I expect many attacks, especially with relation to two or three of the discourses in this book, and when some of my friends apprize me, that I shall be loaded with injuries and abuse; I reply, that such treatment will only serve to convince me more firmly, of the truth of what I have written; it being certain, that he is doubtful of his own strength, who attacks with unfair weapons. If they oppose me with arguments, I will reply to them; if with sneers and scurrility, I shall instantly allow myself vanquish’d, as that is a mode of engaging, in which I never exercised myself. Adieu. THE VOICE of the PEOPLE. That ill-understood maxim, that God explains himself in the Voice of the People, authorizes the commonalty to triumph over sound judgment, and erect to themselves a tribunitial authority, capable of oppressing, and bearing down the dignity of literature. This is an error that is pregnant with an infinity of others, because, by establishing the position, that the voice of the multitude is the rule of truth, all the extravagances of the vulgar, would be venerated as inspirations of heaven. This consideration excites me to attack this error the first, upon a supposition, that by exploding this, I shall subdue many enemies in one, or at least, that it will be more easy to expunge other errors, by removing the patronage, which they receive from the common voice in the estimation of unwary men. SECT. I. I. _Æstimes judicia, non numeres_, said Seneca, (Epist. 39). The value of opinions, should be computed by the weight, not by the number of votaries. The ignorant, though numerous, are ignorant still; what benefit then is to be expected from their determinations? It is rather probable, that the multitude, by increasing the partizans of error, would increase obstacles to the advancement of truth. If it was a barbarous superstition in the Molossians, an antient people of Epirus, to constitute the trunk of an oak for the organ of Apollo; would it be less so, to concede this privilege to the whole Dodonean Wood? and if from a stone, unless modelled by the hand of an artist, you could not produce the image of Minerva, the same impossibility would continue, although you add to it all the rocks of a mountain. One wise person, will always discern more than a croud of simpletons, as one eagle can better see the sun, than an army of owls.