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PREFACE.

THE work of which a new Edition is here offered to the public maintains a position, as a manual of Christian evidences, from which it is not likely to be deposed. It owes its popularity to its lucid arrangement, its compact form, and, above all, to the unrivalled perspicuity and vigour of the style. In this respect, like most of Paley's writings, it furnishes a model to the student of the English language. Inaccuracies of expression may indeed be discovered, but they are lost amidst excellencies as rare as they are striking: homeliness without vulgarity, point without affectation, a "curious felicity" which drops from the author without effort, and not unfrequently bursts of unaffected eloquence. His power of summing up an argument is as conspicuous as his orderly arrangement of the premises. Chap. X. of Part I. Prop. I. furnishes an excellent specimen.

Paley's claims to be considered an independent thinker have been disputed. Sir J. Mac

kintosh describes the Evidences as " formed out of an admirable translation of Butler's Analogy, and a most skilful abridgment of Lardner's Credibility of the Gospel History" (Dissertation on Ethical Philosophy, p. 275). Abstract disquisition certainly does not form a prominent feature of this treatise. The natural bent of Paley's mind was towards business more than philosophy, and he seldom ventures into the higher regions of metaphysics. His observations on miracles are a proof in point. On the abstract credibility of miracles, a subject which in our day has given rise to animated discussion, he offers no remarks; while nothing can exceed the trenchant manner in which he exposes Hume's sophism concerning the untrustworthiness of testimony. The judgment, however, of the distinguished critic above mentioned seems too broadly expressed. The main substance of Paley's work may no doubt be found in Lardner and Butler, but, independently of the skilful manner in which he has transferred those authors to his own pages, he has interspersed so many sagacious remarks on man, on society, and the practical relations of Christianity with both,

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