(_b_) “But whereas he mentions ‘a great paradox of his own; that there is hardly any one action, to the causing of which concurs not whatsoever is _in rerum natura_’; I can but smile to see with what ambition our great undertakers do affect to be accounted the first founders of strange opinions, &c.” The Bishop speaks often of paradoxes with such scorn or detestation, that a simple reader would take a paradox either for felony or some other heinous crime, or else for some ridiculous turpitude; whereas perhaps a judicious reader knows what the word signifies; and that a paradox, is an opinion not yet generally received. Christian religion was once a paradox; and a great many other opinions which the Bishop now holdeth, were formerly paradoxes. Insomuch as when a man calleth an opinion a paradox, he doth not say it is untrue, but signifieth his own ignorance; for if he understood it, he would call it either a truth or an error. He observes not, that but for paradoxes we should be now in that savage ignorance, which those men are in that have not, or have not long had laws and commonwealth, from whence proceedeth science and civility. There was not long since a scholar that maintained, that if the least thing that had weight should be laid down upon the hardest body that could be, supposing it an anvil of diamant, it would at the first access make it yield. This I thought, and much more the Bishop would have thought, a paradox. But when he told me, that either that would do it, or all the weight of the world would not do it, because if the whole weight did it, every the least part thereof would do its part, I saw no reason to dissent. In like manner when I say, ‘there is hardly any one action to the causing of which concurs not whatsoever is _in rerum natura_;’ it seems to the Bishop a great paradox; and if I should say that all action is the effect of motion, and that there cannot be a motion in one part of the world, but the same must also be communicated to all the rest of the world, he would say that this were no less a paradox. But yet if I should say, that if a lesser body, as a concave sphere or tun, were filled with air, or other liquid matter, and that any one little particle thereof were moved, all the rest would be moved also, he would conceive it to be true, or if not he, a judicious reader would. It is not the greatness of the tun that altereth the case; and therefore the same would be true also, if the whole world were the tun; for it is the greatness of this tun that the Bishop comprehendeth not. But the truth is comprehensible enough, and may be said without ambition of being the founder of strange opinions. And though a grave man may smile at it, he that is both grave and wise will not. NO. XXII. [Sidenote: The Bishop’s reply.]