I look upon all the Churches as fair game which declare of me that _absque dubio in aeternum peribo_;[68] not for their presumption towards God, but for their personal insolence towards myself. I find that their sectaries stare when I say this. Why! they do not speak of you in _particular_! These poor reasoners seem to think that there could be no meaning, as against me, unless it should be propounded that "without doubt he shall perish everlastingly, especially A. De Morgan." But I hold, with the schoolmen, that "_Omnis_ homo est animal" in conjunction with "Sortes est homo" amounts to "_Sortes_ est animal."[69] But they do not mean it _personally_! Every universal proposition is {33} personal to every instance of the subject. If this be not conceded, then I retort, in their own sense and manner, "Whosoever would serve God, before all things he must not pronounce God's decision upon his neighbor. Which decision, except every one leave to God himself, without doubt he is a bigoted noodle." The reasoning habit of the educated community, in four cases out of five, permits universal propositions to be stated at one time, and denied, _pro re nata_,[70] at another. "Before we proceed to consider any question involving physical principles, we should set out with _clear ideas_ of the naturally possible and impossible." The eminent man who said this, when wanting it for his views of mental education (!) never meant it for more than what was in hand, never assumed it in the researches which will give him to posterity! I have heard half-a-dozen defences of his having said this, not one of which affirmed the truth of what was said. A worthy clergyman wrote that if A. B. had said a certain thing the point in question would have been established. It was shown to him that A. B. _had_ said it, to which the reply was a refusal to admit the point because A. B. said it in a second pamphlet and in answer to objections. And I might give fifty such instances with very little search. Always assume more than you want; because you cannot tell how much you may want: put what is over into the didn't-mean-that basket, or the extreme case what-not. PROTESTANT AND PAPAL CHRISTENDOM.