CIII. I answer secondly, that it is not known with any degree of certainty, that men of excellent understandings, who are educated and brought up in those nations we call barbarous, are infected with all the errors that prevail in those nations; and with respect to myself, I am fully persuaded they are not. We know that various eminent men among the Gentiles, in matters of religion, thought very differently from the populace. It is true however, that there were but few of them who had sufficient resolution to speak out, as they for the most part disguised their opinions, from motives of fear or policy. We ought also to admit, that among the barbarous nations of these times, there are still to be found men of this character. Nor is there any necessity for limiting such an opinion within the bounds of mere conjecture; for there are various historical relations, which bear testimony to actions of heroic virtue, that have been lately done by some of the individuals of those very nations, where maxims of inhumanity are prevalent at this day; of which if it was necessary, a long catalogue might be adduced. CIV. In the third place, it may be objected, that experience teaches us, there is scarce a country or populous city, where you may not find some people of perspicuous understandings, and who, although they are of wayward dispositions and depraved inclinations, are subtil and penetrating. To this I answer resolutely and determinedly, that I defy any man to produce such an instance. I have known and conversed with many of those people, who have been esteemed men of good understanding, and perverse dispositions, but have always found the common opinion of those persons to be extremely erroneous. The vulgar frequently look upon persons of very superficial talents, as men of great understanding; and upon hearing them talk off hand, although there is nothing solid in what they say, and observing in them a readiness at expressing themselves, and more especially if they deliver themselves with confidence, and a magisterial air, most people are apt to give them credit for being men of admirable understandings; when in truth, there is hardly one out of a hundred of them, who can penetrate more than skin-deep into the objects he converses upon. There is another very common deception in this matter, and that is, looking upon cunning people as men of depth or penetration, when they are as palpably different from one another, as light is from darkness. I call those cunning people, who are solely attentive to nothing but their own concerns, and who by all sorts of under-hand ways and means, and by all kinds of little arts and deceits, are endeavouring to promote their own particular interest. Can these be called men of sublime understandings? To do this, requires but little depth or penetration, as all that is necessary to accomplish such ends, is low craft and roguery; and there is hardly any capacity, be it ever so mean,