Nor can it be urged that though some part of our interest thus depends on the beliefs, rather than on their being true, yet the consequences of self-deception are so momentous, as to create a spirit of criticism to balance or over-balance the said bias of credulity.

There is, indeed, sir, another method of incorporation, by adding new companies to each regiment; but of this method the advantage would be small, because the number of captains and inferiour officers must be the same, and the pay of only the field officers would be saved, and this trifling gain would be far over-balanced by the inconveniencies which experience has shown to arise from it.

But since arguments, merely negative, may be thought over-balanced by the prospect of saving money, I shall lay before the house, what effects the want of officers has produced, with regard to those nations whose poverty has laid them under a necessity of parsimonious establishments.

Dr. Johnson disapproved of them, 'because (said he) it makes the under story of a house very dark, which greatly over-balances the conveniency, when it is considered how small a part of the year it rains; how few are usually in the street at such times; that many who are might as well be at home; and the little that people suffer, supposing them to be as much wet as they commonly are in walking a street.

The baron de la Valiere, whose friendship over-balanced his resentment, now gave an instance of his generosity, which, as things had stood of late between them, Horatio was far from expecting.

Before plunging into that weltering tangle of confusion which makes up what we call Irish history, one may be forgiven for lingering a little at this point, even at the risk of some slight over-balance of proportion.

Of such a witness it has been said, by another eminent judge,[102] that "the credit of his oath is over-balanced by the stain of his iniquity.