e alive at this day to testify it; therefore,
deny it not."

Much of the same kind is the testimony of our brave countrymen, who
are ready to produce the scars they received in fighting against this
terrible Buonaparte. That they fought and were wounded, they may
safely testify; and probably they no less firmly _believe_ what they
were _told_ respecting the cause in which they fought: it would have
been a high breach of discipline to doubt it; and they, I conceive,
are men better skilled in handling a musket, than in sifting evidence,
and detecting imposture. But I defy any one of them to come forward
and declare, _on his own knowledge_, what was the cause in which he
fought,--under whose commands the opposed generals acted,--and whether
the person who issued those commands did really perform the mighty
achievements we are told of.

Let those, then, who pretend to philosophical freedom of inquiry,--who
scorn to rest their opinions on popular belief, and to shelter
themselves under the example of the unthinking multitude, consider
carefully, each one for himself, what is the evidence proposed to
himself in particular, for the existence of such a person as Napoleon
Buonaparte:--I do not mean, whether there ever was a person bearing
that _name_, for that is a question of no consequence; but whether any
such person ever performed all the wonderful things attributed to
him;--let him then weigh well the objections to that evidence, (of
which I have given but a hasty and imperfect sketch,) and if he then
finds it amount to anything _more_ than a probability, I have only to
congratulate him on his easy faith.

* * * * *

But the same testimony which would have great weight in establishing a
thing intrinsically probable, will lose part of this weight in
proportion as the matter attested is improbable; and if adduced in
support of anything that is at variance with uniform experience,[10]
will be rejected at once by all sound reasoners. Let us then consider
what sort of a story it is that is proposed to our acceptance. How
grossly contradictory are the reports of the different authorities, I
have already remarked: but consider, by itself, the story told by any
one of them; it carries an air of fiction and romance on the very face
of it. All the events are great, and splendid, and marvellous;[11] great
armies,--great victories,--great frosts,--great reverses,--"hair-breadth
'scapes,"--empires sub