design, as there never fails to be, where men find themselves ill-trusted?  We should do well to commiserate our mutual ignorance, and endeavour to remove it in all the gentle and fair ways of information; and not instantly treat others ill, as obstinate and perverse, because they will not renounce their own, and receive our opinions, or at least those we would force upon them, when it is more than probable that we are no less obstinate in not embracing some of theirs.  For where is the man that has incontestable evidence of the truth of all that he holds, or of the falsehood of all he condemns; or can say that he has examined to the bottom all his own, or other men’s opinions?  The necessity of believing without knowledge, nay often upon very slight grounds, in this fleeting state of action and blindness we are in, should make us more busy and careful to inform ourselves than constrain others.  At least, those who have not thoroughly examined to the bottom all their own tenets, must confess they are unfit to prescribe to others; and are unreasonable in imposing that as truth on other men’s belief, which they themselves have not searched into, nor weighed the arguments of probability, on which they should receive or reject it.  Those who have fairly and truly examined, and are thereby got past doubt in all the doctrines they profess and govern themselves by, would have a juster pretence to require others to follow them:  but these are so few in number, and find so little reason to be magisterial in their opinions, that nothing insolent and imperious is to be expected from them:  and there is reason to think, that, if men were better instructed themselves, they would be less imposing on others.

5.  Probability is either of sensible Matter of Fact, capable of human testimony, or of what is beyond the evidence of our senses.

But to return to the grounds of assent, and the several degrees of it, we are to take notice, that the propositions we receive upon inducements of probability are of two sorts:  either concerning some particular existance, or, as it is usually termed, matter of fact, which, falling under observation, is capable of human testimony; or else concerning things, which being beyond the discovery of our senses, are not capable of any such testimony.

6.  Concerning the first of these, viz.  particular matter of fact.

I. The concurrent Experience of all other Men with ours, produces Assurance approaching to Knowledge.

Where any particular thing, consonant to the constant observation of ourselves and others in the like case, comes attested by the concurrent reports of all that mention it, we receive it as easily, and build as firmly upon it, as if it were certain knowledge; and we reason and act thereupon with as little doubt as if it were perfect demonstration.  Thus, if all Englishmen, who have occasion to mention it, should