If the Spectator, by the Passage above-mentioned, insinuates that a Man must be able to perform himself in an Art, to be a good Judge of the Performances of others; consequently, that I ought to be a masterly Historian, to make Remarks on Mr. Echard's History, he divests me at once of the Right I pretend to in the following Treatise.
"An Essay on Criticism"
John Oldmixon
And the conclusions which we might thus draw from purely arbitrary hypotheses, might form a highly useful intellectual exercise: but as they could only teach us what would be the properties of objects which do not really exist, they would not constitute any addition to our knowledge of nature: while on the contrary, if the hypothesis merely divests a real object of some portion of its properties, without clothing it in false ones, the conclusions will always express, under known liability to correction, actual truth.
"A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive (Vol. 1 of 2)"
John Stuart Mill
Once a week, however, his lord and master divests him of even this shadowy defence, and he emerges from a bucket, clean, soapy, and coughing violently.
"An Ocean Tramp"
William McFee