date

13 Feb y 1813 Church Note
13 Feb y 1813

Church Note

A.G.

*1 p 1.

Part 2 persuasion

2 (a)

Subject of persuasion

may be matter

of fact without

proposition:

so proposition

without matter of

fact: as in the self

contradictory proposition exhibited

by established religions

Note (a)

(a) Though in many, probably in most cases, it comes to

the same thing whether the subject of persuasion to be considered

as being a supposed matter of fact or a proposition - the proposition

being in these cases a proposition relative to some supposed

matter of fact, - yet this concomitancy is not a constant one.

Matter of fact alone and not proposition is the term that

must be employed, whereas the supposed matter of fact has not

as yet been taken for the subject of discourse — of discourse

the import of which stands expressed by a determinate assemblage

of words. On the other hand proposition alone, and

not matter of fact - not even supposed matter of fact - is

the only term that can with propriety be employed,

in the case which established religions afford [unhappily]

so many pernicious and disastrous examples — viz. the

case in which by the proposition in question no matter of

fact — not so much as any supposed matter of fact —

is attested, the proposition being of the self-contradictory

class. involving in it a contradiction in terms. ++

++ Evid. Introd. Ch.
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