BELIEF IN EVIDENCE. 45 



son, unlearned or learned, could give any judgment 

 at all. As that is a very important point, let us illus- 

 trate it by an example : 



Suppose, then, that a man had the evidence of a 

 long and intimate acquaintance, during which you had 

 told him nothing but truth ; suppose him at the same 

 time ignorant of the structure of the mammalia, or 

 quadrupeds with warm blood, and also of the animals 

 of any distant country, as Africa ; and suppose you 

 told him, in your usual friendly and instructive man- 

 ner, that there had just been discovered, in the inte- 

 rior of Africa, by a traveller who had penetrated 

 farther into it than any former traveller, whole flocks 

 of a new species of creatures, which had four legs, 

 upon which they could run or bound as fleetly as 

 antelopes, and on their shoulders, above the fore-legs, 

 feathered wings, more powerful than the wings of 

 eagles, by the help of which they could fly over the 

 forests or the deserts at their pleasure : how could 

 the man help believing you? If he were a mere 

 surface dabbler in natural history, the chance is that 

 he would believe you all the more readily ; because 

 he would of course have heard of, and perhaps also 

 seen in a specimen or a figure, the Ornithorhyncus 

 paradoocus, which is found in some of the pools of 



