BOOK I PART III
be considered as an objection to the present
system. If belief consisted only in a certain vi-
vacity, conveyed from an original impression,
it would decay by the length of the transition,
and must at last be utterly extinguished: And
vice versa, if belief on some occasions be not
capable of such an extinction; it must be some-
thing different from that vivacity.
Before I answer this objection I shall observe,
that from this topic there has been borrowed
a very celebrated argument against the Chris-
tian Religion; but with this difference, that the
connexion betwixt each link of the chain in hu-
man testimony has been there supposed not to
go beyond probability, and to be liable to a de-
gree of doubt and uncertainty. And indeed it
must be confest, that in this manner of consid-
ering the subject, (which however is not a true