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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers by Jonathan Swift: any credit, and that only upon the word of such silly wretches as
I and my fellows, who can hardly write or read. I then asked him
why he had not calculated his own nativity, to see whether it
agreed with Bickerstaff's prediction? at which he shook his head,
and said, Oh! sir, this is no time for jesting, but for repenting
those fooleries, as I do now from the very bottom of my heart. By
what I can gather from you, said I, the observations and
predictions you printed, with your almanacks, were mere
impositions on the people. He reply'd, if it were otherwise I
should have the less to answer for. We have a common form for all
those things, as to foretelling the weather, we never meddle with
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