" As to the question in
dispute, Johnson disposes of it satisfactorily in a single sentence.
"If ridicule be applied to any position as the test of truth, it
will then become a question whether such ridicule be just, and this
can only be decided by the application of truth as the test of
ridicule." How easy to make any subject or any person ridiculous! To
hold that ridicule is paramount to the discovery or attestation of
truth, is to exalt the ape-element in man above the human and the
angelic principles, which also belong to his nature, and to enthrone
a Voltaire over a Newton or a Milton. Those who laugh proverbially
do not always win, nor do they always deserve to win. Do we think
less of "Paradise Lost," and Shakspeare, because Cobbett has derided
both, or of the Old and New Testaments, because Paine has subjected
parts of them to his clumsy satire? When we find, indeed, a system
such as Jesuitism blasted by the ridicule of Pascal, we conclude
that it was not true,--but why? not merely because ridicule assailed
it, for ridicule has assailed ten thousand systems which never even
shook in the storm, but because, in the view of all candid and
liberal thinkers, the ridicule _prevailed_.
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