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her alive, I might decline his acquaintance;
but since I have never heard the slightest
suspicion of his doing such a thing, and I
have no time to investigate idle surmises, I
presume he never did anything of the sort.
I know a great many men, however, whose
whole stock of reasoning seems to consist in
this argument, which they continue to use where
there is positive evidence and where this argument
consequently loses all force. If you ask such
a man whether he believes in the liquefaction of
the blood of St. Januarius, he will say no. Why not?
Well, nothing of that kind ever came within the
range of my experience. But it did come within
the range of Sir Humphrey Davy's experience, who