The Most Lively Thought Is Still Inferior

To Invent Without Scruple A New Principle To Every New Phenomenon, Instead Of Adapting It To The Old; To Overload Our Hypothesis With A Variety Of This Kind, Are Certain Proofs That None Of These Principles Is The Just One, And That We Only Desire, By A Number Of Falsehoods, To Cover Our Ignorance Of The Truth.

No Testimony Is Sufficient To Establish A Miracle, Unless The Testimony Be Of Such A Kind, That Its Falsehood Would Be More Miraculous Than The Fact Which It Endeavors To Establish.

In The Sphere Of Natural Investigation, As In Poetry And Painting, The Delineation Of That Which Appeals Most Strongly To The Imagination, Derives Its Collective Interest From The Vivid Truthfulness With Which The Individual Features Are Portrayed.

I Do Not Think A Philosopher Who Would Apply Himself So Earnestly To The Explaining The Ultimate Principles Of The Soul, Would Show Himself A Great Master In The Very Science Of Human Nature, Which He Pretends To Explain, Or Very Knowing In What Is Naturally Satisfactory To The Mind Of Man.

The Sceptics Assert, Though Absurdly, That The Origin Of All Religious Worship Was Derived From The Utility Of Inanimate Objects,as The Sun And Moon, To The Support And Well-being Of Mankind.