medicines of a thicker consistence than a syrup, prepared with opium scarcely fluid. They consist of various ingredients, made up with honey or syrup; and are to be used for a long time either for purgative, alternative, or corroborative intentions.

The word opiate is also used, in general, for any medicine given with an intention to procure sleep, whether in the form of electuaries, drops, or pills.

OPINION is that judgment which the mind forms of any proposition for the truth or falsehood of which there is not sufficient evidence to produce science or absolute belief.

That the three angles of a plane triangle are equal to two right angles, is not a matter of opinion, nor can it with propriety be called an object of the mathematician's belief: he does more than believe it; he knows it to be true. When two or three men, under no temptation to deceive, declare that they were witnesses of an uncommon, though not supernatural event, their testimony is complete evidence, and produces absolute belief in the minds of those to whom it is given; but it does not produce science like rigid demonstration. The fact is not doubted, but those who have it on report do not know it to be true, as they know the truth of propositions intuitively or demonstrably certain. When one or two men relate a story including many circumstances to a third person, and another comes who positively contradicts it either in whole or in part, he to whom those jarring testimonies are given, weighs all the circumstances in his own mind, balances the one against the other, and lends an assent, more or less wavering, to that side on which the evidence appears to preponderate. This assent is his opinion respecting the facts of which he has received such different accounts.

Opinions are often formed of events not yet in being. Were an officer from the combined armies, which are just now besieging Valenciennes, to come into the room where we are writing, and tell us that those armies are in good health and high spirits; that every shot which they fire upon the fortresses produces some effect; and that they have plenty of excellent provisions, whilst the besieged are perishing by hunger; we should absolutely believe every fact which he had told us upon the evidence of his testimony; but we could only be of opinion that the garrison must soon surrender. In forming opinions of this kind, upon which, in a great measure, depends our success in any pursuit, every circumstance should be carefully attended to, and our judgments guided by former experience. Truth is a thing of such importance to man, that he should always pursue the best methods for attaining it; and when the object eludes all his researches, he should remedy the disappointment, by attaching himself to that which has the strongest resemblance to it; and that which most resembles truth is called probability, as the judgment which is formed of it is termed opinion. See Probability.