d in ordinary
use, though many have changed the meaning of a particular sentence. Such
a proceeding would be most difficult; for whoever attempted to change
the meaning of a word, would be compelled, at the same time, to explain
all the authors who employed it, each according to his temperament and
intention, or else, with consummate cunning, to falsify them.

Further, the masses and the learned alike preserve language, but it is
only the learned who preserve the meaning of particular sentences and
books: thus, we may easily imagine that the learned having a very rare
book in their power, might change or corrupt the meaning of a sentence
in it, but they could not alter the signification of the words;
moreover, if anyone wanted to change the meaning of a common word he
would not be able to keep up the change among posterity, or in common
parlance or writing.

For these and such-like reasons we may readily conclude that it would
never enter into the mind of anyone to corrupt a language, though the
intention of a writer may often have been falsified by changing his
phrases or interpreting them amiss. As then our method (based on the
principle that the knowledge of Scripture must be sought from itself
alone) is the sole true one, we must evidently renounce any knowledge
which it cannot furnish for the complete understanding of Scripture....

If we read a book which contains incredible or impossible narratives, or
is written in a very obscure style, and if we know nothing of its
author, nor of the time or occasion of its being written, we shall
vainly endeavor to gain any certain knowledge of its true meaning. For
being in ignorance on these points we cannot possibly know the aim or
intended aim of the author; if we are fully informed, we so order our
thoughts as not to be in any way prejudiced either in ascribing to the
author or him for whom the author wrote either more or less than his
meaning, and we only take into consideration what the author may have
had in his mind, or what the time and occasion demanded. I think this
must be tolerably evident to all.

It often happens that in different books we read histories in themselves
similar, but which we judge very differently, according to the opinions
we have formed of the authors. I remember once to have read in some book
that a man named Orlando Furioso used to drive a kind of winged monster
through the air, fly over any countries he liked, kill unaided vast
numbers o