Memoirs of William Miller - Sylvester Bliss

propositions, to the assumption of the first selfevident
axioms in the science of geometry, which
not only may dispense with any process of
ratiocination in their defense, but which do not
even admit of any.”[15]
Prof. Stuart, however, dissented from this
“almost universal custom,’ and claimed that the
prophetic days -- the 1260, 1290, 1335, and 2300 --
indicated only days. Of the 1260 he said:
“The very manner of the expression indicates,
of course, that it was not the design of the speaker
or writer to be exact to a day or an hour. A little
more or a little less than three and a half years
would, as every reasonable interpreter must
acknowledge, accord perfectly well with the
general designation here, where plainly the aim is
not statistical exactness, but a mere generalizing of
the period in question.”[16]
Again he says:
“A statistical exactness cannot be aimed at in
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