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.
'Shep.' 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.
'Dech.' Nor I; but what then?
'Shep.' Pray, Mr.Dechaine, did you see Julius Caesar assassinated in the Capitol?
'Dech.' A pretty question! No indeed, Sir.
'Shep.' Have you any doubts about the truth of what is told us by the historians concerning that memorable transaction?
'Dech.' Not the least.
'Shep.' 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 Caesar?
'Dech.' By no means.
'Shep.' 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?
'Dech.' I have.
'Shep.' 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' ([Greek: elegchos metabaseos eis allo genos]); 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.