Littleton: for, far more
remains on each subject to be said, than in any one has been attempted.

Let us pass on to the story of Babel: I can conceive nothing more _à