Ib. p. 478.
In fine.
To what purpose were these Reflections, taken as a whole, written? I cannot answer. To dissuade men from reasoning on a subject beyond our faculties? Then why all this reasoning?
Vol. IV. p. 28. Deism Revealed.
| Shepherd | Were you ever at Constantinople, Sir? |
| Dechaine | Never. |
| Shepherd | Yet I believe you have no more doubt there is such a city, than that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right ones. |
| Temp. | I am sure 1 have not. |
| Dechaine | Nor I; but what then? |
| Shepherd | Pray, Mr. Dechaine, did you see Julius Cæsar assassinated in the Capitol? |
| Dechaine | A pretty question! No indeed, Sir. |
| Shepherd | Have you any doubts about the truth of what is told us by the historians concerning that memorable transaction? |
| Dechaine | Not the least. |
| Shepherd | Pray, is it either self-evident or demonstrable to you, at this time and place, that there is any such city as Constantinople, or that there ever was such a man as Cæsar? |
| Dechaine | By no means. |
| Shepherd | And you have all you know concerning the being of either the city, or the man, merely from the report of others, who had it from others, and so on, through many links of tradition? |
| Dechaine | I have. |
| Shepherd | You see then, that there are certain cases, in which the evidence of things not seen nor either sensibly or demonstrably perceived, can justly challenge so entire an assent, that he who should pretend to refuse it in the fullest measure of acquiescence, would be deservedly esteemed the most stupid or perverse of mankind. |
That there is a sophism here, every one must feel in the very fact of being 'non-plus'd' without being convinced. The sophism consists in the instance being 'haud ejusdem generis'
; and what the allogeneity is between the assurance of the being of Madrid or Constantinople, and the belief of the fact of the resurrection of Christ, I have shown elsewhere. The universal belief of the 'tyrannicidium' of Julius Cæsar is doubtless a fairer instance, but the whole mode of argument is unsound and unsatisfying. Why run off from the fact in question, or the class at least to which it belongs? The victory can be but accidental—a victory obtained by the unguarded logic, or want of logical foresight of the antagonist, who needs only narrow his positions to narrations of facts and events, in our judgment of which we are not aided by the analogy of previous and succeeding experience, to deprive you of the opportunity of skirmishing thus on No Man's land. But this is Skelton's ruling passion, sometimes his strength—too often his weakness. He must force the reader to believe: or rather he has an antagonist, a wilful infidel or heretic always and exclusively before his imagination; or if he thinks of the reader at all, it is as of a partizan enjoying every hard thump, and smashing 'fister' he gives the adversary, whom Skelton hates too cordially to endure to obtain any thing from him with his own liking. No! It must be against his will, and in spite of it. No thanks to him—the dog could not help himself! How much more effectual would he have found it to have commenced by placing himself in a state of sympathy with the supposed sceptic or unbeliever;—to have stated to him his own feelings, and the real grounds on which they rested;—to have shown himself the difference between the historical facts which the sceptic takes for granted and believes spontaneously, as it were,—and those, which are to be the subject of discussion; and this brings the question at once to the proof. And here, after all, lies the strength of Skelton's reasoning, which would have worked far more powerfully, had it come first and single, and with the whole attention directed towards it.