You pity the Indian: and yet one might very well say to you as to him--Mr.Holmes, my good friend, confess your ignorance, and spare me elephant and tortoise."[69] The minister very naturally then falls back upon good authority, and asks Saunderson to take the word of Newton, Clarke, and Leibnitz.

The blind man answers that though the actual state of the universe may be the illustration of a marvellous and admirable order, still Newton, Clarke, and Leibnitz must leave him freedom of opinion as to its earlier states.

And then he foreshadows in a really singular and remarkable way that theory which is believed to be the great triumph of scientific discovery, and which is certainly the great stimulus to speculation, in our own time.

As to anterior states "you have no witnesses to confront with me, and your eyes give you no help.

Imagine, if you choose, that the order which strikes you so profoundly has subsisted from the beginning.