possibilities, much less will he suppose them to be generally known;
and therefore his meaning must be, that the testimony of witnesses is
to be received only in cases which appear to us to be possible. In any
other sense we can have no dispute; for mere impossibilities, which can
never exist, can never be proved. Taking the observation therefore in
this sense, the proposition is this: That the testimony of others ought
not to be admitted, but in such matters as appear probable, or at least
possible to our conceptions. For instance: A man who lives in a warm
climate, and never saw ice, ought upon no evidence to believe, that
rivers freeze, and grow hard, in cold countries; for this is
improbable, contrary to the usual course of nature, and impossible
according to his notion of things. And yet we all know, that this is a
plain manifest case discernible by the senses of men; of which
therefore they are qualified to be good witnesses. An hundred such
instances might be named; but 'tis needless: for surely nothing is
more apparently absurd than to make one man's ability in discerning and
his veracity in reporting plain facts, depend upon the skill or
ignorance of the hearer. And what has the Gentleman said upon this
occasion against the resurrection, more than any man who never saw ice
might say against an hundred honest witnesses, who assert that water
turns to ice in cold climates?


Yet it is very true, that men do not so easily believe, upon
testimony of others, things which to them seem improbable or
impossible; but the reason is not, because the thing itself admits no
evidence, but because the hearer's preconceived opinion outweighs the
credit of the reporter and makes his veracity to be called in question.
For instance it is natural for a stone to roll down hill, it is
unnatural for it to roll up hill: but a stone moving uphill is as much