 O’Higgins claims that this is very much the position that Collins is taking in the Essay. In An Essay Concerning Human Understanding Locke allowed that there were some truths that were above reason but compatible with it. Some scholars regard this as a mere verbal commitment to truths above reason, while others regard it as substantive. What is clear is that Locke would not accept truths above and contrary to reason. On this point, Locke, Toland, and Collins are in complete agreement. Toland, however, has a more radical position than Locke in that he rejects truths above reason, even where these truths are compatible with reason (see Woolhouse 2007: 372). Thus Toland would not accept the story of the rebellion of the angels or the claim that the dead shall rise. Collins, on the other hand, seems to hold the same position Locke does. He quotes with approval a passage from Robert Boyle who uses an analogy of a deep-sea diver to make the distinction between above reason and contrary to reason plausible. If the diver asks you if you can see to the bottom of the ocean and after you have declared that you cannot, brings up oysters with pearls in them, you will have no objection to the claim that there are oysters with pearls in them at the bottom of the sea. If, on the other hand, the diver claims that the pearls he shows you are larger than the shells containing them, “you would doubtless judge what he asserts contrary to the information of your eyes” (Collins 1707 [1984: 25–6]). This sounds like Locke’s position. But Agnesina points out that Collins gives this analogy a twist. He writes: 