"Nay, there is a sufficiency in the evidence, and a fulness in this
testimony, of which none other history can boast. What book is that, my
lord?"
"The Anabasis."
"By whom?"
"Surely thou art in j'est. 'Tis Xenophon's."
"How? Xenophon!" said the divine; "methinks thou speakest unadvisedly.
My reason or apprehension knoweth not of such a man, or that he writ
this book, and yet thou boldly affirmest the history to be true!"
"I know not that it was ever doubted," replied the other. "The common
consent and belief of mankind, the transmission of the record from
remote ages, are of themselves no mean evidence of its truth. But there
must have been a time when it was first written, and as he appeals in it
to facts, to matters which were then of recent occurrence, and to the
public knowledge and belief of those facts, surely every of these
statements would have insured detection, especially if put forth at or
about the time when the events took place. Would it not have been
madness to appeal to eye-witnesses of transactions which never happened,
which witnesses were then alive, and could easily have belied such an
impudent and furtive attempt at imposture? The idea seems almost too
absurd to refute.
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