every particular cast aside the earlier, but only in certain parts, to such an extent that the latter is founded on the former, it will be necessary to investigate carefully not only either the last, or the middle, or the first, but all, especially since the charge of imposture is brought by every sect. So the ancients were charged with it by Christ, because they corrupted the law; the Christians by Mahomet, because they corrupted the gospels, a fact not to be wondered at, inasmuch as one sect of Christians charges the other with corrupting texts of the New Testament, so that it can [not] be ascertained whether he who is offered as an example is a teacher of a true religion or how far those who claim to have been given authority, should be listened to. For in an investigation no sect must be overlooked, but each must be compared with the rest without any prejudice. For if one is overlooked, that perhaps, is the very one which is nearer the truth. Thus, those who followed Moses, have followed the truth according to the Christians also, but they ought not to have paused at that point, but should examine the truth of the Christian religion also. Each sect maintains that its own teachers are the best and that it has had and is daily having proof of this, and that there are no better ones, so that either every one must believe it, which would be absurd, or no one, which is the safer plan, until the true way is known, though no sect should be disregarded in a comparison. There is no need of presenting the objection that it is known that all mathematicians agree that twice two is four. For it is not a similar case, since no one has been known to doubt whether twice two is four, while on the contrary religions agree neither in end, beginning nor middle. Suppose that I do not know the true way of salvation; I follow, however, the Brahmins or the Koran. Will not Moses and the rest say: What wrong have we done you that you thus reject us, though we are better and nearer the truth? What reply shall we make? I believed in Mahomet or the Gymnosophistes [53], in whose teachings I was born and brought up, and from them I learned that your religion and that of the Christians which followed, have long since decayed and grown corrupt, and are still misleading. Will they not reply that they do not know anything about the others and that these do not know anything about the true guide to salvation, since they know that those who are corruptors of the people are impostors, feigning miracles, or by lies pulling the wool over the eyes of the people. Nor should faith be thus simply given to one man or one sect, rejecting all others without a complete and proper investigation. For with equal right the Ethiopian, who has not left his own land, says that there are no men under the sun except those of a black color.