A crucial test. A very severe and undeniable one. The allusion
is to a fancy of Lord Bacon's, who said that two different diseases or
sciences might run parallel for a time, but would ultimately cross each
other: thus, the plague might for a time resemble other diseases, but
when the bubo or boil appeared, the plague would assume its
specific character. Hence the phrase instantia crucis (a crucial
or unmistakable symptom), a crucial experiment, a crucial example, a
crucial question, etc.
Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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