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liar and exclufive privilege of being both INTUITIVE and SELF-EVIDENT. As foon as presented, it is palpably and irresistibly felt at once and it is fo immediate, that it flashes conviction upon the mind through c the medium of the Senfes, when found and well-informed, without an act of direct comparifon. It is fo ftrong and invincible in operation, that it defeats the powers of judgment. Thus Fact and Truth, in common and vernacular language, are fynonimous words and the ftrength of its evidence cannot be more forcibly and pointedly expreffed, than by the vulgar phrafe Seeing ' is believing.'

As these truths are not only the most numerous and the commoneft of all others, but of the most interesting and perfonal concern to men, in condefcenfion to their feelings and neceffities, Providence hath made them the most obvious, eafy, and familiar to the apprehenfion of all: and, by their frequency and inceffant occurrence in the rotine of human things, however various and multiplex they may be, they

03

they are equally obvious and familiar in their proximate and efficient causes.

From these fingular and fuperior advantages by which FACTS are distinguished, in the general Scale of Truth, above every other kind, they have been fingularly honoured in their use and application by the Author and Finisher of all Truth.

CHAP.

CHA P. X.

Of the Logic of HISTORY.

HOSE important and interesting truths

TH

comprehended under the general name of Facts, which determine the fortune of individuals, involve the felicity of focieties, and on which depends the fate of nations, and which fill all the bufy and variegated scenes of life, are inceffantly and unexpectedly turning up in the tide of things, and again as inceffantly and irrecoverably buried in its vortex. They are by nature tranfient and irrevocable, confined and circumfcribed within the ftricteft limits both of time and place and fo, from the condition of humanity, are the Perfons of men. In all cases, therefore,

therefore, in which thefe do not happen to concur with them both in time and place, this fpecies of truth, taken in its wideft comprehenfion as including characters and events as well as acts, cannot be perfonally and directly known.

This great chafm and defect, by which our personal intercourfe is cut off from the greatest and most valuable part of this useful and interesting knowledge, are filled and fupplied by HISTORY, that elegant retrofpective mirrour, which, by its reflection, opens to us à view into ages never to return, which gives Facts an enlargement and extention to all times and places, and which becomes the guide and inftructor of human life.

A

SECT. I.

Of the Hiftorical PRINCIPLE.

LL tranfactions, characters, and events

that have exifted or do exift in times and places, when and where we either did

not,

not, or could not, witness them ourselves, if we ever know them at all, (and thefe form the greatest proportion of our knowledge) it must be from the Narration or Teftimony, that is upon the Authority, of others. Narration I use to exprefs the communication of Facts with which we are coincident in point of time, but not of place: Teftimony I apply to the communication of those with which we are coincident, neither in time nor place. These two are the neceffary and indispensable vehicles of Historical truth.

That on friday, the 10th day of the last month, the cities of London and Westminster exhibited fimilar tokens of their love and loyalty to their King, by a general Illumination on the fame joyful occafion abovementioned, is a Fact of which we who were not there rejoiced to hear; of the truth of which we are as fully and certainly, though not fo directly, convinced, on the NARRATION Of others public and private, as we were of that other which on the 13th we witneffed ourfelves at Oxford: In the cafe of which Fact,

there

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