Historic Doubts Relative To Napoleon Buonaparte | Page 3

him invading
with prodigious armies, defeating their forces, penetrating to their
capitals, and threatening their total subjugation. But at Moscow his
progress is stopped: a winter of unusual severity, co-operating with the
efforts of the Russians, totally destroys his enormous host: and the
German sovereigns throw off the yoke, and combine to oppose him. He
raises another vast army, which is also ruined at Leipsic; and again
another, with which, like a second Antæus, he for some time maintains
himself in France; but is finally defeated, deposed, and banished to the

island of Elba, of which the sovereignty is conferred on him. Thence he
returns, in about nine months, at the head of 600 men, to attempt the
deposition of King Louis, who had been peaceably recalled; the French
nation declare in his favour, and he is reinstated without a struggle. He
raises another great army to oppose the allied powers, which is totally
defeated at Waterloo; he is a second time deposed, surrenders to the
British, and is placed in confinement at the island of St. Helena. Such is
the outline of the eventful history presented to us; in the detail of which,
however, there is almost every conceivable variety of statement; while
the motives and conduct of the chief actor are involved in still greater
doubt, and the subject of still more eager controversy.
* * * * *
In the midst of these controversies, the preliminary question,
concerning the existence of this extraordinary personage, seems never
to have occurred to any one as a matter of doubt; and to show even the
smallest hesitation in admitting it, would probably be regarded as an
excess of scepticism; on the ground that this point has always been
taken for granted by the disputants on all sides, being indeed implied
by the very nature of their disputes.
But is it in fact found that undisputed points are always such as have
been the most carefully examined as to the evidence on which they rest?
that facts or principles which are taken for granted, without controversy,
as the common basis of opposite opinions, are always themselves
established on sufficient grounds? On the contrary, is not any such
fundamental point, from the very circumstance of its being taken for
granted at once, and the attention drawn off to some other question,
likely to be admitted on insufficient evidence, and the flaws in that
evidence overlooked?
Experience will teach us that such instances often occur: witness the
well-known anecdote of the Royal Society; to whom King Charles II.
proposed as a question, whence it is that a vessel of water receives no
addition of weight from a live fish being put into it, though it does, if
the fish be dead. Various solutions, of great ingenuity, were proposed,
discussed, objected to, and defended; nor was it till they had been long

bewildered in the inquiry, that it occurred to them _to try the
experiment_; by which they at once ascertained that the phenomenon
which they were striving to account for,--which was the acknowledged
basis and substratum, as it were, of their debates,--had no existence but
in the invention of the witty monarch.[3]
Another instance of the same kind is so very remarkable that I cannot
forbear mentioning it. It was objected to the system of Copernicus
when first brought forward, that if the earth turned on its axis, as he
represented, a stone dropped from the summit of a tower would not fall
at the foot of it, but at a great distance to the west; _in the same manner
as a stone dropped from the mast-head of a ship in full sail, does not
fall at the foot of the mast, but towards the stern_. To this it was
answered, that a stone being a part of the earth obeys the same laws,
and moves with it; whereas, it is no part of the ship; of which,
consequently, its motion is independent. This solution was admitted by
some, but opposed by others; and the controversy went on with spirit;
nor was it till one hundred years after the death of Copernicus, that the
experiment being tried, it was ascertained that the stone thus dropped
from the head of the mast does fall at the foot of it![4]
Let it be observed that I am not now impugning any one particular
narrative; but merely showing generally, that what is unquestioned is
not necessarily unquestionable; since men will often, at the very
moment when they are accurately sifting the evidence of some disputed
point, admit hastily, and on the most insufficient grounds, what they
have been accustomed to see taken for granted.
The celebrated Hume[5] has pointed out, also, the readiness with which
men believe, on very slight evidence, any story that pleases their
imagination by