In historia parvus,
In philosophia minimus,
In religione nullus.
Hume, the classic historian of England, denied the existence of matter, and held that the whole congeries of material things are but impressions and ideas in the mind, distinguishing an impression from an idea by its stronger effect on the thinking faculty. Dr. Beattie sufficiently exposed the absurdity; but his famous essay has nothing more pointed than the witty epitaph that somebody wrote on the marble shaft that stands over the infidel’s grave:—
Beneath this circular idea, vulgarly called tomb,
Impressions and ideas rest, which constituted Hume.
ON TOM PAINE.
Tom Paine for the Devil is surely a match.
In leaving old England he cheated Jack Ketch;
In France (the first time such a thing had been seen)