Note 201 — Chapter V

It is a curious problem to put testimony in the scale against alleged necessities, regarding the course of Nature. A certain Eastern prince had never seen ice—and obstinately rejected the idea of its possible existence. Was he wise or unwise in his disbelief? Wise, if we make the rule of actual experience our canon;—unwise if we admit the rule of modification by unseen possibilities; and still more, if we allow that a small amount of affirmative testimony ought in reason to outweigh a large amount of negative presupposition, or difficulty. A curious instance of this last rule is the natural history of the duck-billed platypus (the ornithorynchus), rightly called "paradoxus." The contradictory appearance of its organs created a world of scepticism, when its history was first reported to Naturalists. It was a question of improbability versus testimony;—and, to use the established phrase, "every school boy" now knows that Testimony was right. Compare Note (c) p. 264, ante.