2 Sept 1804

Evidence

Ch.2. Explanations

§.2

To say I am infallible is a speech that a man of a common degree of modesty and rationality will be ashamed to make even to himself. He will not only not say it of all his judgments all his persuasions taken in the lump, but neither will he say it of any one such judgment - the judgment pronounced upon any individual occasion - taken by itself. But to say of any one individual fact - this fact is impossible - is to say /express/ the same thing /the same proposition, only/ in different terms. For if indeed this fact be impossible - absolutely and in its own nature impossible - then in so long as asserting it to be impossible, I who assert it so to be, am infallible: the extent of my infallibility is commensurate to the aggregate extent of the aggregate mass of impossible facts - that is of such facts - all such facts to which the attribute of impossibility is thus /comes thus to be/ ascribed by me.