But what if Plutarch, besides several examples that he produces out of antiquity, tells us, he knows of certain knowledge, that in the time of Domitian, the news of the battle lost by Antony in Germany was published at Rome, many days' journey from thence, and dispersed throughout the whole world, the same day it was fought; and if Caesar was of opinion, that it has often happened, that the report has preceded the incident, shall we not say, that these simple people have suffered themselves to be deceived with the vulgar, for not having been so clear-sighted as we?
Is there anything more delicate, more clear, more sprightly; than Pliny's judgment, when he is pleased to set it to work?
Anything more remote from vanity?
Setting aside his learning, of which I make less account, in which of these excellences do any of us excel him?
And yet there is scarce a young schoolboy that does not convict him of untruth, and that pretends not to instruct him in the progress of the works of nature.

When we read in Bouchet the miracles of St.Hilary's relics, away with them: his authority is not sufficient to deprive us of the liberty of contradicting him; but generally and offhand to condemn all suchlike stories, seems to me a singular impudence.

That great St.Augustin' testifies to have seen a blind child recover sight upon the relics of St.Gervasius and St.Protasius at Milan; a woman at Carthage cured of a cancer, by the sign of the cross made upon her by a woman newly baptized; Hesperius, a familiar friend of his, to have driven away the spirits that haunted his house, with a little earth of the sepulchre of our Lord; which earth, being also transported thence into the church, a paralytic to have there been suddenly cured by it; a woman in a procession, having touched St.Stephen's shrine with a nosegay, and rubbing her eyes with it, to have recovered her sight, lost many years before; with several other miracles of which he professes himself to have been an eyewitness: of what shall we excuse him and the two holy bishops, Aurelius and Maximinus, both of whom he attests to the truth of these things?
Shall it be of ignorance, simplicity, and facility; or of malice and imposture?
Is any man now living so impudent as to think himself comparable to them in virtue, piety, learning, judgment, or any kind of perfection?
"Qui, ut rationem nullam afferrent, ipsa auctoritate me frangerent." ["Who, though they should adduce no reason, would convince me with their authority alone."-- Cicero, Tusc.

Quaes, i.

21.] 'Tis a presumption of great danger and consequence, besides the absurd temerity it draws after it, to contemn what we do not comprehend.