[ '79 J 



I NOW proceed to the examination of the ciJay-. 



Page 345. In the firfl: paragraph an inaccurate exprefllon 

 occurs, incompatible with the philofophic precifion to be expedled- 

 jn argumentative treatifes. He tells us " that a weaker evidence 

 " can never deftroy a flronger." Now all evidence is equally 

 ftrong, and a weak evidence is no evidence. It is only in a. 

 forenfic fenfe, where evidence is taken for fynonimous with 

 proof, that this pofition can be allowed to be true. In the 

 philofophic fenfe one evidence may be more eafily and im- 

 mediately difcerned than another, but when difcerned it is 

 equally ftrong. Thence he infers, that " the evidence of the truth 

 " of the chriftian religion is lefs than the evidence^ of the truth 

 " of our fenfes j" which is alfo a miftake. The evidence of our 

 fenfes, being immediate, is more eafily attained than that of the 

 truth of chriftianity, which refults from a comprehenfive view 

 of the numerous arguments that produce it ; but this evidence, 

 when once attained, is equal to that of our fenfes. Thus the 

 evidence refulting from the complex demonftrations of Apollo-- 

 nius or Archimedes is as ftrong as that of the primary axioms of 

 geometry, though much more difficultly attained ; the evidence of 

 tranfraitted teftimony is frequently as ftrong, and as juftly excludes 

 all doubt, as the evidence of our fenfes. Can any one now 

 doubt that fuch perfons exifted, as William the III, Henry the VIII, 

 or even Julius Casfar,.or Alexander, &c, . or of the exiftence of 



Z 2, Roine> 



