and scruples were as much a
part of it, as the gravitation of the whole world.--In a word, he
would say, error was error,--no matter where it fell,--whether in a
fraction,--or a pound,--'twas alike fatal to truth, and she was kept
down at the bottom of her well, as inevitably by a mistake in the dust
of a butterfly's wing,--as in the disk of the sun, the moon, and all the
stars of heaven put together.

He would often lament that it was for want of considering this properly,
and of applying it skilfully to civil matters, as well as to speculative
truths, that so many things in this world were out of joint;--that the
political arch was giving way;--and that the very foundations of our
excellent constitution in church and state, were so sapped as estimators
had reported.

You cry out, he would say, we are a ruined, undone people. Why? he would
ask, making use of the sorites or syllogism of Zeno and Chrysippus,
without knowing it belonged to them.--Why? why are we a ruined
people?--Because we are corrupted.--Whence is it, dear Sir, that we
are corrupted?--Because we are needy;--our poverty, and not our wills,
consent.--And wherefore, he would add, are we needy?--From the neglect,
he would answer, of our pence and our halfpence:--Our bank notes, Sir,
our guineas,--nay our shillings take care of themselves.

'Tis the same, he would say, throughout the whole circle of the
sciences;--the great, the established points of them, are not to
be broke in upon.--The laws of nature will defend themselves;--but
error--(he would add, looking earnestly at my mother)--error, Sir,
creeps in thro' the minute holes and small crevices which human nature
leaves unguarded.

This turn of thinking in my father, is what I had to remind you of:--The
point you are to be informed of, and which I have reserved for this
place, is as follows.

Amongst the many and excellent reasons, with which my father had urged
my mother to accept of Dr. Slop's assistance preferably to that of the
old woman,--there was one of a very singular nature; which, when he had
done arguing the matter with her as a Christian, and came to argue it
over again with her as a philosopher, he had put his whole strength to,
depending indeed upon it as his sheet-anchor.--It failed him, tho' from
no defect in the argument itself; but that, do what he could, he was
not able for his soul to make her comprehend the drift of it.--Cursed
luck!--said he to himself, one afternoon, as he w