words, “so his proposition is false”. (_b_) “His reason, ‘that matter of fact is not verified by other men’s arguments, but by every man’s own sense and memory’, is likewise maimed on both sides. Whether we hear such words or not, is matter of fact, and sense is the proper judge of it; but what these words do, or ought truly to signify, is not to be judged by sense, but by reason.” A man is born with a capacity after due time and experience to reason truly; to which capacity of nature, if there be added no discipline at all, yet as far as he reasoneth he will reason truly; though by a right discipline he may reason truly in more numerous and various matters. But he that hath lighted on deceiving or deceived masters, that teach for truth all that hath been dictated to them by their own interest, or hath been cried up by other such teachers before them, have for the most part their natural reason, as far as concerneth the truth of doctrine, quite defaced or very much weakened, becoming changelings through the enchantments of words not understood. This cometh into my mind from this saying of the Bishop, that matter of fact is not verified by sense and memory, but by arguments. How is it possible that, without discipline, a man should come to think that the testimony of a witness, which is the only verifier of matter of fact, should consist not in sense and memory, so as he may say he saw and remembers the thing done, but in arguments or syllogisms? Or how can an unlearned man be brought to think the words he speaks, ought to signify, when he speaks sincerely, anything else but that which himself meant by them? Or how can any man without learning take the question, “whether the sun be no bigger than a ball, or bigger than the earth”, to be a question of fact? Nor do I think that any man is so simple, as not to find that to be good which he loveth; good, I say, so far forth, as it maketh him to love it. Or is there any unlearned man so stupid, as to think eternity is this present instant of time standing still, and the same eternity to be the very next instant after; and consequently that there be so many eternities as there can be instants of time supposed? No, there is scholastic learning required in some measure to make one mad.