Many of the things brought forward would now be called _crotchets_, which is the nearest word we have to old _paradox_. But there is this difference, that by calling a thing a _crotchet_ we mean to speak lightly of it; which was not the necessary sense of _paradox_. Thus in the sixteenth century many spoke of the earth's motion as the _paradox of {3} Copernicus_, who held the ingenuity of that theory in very high esteem, and some, I think, who even inclined towards it. In the seventeenth century, the depravation of meaning took place, in England at least. Phillips says _paradox_ is "a thing which seemeth strange"--here is the old meaning: after a colon he proceeds--"and absurd, and is contrary to common opinion," which is an addition due to his own time. Some of my readers are hardly inclined to think that the word _paradox_ could once have had no disparagement in its meaning; still less that persons could have applied it to themselves. I chance to have met with a case in point against them. It is Spinoza's _Philosophia Scripturae Interpres, Exercitatio Paradoxa_, printed anonymously at Eleutheropolis, in 1666. This place was one of several cities in the clouds, to which the cuckoos resorted who were driven away by the other birds; that is, a feigned place of printing, adopted by those who would have caught it if orthodoxy could have caught them. Thus, in 1656, the works of Socinus could only be printed at Irenopolis. The author deserves his self-imposed title, as in the following:[4] "Quanto sane satius fuisset illam [Trinitatem] pro mysterio non habuisse, et Philosophiae ope, antequam quod esset statuerent, secundum verae logices praecepta quid esset cum Cl. Kleckermanno investigasse; tanto fervore ac labore in profundissimas speluncas et obscurissimos metaphysicarum speculationum atque fictionum recessus se recipere ut ab adversariorum telis sententiam suam in tuto collocarent. {4} Profecto magnus ille vir ... dogma illud, quamvis apud theologos eo nomine non multum gratiae iniverit, ita ex immotis Philosophiae fundamentis explicat ac demonstrat, ut paucis tantum immutatis, atque additis, nihil amplius animus veritate sincere deditus desiderare possit." This is properly paradox, though also heterodox. It supposes, contrary to all opinion, orthodox and heterodox, that philosophy can, with slight changes, explain the Athanasian doctrine so as to be at least compatible with orthodoxy. The author would stand almost alone, if not quite; and this is what he meant. I have met with the counter-paradox. I have heard it maintained that the doctrine as it stands, in all its mystery is _a priori_ more likely than any other to have been Revelation, if such a thing were to be; and that it might almost have been predicted.