, then it is _explicit_.
Therefore, when a poor illiterate man (suppose a bog-trotter of Mayo or
Galway) says to his priest (as in effect always he _does_ say), 'Sir, I
cannot comprehend all this doctrine; bless you, I have not the
thousandth part of the learning for it, so it is impossible that I
should directly believe it. But your reverence believes it, the thing is
_wrapt up_ (implicit) in you, and I believe it on that account.' Here
the priest believes explicitly: _he_ believes implicitly.

_Modern._--Is it not shameful that to this hour even literary men of
credit and repute cannot for the life of them interpret this line from
'As You Like It'--

'Full of wise saws and modern instances'?

A man as well read as Mr. Theodore Hook, and many a hundred beside, have
seriously understood it to mean 'Full of old proverbs, the traditionary
wisdom of nations, and of illustrative examples drawn from modern
experience.' Nonsense! The meaning is, 'Full of old maxims and proverbs,
and of trivial attempts at argument.' That is, tediously redundant in
rules derived from the treasury of popular proverbs,' and in feeble
attempts at connecting these general rules with the special case before
him. The superannuated old magistrate sets out with a proverb, as for
instance this, that _the mother of mischief is no bigger than a midge's
wing_. That proverb forms his major proposition. In his minor
proposition he goes on to argue that the trespass charged upon the
particular prisoner before him was very little bigger than a midge's
wing. And then in his conclusion triumphantly he infers, Ergo, the
prisoner at the bar is the mother of mischief. But says the constable,
'Please, your worship, the prisoner is a man, a hulking clodhopper, some
six or seven feet high, with a strong black beard.' 'Well, that makes no
odds,' rejoins his worship; 'then he's the father of mischief. Clerk,
make out his mittimus.'

The word 'instance' (from the scholastic _instantia_) never meant
_example_ in Shakespeare's age. The word 'modern' never once in
Shakespeare means what it means to _us_ in these days. Even the monkish
Latin word 'modernus' fluctuated in meaning, and did not always imply
_recens_, _neotericus_; but in Shakespeare never. What _does_ it mean in
Shakespeare? Once and for ever it means _trivial_, _inconsiderable_. Dr.
Johnson had too much feeling not to perceive that the word 'modern' had
this value in Shakespeare's acceptation; pract