CHAPTER VIII. 213 usually to be found for the support of his opinion and when that is done, he will represent the most powerful objections, against it in a fair and candid manner, giving them their full force; and at last will pot in such an answer to those objections, as he thinks will dissipate and dissolve the force of them ; and herein the reader will generally find a full view of the contro- versy, together with the main strengthof argument on both sides. When a good writer has set forth his own opinion at large, and vindicated it with its fairest and strongest proofs, he shall be attacked by some pan on the other side of the question ; and if his opponent bea wise and sensible writer, he will shew the best reasons why the former opinions cannot be true ; that is, he will draw out the objections against them in their fullest array, iu order to destroy what he supposesa mistaken opinion ; and here we may reasonably suppose, that an opponent will draw up his objections against the supposed error in a brighter light, and with stronger evidence than the first writer did, who propounded his opinion which was contrary to those objections. If, in the third place, the first writer answers his opponent with care and diligence, and maintains his own point against the objections which were raised in the best manner ; the reader may then generally presume, that in these three pieces he has a complete 'view of the controversy; together with the most solid and powerful arguments on both sides of the debate. But when a fourth, and fifth, and sixth volume appears in rejoinders and replies, we cannot reasonably expect any great degrees of light to be derived from them ; or that much farther evidences for truth should he found in them ; and it is sufficiently evident from daily experience, that many mischiefs attend this prolongation of controversies among men of learning, which for themost part do injury to the truth, either by turning the atten- tion of the reader quite away from the original point to other matters, or by covering the truth with a multitude of occasional incidents and perplexities, which serve to bewilder rather than guide a faithful enquirer. Sometimes in these latter volmes, the writerson both sides will hang 'upon little words, and occasional expressions of their opponent in order to expose them, which have no necessary connection with the grand point in view, and which have nothing to do with the debated truth. Sometimes they will spend many a page in vindicating their own character, or their own little sentences or accidental expressions, from the remarks of their opponent, in which expressions or remarks the original truth has no concern. And sometimes again you shall find even writers of good sense, who have happened to express themselves in an improper and indefensible manner, led away by the fondness of self-love o 3
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=