THEVOICE of the PEOPLE.
That ill-understood maxim, that God explains himself in the Voice of the People, authorizes the commonalty to triumph over sound judgment, and erect to themselves a tribunitial authority, capable of oppressing, and bearing down the dignity of literature. This is an error that is pregnant with an infinity of others, because, by establishing the position, that the voice of the multitude is the rule of truth, all the extravagances of the vulgar, would be venerated as inspirations of heaven. This consideration excites me to attack this error the first, upon a supposition, that by exploding this, I shall subdue many enemies in one, or at least, that it will be more easy to expunge other errors, by removing the patronage, which they receive from the common voice in the estimation of unwary men.
I.Æstimes judicia, non numeres, said Seneca, (Epist. 39). The value of opinions, should be computed by the weight, not by the number of votaries. The ignorant, though numerous, are ignorant still; what benefit then is to be expected from their determinations? It is rather probable, that the multitude, by increasing the partizans of error, would increase obstacles to the advancement of truth. If it was a barbarous superstition in the Molossians, an antient people of Epirus, to constitute the trunk of an oak for the organ of Apollo; would it be less so, to concede this privilege to the whole Dodonean Wood? and if from a stone, unless modelled by the hand of an artist, you could not produce the image of Minerva, the same impossibility would continue, although you add to it all the rocks of a mountain. One wise person, will always discern more than a croud of simpletons, as one eagle can better see the sun, than an army of owls.
II. Pope John the XXIII. being once asked what was the thing most distant from truth, answered, the opinion of the vulgar. The severe Phocion was so firmly of this sentiment, that observing, while he was once making an oration in Athens, the people with one consent raise theirvoices in his applause, asked his friends who were near him, what mistake he had been guilty of, as he was persuaded, the blind populace were incapable of applauding any thing but absurdities. I don’t approve these rigorous decisions, nor can I consider the populace, as the precise antipodes to the hemisphere of truth; they are sometimes right, but this generally speaking, is either the result of chance, or the effect of borrowed reflection. Some wise man, I don’t remember who, compared the vulgar to the moon, on account of their inconstancy: the comparison however was just, as they never shine by the power of their own lights.Non consilium in vulgo, non ratio, non discrimen, non diligentia, said Tully. (Orat. pro Planc.) There is not in this vast body, any native illumination, wherewith can be discerned the true from the false; the light is all borrowed, and reflected superficially; for by reason of its opacity, the rays cannot penetrate through it.
III. The public is an instrument of various sounds, which (unless it happens by some rare accident) till adjusted by a skilful hand, is hardly ever in tune. Epicurus was dreaming, when he imagined, that infinite atoms impelled by chance, and wandering through the air, could, without the interposition of a supreme will, form this admirable system of the globe. Peter Gassendi, andthe other modern refiners upon Epicurus, added to this vulgar confusion, a disposition and regulation, executed by the divine hand; but even supposing this, it will be difficult for us to comprehend, by what means, the rudeness of matter was polished, and the earth rendered capable of producing the most trifling plant. The vulgar of mankind, differ but little from the vulgarity of the atoms; and as from the casual concurrence of our sentiments, there would hardly ever result a regular series of established truths, it becomes necessary, that the Supreme Being should superintend the business. But how must this be done? Why by employing learned and wise men as his subalterns, and using them as a secondary means, to dispose and organize such material entities.
IV. Those who ascribe so great authority to the common voice, don’t foresee a dangerous consequence, that treads close on the heels of their tenet; for if the decision of what is truth, was to be confided to the plurality of voices, you should look for sound doctrine in the Alcoran of Mahomed, and not in the Gospel of Christ; it being certain, that the Alcoran would have more votes in its favour than the Gospel. I am so far from being of opinion, that such a question should be decided by numbers, that I think it ought to be determined the reverse, because in the nature ofthings, error occupies a much larger field than truth, and the vulgar of mankind, as the lowest and most humble portion of the rational world, may be compared to the element of earth, whose bowels contain little gold, but much iron.
V. Whoever considers, that there is but one path which leads to truth, and that those which lead to error are infinite, will not be surprised, that mankind who travel by so dim a light, should in the bulk go astray. The conception which the understanding forms of things, may be compared to squares, which can only be regular one way, but may be irregular in an infinite number of ways. Every body, according to its species, can, by but one mode, be produced rightly organized, but may be produced a monster by an infinite number. Even in the heavens, there are but two fixed points to direct the navigator; all the others are changeable. There are likewise two fixed points in the sphere of the human understanding, to wit, revelation, and demonstration: the rest is a group of opinions, that dance about, and are made to follow one another, according to the caprice of doubtful and inferior comprehensions. Whoever does not observe attentively these two points, or at least one of them, according to the hemisphere inwhich he navigates; that is, the first in the hemisphere of grace, and the second in the hemisphere of nature, will never arrive at the port of truth: for as in very few parts of the terraqueous globe, the magnetic needle points true to the poles; but in most places has more or less degrees of variation; even so in very few parts of the world, does the human understanding attain the pole of its direction; the pole of revelation, is perceived directly, in only two places, Europe, and America; in all other parts, it has more or less degrees of declination: in the heretical countries, the needle is much warped, more in the Mahometan countries, and more still in the idolatrous ones. The pole of demonstration, is observed only by the small community of mathematicians, and even within that small circle, is affected with declination.
But what necessity is there for beating round the world, to discover, that in various regions, the common opinion is the reverse of truth; even among the people who were called God’s people, so far many times was the voice of the people from being the voice of God, that there was not the least semblance between them: no sooner was the voice of the people in unison with the divine voice, than it immediately changed to the greatest dissonance. Moses propounded to them the laws which God had given him; and all the peoplecried with one consent, “What the Lord has commanded let us do:” how beautiful was the sound of consonance between the two voices! but no sooner did the chapel-master Moses, who had put them in tune, turn his back, than the same congregation, after obliging Aaron to make two idols, lifted up their voice, and said, “These are the true Gods to whom we owe our liberty:” what horrible dissonance!
VII. Circumstances of this sort occurred often; but the case of their petitioning Samuel to give them a king, has something particular in it. The voice of God promulged by the mouth of the Prophet, dissuaded them from desiring a king; but how distant was the voice of the people from concording with the divine organ, for they once and again, repeat their intreaties to have a king; and on what do they found their request? Why upon other nations having kings. In this instance, there are two things which are striking and remarkable; the one is, that though this request was made by the voice of the whole people, it was erroneous; the other is, that it’s being qualified by the authority of all other people, does not amend, or exempt it from error. To sum up the whole, the voice of the people of Israel, concorded with the voices of all other people, and it’s being in consonance with that of all those other people,made it dissonant to the divine voice. Away with those then, who would govern us by common cries, upon the foundation, that the voice of the people is the voice of God.
VIII. I was once of opinion, that in one special instance, the public voice was infallible, that is to say, in the approbation, or reprobation, of particular people. It appeared to me, that he of whom the public at large entertained a good opinion, was certainly a good man, and that he was certainly wise, who was generally allowed to be so, and so on the contrary; but upon reflection, I found that in this instance also, the popular opinion is liable to mistake. Phocion, as he was once reprehending the people of Athens with some asperity, was accosted by his enemy Democritus in these words, “Have a care what you say, for they will murder you for talking to them in this manner:” “And do you take care, answered Phocion, or they will murder you likewise, for pretending to pass your judgment.” This sentence shewed, that he thought the populace hardly ever right in their decisions, with regard to people’s qualities or characters. The hard fate of Phocion himself, confirmed in a great measure this sentiment, because he was afterwards put to death as an enemy tohis country, by the furious populace of Athens, though he was the best man, which at that time could be found in all Greece.
IX. An ignorant man having passed for a wise one, and a wise one being reputed a fool, are things which have been frequent in many places; and applicable to this, is the pleasant event which happened to Democritus with his countrymen the Abderites. This philosopher, who had long meditated on the follies and vanities of mankind, was accustomed, when any occurrence brought these reflections to his mind, to burst out into immoderate fits of laughter. The Abderites having remarked this, although they before esteemed him a very wise man, concluded that he was gone mad; and they wrote to Hippocrates who flourished at that time, and earnestly intreated that he would come and cure him. The good old man suspected how the matter stood, to wit, that the people were disordered, and not Democritus, and concluded, that what they mistook for madness, was rather a symptom of great wisdom. In a letter to his friend Dionysius, informing him of his being sent for by the Abderites, and the account they had given him of Democritus’s madness, he expresses himself to this effect,Ego vero neque morbum ipsum esse puto, sed immodicam doctrinam, quæ revera non est immodica, sed ab idiotis putatur; andwriting to Philopemnes, he says,Cum non insaniam, sed quandam excellente mentis sanitatem vir ille declaret. Afterwards, Hippocrates visited Democritus, and from a long conversation which he had with him, was satisfied, that his laughter was founded in wise and solid morality, the justness of which, he was convinced of and admired. Hippocrates, in a letter he wrote to Damagetus, gives a particular account of this conversation, and there may be seen his encomiums upon Democritus; among other things, he says, Democritus so far from being mad, is the wisest man I ever met with; I was much instructed by his conversation, and rendered more capable of instructing others:Hoc erat illud, Damagete, quod conjectabamus. Non insanit Democritus, sed super omnia sanit, et nos sapientiores effecit, et per nos omnes homines.
X. These letters are to be found in the works of Hippocrates, and are well deserving of being read, especially that to Damagetus; and from them may be inferred, not only how much the public at large are capable of being mistaken in their opinion of an individual; but also, with how little reason, many authors paint Democritus as a half-mad ridiculous person; for nobody disputes the judgment and wisdom of Hippocrates, who, after treating seriously and at large on the subject, gives so opposite a testimony in his discussion of thematter; for he declares, that in his judgment, Democritus was the most learned and wise man in the world; and in a letter of Hippocrates to Democritus, he recognizes him for the greatest natural philosopher upon earth:Optimum naturæ, ac mundi interpretem te judicavi. Hippocrates was then grown old, for in the same letter he says,Ego enim ad finem medicinæ perveni, etiam si jam senex sim; and consequently, capable of forming a good judgment of the abilities of Democritus.
I am disposed to think, that the accusation which some authors bring against Aristotle is a probable one, that is, that he did not fairly lay open to the world the opinions of other philosophers who preceded him, to the end, that by discrediting all those, he might establish the sovereignty of his own doctrine, and that he did by them, as the great Lord Bacon says the Ottoman Emperors do by their brothers, put them all to death, that they may reign in security.
With regard to virtue and vice, the instances of the one of them having been mistaken by the public for the other in particular people, are so numerous, that history stumbles upon them, at almost every step; nothing can illustrate this moreevidently, than the greatest impostors the world has produced, having passed for repositories of the secrets of heaven. Numa Pompilius, introduced among the Romans, whatever policy and religion he thought fit, by means of the fiction, that all he proposed was dictated to him by the nymph Egeria. The Spaniards fought blindly against the Romans, under the banners of Sertorius, he having made them believe, that through a white doe, which he artfully made use of, and had trained for his purpose, he received by occult means, all sorts of information, which was communicated to the doe by the goddess Diana. Mahomed persuaded a great part of Asia, that Heaven had sent the Angel Gabriel to him as a Nuncio in the shape of a dove, which he had taught to put its bill into his ear. Most heretical opinions, although stained with manifest impurities, were reputed in many places, to proceed from the venerable archives of the divine mysteries.
XII. We have even seen such monsters, engendered in the bosom of the Roman church. In the eleventh century, Tranquilenus, a man given openly to all kinds of debauchery, was venerated as a saint by the people of Antwerp, and to such a pitch did they carry their adoration, that they preserved as a relic the water in which he had washed himself. In the republic of Florence,where the people were never thought rude, or uncultivated, Francis Jeronimo Savonarola, a man of prodigious genius, and great sagacity, was many years respected as a saint, and a person endued with the spirit of prophecy; he made the people believe, that his political predictions were divine revelations, though they were founded on secret advices which he received from France, and notwithstanding many of those predictions were proved false, such as the second coming of Charles the Eighth into Italy, the recovery of John Pico de Mirandola from a fit of sickness, of which he died two days afterwards, &c. And although he was publicly burnt on the parade at Florence for an impostor, still, all was not sufficient to eradicate his deceptions from the minds of many people; for not only the heretics venerate him as a heavenly man, and consider him as a forerunner of Luther, on account of his vehement declamations against the court of Rome, but some Catholics were his panegyrists likewise, among whom Marcus Antonius Flaminius excelled all the others, by the following beautiful though false epigram.
Dum fera flamma tuos, Hieronyme, pascitur artus,Religio sacras dilaniata comasFlevit, et O, dixit, crudeles, parcite, flammæ,Parcite; sunt isto viscera nostra rogo.
Dum fera flamma tuos, Hieronyme, pascitur artus,Religio sacras dilaniata comasFlevit, et O, dixit, crudeles, parcite, flammæ,Parcite; sunt isto viscera nostra rogo.
Dum fera flamma tuos, Hieronyme, pascitur artus,Religio sacras dilaniata comasFlevit, et O, dixit, crudeles, parcite, flammæ,Parcite; sunt isto viscera nostra rogo.
Dum fera flamma tuos, Hieronyme, pascitur artus,
Religio sacras dilaniata comas
Flevit, et O, dixit, crudeles, parcite, flammæ,
Parcite; sunt isto viscera nostra rogo.
XIII. But what has been the most monstrous in these sort of cases is, that some churches have celebrated, and even worshiped as saints, perverse men, who died separated from the Roman communion. The church of Limogines, addressed for a long time in a direct prayer (which prayer exists at this day in the antient breviary of that church) Eusebius Cæsarius, who lived and died in the Arian heresy, they having, as is most probable, mistaken him at first, for Eusebius Bishop of Cæsarea, in Cappadocia, who was the successor of Saint Basil; whereas the man we have now been mentioning, was Bishop of Cæsarea in Palestine; I am very well aware, some authors assert, that at the council of Nice, he conformed to the Catholic faith, in which he remained steady ever after, but there are so many testimonies to contradict this, and among the rest his own writings, that what is said in his defence seems void of all probability. The church of Turin venerated a thief as a martyr, and erected an altar to him, which St. Martin destroyed, after having convinced them of their error; this is related by Sulpicius in his Life of St. Martin.
XIV. To excite a total distrust of the Vox Populi, you need only reflect upon the extravaganterrors, which in matters of religion, policy, and manners, have been seen, and may still be seen authorized, by the common consent of whole bodies politic. Cicero said, there was no tenet, though ever so wild and absurd, that had not been maintained by some philosopher or other:Nihil tam absurdum dici potest, quod non dicatur ab aliquo philosophorum. (lib. 2. de Divinat.) I will venture with greater reason to affirm, there is no extravagance, however monstrous, which has not been patronized by the uniform consent of some country.
XV. Things which the light of natural reason represents as abominable, have in this, and the other region, passed, and still do pass, as lawful. Lying, perjury, adultery, murder, and robbery: in short, all vices have obtained, and do obtain, the general approbation of some nations. The Herules, an ancient people, whose situation cannot be exactly ascertained, though they dwelt near the borders of the Baltic Sea, were used to put to death all their sick and old people, nor would they suffer the wives to survive their husbands. The Caspians, a people of Scythia, were more barbarous still, for they imprisoned and starved to death, their own parents, when they came to be advanced in years. What abominations were committed by some people of Ethiopia,who, according to Ælian, adopted a dog for their king, and regulated all their actions, by the gestures and motions of that animal; and Pliny instances a people, whom he calls Toembaros, though not of Ethiopia, who obeyed the same master.
Nor are the hearts of mankind in many parts of the world, much mended at this day. There are many places, where they feed on human flesh, and go hunting for men, as they would for wild beasts. The Yagos, a people of the kingdom of Ansicus in Africa, eat, not only the prisoners they take in war, but feed also upon such of their friends as die natural deaths; so that among them, the dead have no other burying place than the stomachs of the living. All the world knows, that in many parts of the East-Indies, they uphold the barbarous custom, of the women burning themselves at the funeral of their husbands, and though they are not by law obliged to do this, the instances of their failing to do it are very rare, because upon their declining it, they would remain infamous, despised, and abhorred by every one. Among the Cafres, all the relations of a person who dies are obliged to cut off the little finger of the left hand, and throw it into the grave of the deceased.
XVII. What shall we say to the countenance, that has been given to Turpitude, by various nations? In Malabar, the women may marry as many husbands as they please. In the Island of Ceylon, when a woman marries, she is common to all the brothers of her husband, and the consorted parties may divorce themselves and contract a fresh alliance whenever they please. In the kingdom of Bengal, all the new-married women, those of the first rank not excepted, before they are allowed to be enjoyed by their husbands, are delivered up to the lust of the bramins or priests. In Mingrelia, a province of Georgia, where the people are Schismatic Christians, among the compound of various errors prevailing there, adultery is considered as a thing indifferent, and it is very rare, that any of their sex are faithful to their consorts; it is true, that the husband in case of catching the wife in the act of adultery, has a right by way of compensation, to demand of her paramour a pig, which is considered as ample amends, and the criminal person is generally invited to partake of it.
XVIII. Was I to recite the extravagant superstitions prevailing in various places, the labour would be immense. It is very well known, that the antient Gentiles worshiped the most despicableand vile animals. The goat was the deity of one nation, the tortoise of another, the beetle of another, and the fly of another. Even the Romans, who were esteemed the most polished people in the world, were extremely ridiculous in matters of religion; St. Austin, in many parts of his Treatise, called The City of God, upbraids them with it; and the most remarkable of their absurdities in this respect was, their adopting such an innumerable quantity of deities, to separate and distinct charges; the protection of the harvest, and the grain, belonged to twelve different Gods, each of whom had his particular department. To guard the door of the house, they had no less than three; the God Lorculos had the care of the wood, the Goddess Cordea that of the hinges, and the God Limentius looked after the pediment. St. Austin jocosely remarks to them, that if each individual would appoint a porter, they would find him capable of doing much more than any one of their Gods, for he would be able to execute this whole business, better than three of them, and with greater security. Pliny (who runs into the opposite extreme of denying a Deity or a Providence, or at least of affecting to doubt there is a Supreme Being) in giving an account of the superstitious faith of the Romans, estimates the number of their deities to exceed the number of their people.Quam ob rem major cœlitum populus, etiam quam hominum intelligi potest(Lib. 1. cap. 6.) The computationis not aggravated, as every man according to his fancy, appointed himself Household Gods, to each of whom, he consigned a particular charge, and besides this, worshiped all the established Gods. The multifarious number may be inferred, not only from what St. Austin has told us, but from the same Pliny, who says, they erected temples and altars, to all the diseases and misfortunes, with which mankind are visited:Morbis etiam in genera descriptis, et multis etiam pestibus, dum esse placatas trepido metu capimus. It is certain, that in Rome, there was a Temple erected to Fevers, and another to Ill Luck.
XIX. The modern idolators, are not less blind than the antient ones. The devil is worshiped in his own proper name by many people. In Pegu, a kingdom in the Peninsula of India, although they worship God as the author of all good, they pay more adoration to the devil, whom they believe to be the author of all evil. Some people in the train of the ambassador, whom Peter the Great, late Czar of Muscovy, sent to China, met in the way an idolatrous priest praying, and they asked him whom he worshiped? To which he answered in a magisterial tone,I worship a God whom the God you worship cast down from heaven, but after awhile my God will throw yours down from heaven, and then will be seen great changes among the sons of men. They must in that region havehad some account of the fall of Lucifer; but they may wait long enough for a redeemer, if they stay till their deity returns to heaven. From as ridiculous a motive, the Jedices, a sect in Persia, never curse the devil, and that is, that one day or other he may make his peace with God, and then may revenge all the affronts they offer him.
XX. In the kingdom of Siam, they worship a white elephant, and four Mandarines are appointed constantly to attend him, who serve him with his meat and his drink, in a vessel of gold. In the Island of Ceylon, they worshiped a tooth, which was pretended to have fallen from the mouth of God; but Constantine de Bergania, a Portuguese, having got possession of it, burnt it, to the great disgrace of the priests who had invented the fable. The Indians of Honduras, worshiped a slave; but neither the divinity nor the life of the poor creature lasted long, for he died within a year, after which, they made a sacrifice of his body, and substituted another in his place: but their believing, that he who could not redeem himself from the confinement and restraint, in which, by way of security they kept him, could make others happy, was ridiculous enough. In the Southern Tartary, they worship a man who they think is eternal, having been made to believe so by the artifices of the priests appointed to his service.They only shew him in a private place of the palace or temple, surrounded by a number of lamps, and they always by way of precaution, in case he should die, keep another man secreted, who is much like him, that he may be ready to take his place, and seem as if he was still the same man. They call him Lama, which signifies Father eternal, and such is their veneration for him, that their greatest men procure by rich presents a part of his excrements, which they put into a gold box, and wear it suspended from their necks, as a precious relic. But no superstition appears to me more extravagant, than what is practised at Balia, an Island in the Indian Sea, to the eastward of Java, where every man has his separate God, which he fixes upon just as his caprice dictates, either the trunk of a tree, a stone, or a brute, and many of them change their Gods every day, for they are allowed this liberty, and often worship for the day the first thing they meet going out of their houses in a morning.
XXI. What shall I say of the ridiculous historical tales, which are venerated in some nations as irrefragable traditions? The Arcadians compute their origin to be antecedent to the creation of the Moon. The people of Peru maintain theirkings to be legitimate descendants from the sun. The Arabs believe as an article of faith, the existence of a bird, which they call Anca Megareb, of such an enormous size, that its eggs are as big as large hills; which bird they say was afterwards cursed by their Prophet Handal, for having insulted him, and that it now lives retired in a certain inaccessible Island. The credit of an imaginary hero called Cherderles, is not less established among the Turks; they say he was one of Alexander’s captains, and that having made himself and his horse immortal by drinking of the waters of a certain river, he now goes about exploring the world, and assisting such soldiers as invoke him; they seem very happy with this delusion, and near a little Mosque appropriated to his worship, they shew the tombs of the nephew and the servant of this knight errant, and they add, that by their intercession continual miracles are wrought in that quarter.
XXII. In short, if you scrutinize country by country, the whole intellectual map of the globe, except only those places where the name of Christ is worshiped, you will find all this extensive surface, covered with spots and stains. Every country is an Africa to engender monsters; every province, an Iberia to produce poisons; in all places, as in Lycia, they invent chimeras; and in all nations,where the light of the gospel is wanting, they are obscured with as dark mists, as formerly obscured Egypt. There are no people whatever, who have not much of the barbarous. What results from this? why that the voice of the people is totally destitute of authority, because we see it so frequently posted on the side of error. Every one considers as infallible, the sentiment that prevails in his own country; upon this principle, that every body says so, and every body thinks so. Who are these every bodies? All the people in the world? Not so, because in other places, they think and say the contrary. But is not mankind the same in one place as another? why then should truth be more attached to the voice of this people, than of that people? Why because this is my country, and the other is a foreign one;—good reasoning!
XXIII. I never observed, that the dogmatic writers, who in various manners, have conclusively proved the evident credibility of our holy faith, have introduced as one of their arguments, the consent of many nations in their belief of those mysteries; but have laid great stress, upon the consent of men, eminent for their sanctity and wisdom. The first argument would be favourable to idolatry,and the Mahomedan Sect; the second cannot be answered, nor can it be used to militate on the other side; and in case they should oppose to us the authority of the antient philosophers, who have been the partizans of idolatry, the objection would be grounded on a false supposition, it being established by irrefragable testimony, that those philosophers in matters of religion did not think with the people. Marcus Varus, one of the wisest of the Romans, distinguished among the Antients three kinds of Theology; the Natural, the Civil, and the Poetical. The first existed in the minds of wise men; the second was used to govern the religion of the people at large; the third was the invention of the poets; and of all the three, the philosophers held only the first to be true. The distinction of the two first, had been pointed out by Aristotle, in the twelfth book of his Metaphysics, cap. 8, where he says, that from the opinions of preceding ages which have been communicated to us respecting the Gods, may be inferred, they held some things to be true, and others false, and that the last were invented for the use and civil government of the populace:Cætera vero fabulosè ad multitudinis persuasionem. It is true, that although those philosophers were not of the same sentiment with the people, they generally talked their language, as an opposite conduct would have been very hazardous; for whoever denied the pluralityof Gods, was looked upon as impious; as it happened to Socrates. The sum of the whole of this is, that in the voice of the people was contained all the error; and that the little or much which existed of truth, was shut up and imprisoned in the minds of a few wise men.
XXIV. After all that has been said, I shall conclude, by pointing out two senses, in which only, and in no other whatever, is contained the truth of the maxim, “that the voice of the people is the voice of God.” The first is, taking for the voice of the people, the unanimous consent of all God’s people; that is, of the universal church, which it is certain cannot err in matters of faith; nor through any antecedent impossibility which may be inferred from the nature of things, but by means of the interposition of the holy spirit, with which, according to the promise made by Christ, it will be constantly assisted. I said all God’s people, because a large portion of the church may err, and in fact did err, in the great Western Schism; for the kings of France, Castile, Arragon, and Scotland, acknowledged Clement the VIIth for legitimate Pope; the rest of the Christian world, adhered to Urban the VIth. But it is manifest, that one of the two parties must be wrong, which may be consideredas a conclusive proof; that even within the pale of the Christian church, not only one, but several nations collectively, may err in essentials.
XXV. The second sense in which the maxim ought to be held true, is, by taking for the voice of the people, the universal concurrence of all mankind; it appearing morally impossible, that all the nations of the world should agree in adopting any one error. Thus the consent of the whole earth, in believing the existence of a God, is held by the learned, as a conclusive proof of this article.