doubted of? Yea, that which is more, utterly to infringe the force and
strength of man's testimony, were to shake the very fortress of God's
truth.


In a note on a passage in Skelton's 'Deism Revealed', [11] I have
detected the subtle sophism that lurks in this argument, as applied by
later divines in vindication of proof by testimony, in relation to the
miracles of the Old and New Testament. As thus applied, it is a [Greek:
metabasis eis allo genos], though so unobvious, that a very acute and
candid reasoner might use the argument without suspecting the
paralogism. It is not testimony, as testimony, that necessitates us to
conclude that there is such a city as Rome--but a reasoning, that forms
a branch of mathematical science. So far is our conviction from being
grounded on our confidence in human testimony that it proceeds on our
knowledge of its fallible character, and therefore can find no
sufficient reason for its coincidence on so vast a scale, but in the
real existence of the object. That a thousand lies told by as many
several and unconnected individuals should all be one and the same, is a
possibility expressible only by a fraction that is already, to all
intents and purposes, equal to nought.


B. iii. c. iii. 1. p. 447.

The mixture of those things by speech, which by nature are divided, is
the mother of all error.


'The division in thought of those things which in nature are distinct,