history; but, my Lord, do you forget, that this was written at a time when the whole nation knew that Lord Anson had made such a voyage, and every man in his fleet could testify the particulars of it? But if our posterity, four or five centuries hence, should discover a book purporting to be written by a Mr. Walters, detailing the voyage of Admiral Anson, and if in that book they should meet a passage speaking of the late revolution in France, or of the author's death and burial, would not that strike at the authenticity of the whole? Would any part be believed that was not corroborated by the evidence of respectable contemporary authors? All that could be inferred would be from the nature of the events related, such as the accurate description of countries, and such other particulars as marked either the period of the observations, or their truth: in the first case, they might suspect the work to be interpolated; in the second, they would value it only for the accuracy of information. It is different with scientifical and historical works: a spurious book of science may contain truths, they stand for themselves, they are the same at all times and places. Not so in history: the truth here depends on the universal consent of nations, on the testimony of authors of credibility confronted with each other, and in all cases relating things probable. When we read in a Chinese history, that the goddess Amida peopled the world by bearing male children from under one arm, and females under another, or, in the Mahometan writers, that the trees spoke to the founder of that sect, would a man credit any circumstance, however probable, related in such histories, without the strongest collateral proofs? And should we further discover, that these histories detailed events posterior to their author's death, would not this make the whole still more improbable? Your remark upon this subject is singular: you say, that if Joshua, Samuel, or Moses, declared themselves the authors of the works ascribed to them, then to prove these books spurious would at once destroy their genuineness and authenticity. I would reason thus: Moses does not say, that he was the author of the Pentateuch; why then do we believe that he wrote it? You would, no doubt, answer, that the tradition of the Jews proclaims him such. I retort, that if the genuineness of a book may be proved by tradition, we ought as much to argue against the authenticity of a work, from having proved the general belief of its genuineness to be founded on error, as if the author had said, I am the author of this book. This we shall, in the sequel, prove to be the case with the books of the Old Testament. The addition of an express declaration of Moses would add no authenticity to the Pentateuch, since it is as easy to forge a work where the author speaks in the first as in the third person.