Note 602 — Chapter VII

Religio Medici, sec. ix. in Browne's Works, vol. ii. pp. 13, 14: unfortunately too long to extract. This is the ‘credo quia impossibile est,’ originally one of Tertullian's absurdities, and once quoted in the House of Lords by the Duke of Argyle, as ‘the ancient religious maxim.’ Parl. Hist. vol. xi. p. 802. Compare the sarcastic remark on this maxim in the Essay concerning Human Understanding, book iv. chap. xviii. Locke's Works, vol. ii. p. 271. It was the spirit embodied in this sentence which supplied Celsus with some formidable arguments against the Fathers. Neander's Hist. of the Church, vol. i. pp. 227, 228.