impostor, was able to lead away four thousand into the wilderness; and the delusions of Mahomet almost the fourth part of mankind. Thus all heresies, how gross soever, have found a welcome with the people. For thus many of the Jews were wrought into the belief that Herod was the Messias and David George, of Leyden, and Arden, were not without a party amongst the people, who maintained the same opinion of themselves almost in our days.

Physicians (many at least that make profession thereof) besides divers less discoverable ways of fraud, have made them believe there is the book of fate, or the power of Aaron's breast-plate,3 in urines. And, therefore, hereunto they have recourse, as unto the oracle of life, the great determinator of virginity, conception, fertility, and the inscrutable infirmities of the whole body. For, as though there were a seminality in urine, or that, like the seed, it carried with it the idea of every part, they foolishly conceive, we visibly behold therein the anatomy of every particle, and can thereby indigitate their diseases and, running into any demands, expect from us a sudden resolution in things, whereon the Devil of Delphos would demur: and we know hath taken respite of some days to answer easier questions.

2 David George, of Leyden.] Or, as some say, of Ghent, was a glazier or a painter on glass, who began to preach, about the year 1525, that he was the true Messiah, the third David, and (like the well-known enthusiast of our own times, Richard Brothers) the nephew of God, not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. He appears to have been an enthusiast of the worst order, uniting with this profession of being the Messiah, the teaching of many sentiments inimical alike to Christianity-and to morals. However, he gained follow ers, and sustained the delusion even to his last hour. He died at Basle in 1556,

having declared to his disciples, a short time previous to his death, that he should rise again on the third day after his decease. In order to expose the delusion, and confound the believers in his mad professions, the Senate of Basle had his body disinterred on the third day, and caused it to be burnt, together with his writings. Dict. de Moréri, edit. par Drouet, sub nom. and other authorities. —Br.

3

power of Aaron's breastplate.] Josephus and others maintain that the precious stones of Aaron's breastplate were the Urim and Thummim, and that they discovered the will of God by their extraordinary lustre, thereby predicting the issue of events to those who consulted them.

For as though there were a seminality in urine.] See Primrose's Vulgar Errors, translated by Willie, p. 64. J. Cr.

5 the Devil of Delphos.] Meaning, the oracle of Apollo, at Delphos.

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Saltimbancoes, quacksalvers, and charlatans, deceive them in lower degrees. Were Æsop alive, the Piazza and PontNeuf* could not but speak their fallacies. Meanwhile there are too many whose cries cannot conceal their mischiefs: for their impostures are full of cruelty, and worse than any other; deluding not only unto pecuniary defraudations, but the irreparable deceit of death.

Astrologers, which pretend to be of Cabala with the stars 9 (such I mean as abuse that worthy enquiry) have not been wanting in their deceptions: who, having won their belief unto principles, whereof they make great doubt themselves, have made them believe, that arbitrary events below, have necessary causes above. Whereupon their credulities assent unto any prognosticks, and daily swallow the predictions of men; which, considering the independency of their causes, and contingency in their events, are only in the prescience of God.

Fortune-tellers, jugglers, geomancers,' and the like incantatory impostors, though commonly men of inferior rank, and from whom, without illumination, they can expect no more than from themselves, do daily and professedly delude them. Unto whom (what is deplorable in men and Christians) too many applying themselves, betwixt jest and earnest, betray the cause of truth, and insensibly make up the legionary body of error.

Statists and politicians, unto whom ragione di stato is the first considerable, as though it were their business to deceive the people, as a maxim do hold, that truth is to be concealed

* Places in Venice and Paris, where mountebanks play their pranks.

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from them; unto whom although they reveal the visible design, yet do they commonly conceal the capital intention. And therefore have they ever been the instruments of great designs, yet seldom understood the true intention of any; accomplishing the drifts of wiser heads, as inanimate and ignorant agents the general design of the world, who, though in some latitude of sense, and in a natural cognition [they] perform their proper actions, yet do they unknowingly concur unto higher ends, and blindly advance the great intention of nature. Now how far they may be kept in ignorance, a great example there is in the people of Rome, who never knew the true and proper name of their own city. For, beside that common appellation received by the citizens, it had a proper and secret name concealed from them; cujus alterum nomen1 dicere secretis ceremoniarum nefas habetur, saith Pliny. Lest the name thereof being discovered unto their enemies, their penates and patronal god might be called forth by charms and incantations. For, according unto the tradition of magicians, the tutelary spirits will not remove at common appellations, but at the proper names of things whereunto they are protectors.

Thus, having been deceived by themselves, and continually deluded by others, they must needs be stuffed with errors, and even overrun with these inferior falsities. Whereunto whosoever shall resign their reasons, either from the root of deceit in themselves, or inability to resist such trivial deceptions from others, although their condition and fortunes may place them many spheres above the multitude, yet are they still within the line of vulgarity, and democratical enemies of truth.

3 have they.] The vulgar have.-Wr. secret name concealed from them, &c.] This name was Valentias, for revealing

which Soranus was put to deathe.-Wr. 5 deceptions.] The first five editions read ingannations.

CHAPTER IV.

Of the more immediate Causes of Common Errors, both in the wiser and common sort; and first, of Misapprehension and Fallacy, or false Deduction.

THE first is a mistake, or a misconception of things, either in their first apprehension, or secondary relations. So Eve mistook the commandment, either from the immediate injunction of God, or from the secondary narration of her husband. So might the disciples mistake our Saviour, in his answer unto Peter concerning the death of John, as is delivered John xxi." Peter seeing John, saith unto Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do? Jesus saith, If I will, that he tarry till I come, what is that unto thee? Then went this saying abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should not die." Thus began the conceit and opinion of the Centaurs; that is, in the mistake of the first beholders, as is declared by Servius. When some young Thessalians on horseback were beheld afar off, while their horses watered, that is, while their heads were depressed, they were conceived by the first spectators to be but one animal; and answerable hereunto have their pictures been drawn ever since.

And, as simple mistakes commonly beget fallacies, so men rest not in false apprehensions, without absurd and inconsequent deductions; from fallacious foundations, and misapprehended mediums, erecting conclusions no way inferrible from their premises. Now the fallacies whereby men deceive others, and are deceived themselves, the ancients have divided

In the mistake, &c.] A mistake similar to that which is recorded by Herrera, the Spanish historian of America, to have been committed by the people of New Spain, when they first beheld the Spanish cavalry. They imagined the horse and his rider to be some monstrous animal of a terrible form, and supposing that their food was the same as that of men, brought flesh and bread to nourish them. No representation, however, of

horsemen occurs, which might indicate that the artist regarded the horse and his rider as one animal, among the various specimens of Mexican picture-writing, which have been published by Purchas, Thevenot, Robertson, Humboldt, and others.-Br.

Ross says, "there is no doubt then but Centaurs, as well as other monsters, are produced, partly by the influence of the stars, and partly by other causes, &c."

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into verbal and real. Of the verbal, and such as conclude from mistakes of the word, although there be no less than six, yet are there but two thereof worthy our notation, and unto which the rest may be referred; that is, the fallacy of equivocation and amphibology, which conclude from the ambiguity of some one word, or the ambiguous syntaxis of many put together. From this fallacy arose that calamitous error of the Jews, misapprehending the prophecies of their Messias, and expounding them always unto literal and temporal expectations. By this way many errors crept in, and perverted the doctrine of Pythagoras, whilst men received his precepts in a different sense from his intention; converting metaphors into proprieties, and receiving as literal expressions obscure and involved truths. Thus when he enjoined his disciples an abstinence from beans, many conceived they were with severity debarred the use of that pulse, which, notwithstanding, could not be his meaning; for as Aristoxenus, who wrote his life, averreth, he delighted much in that kind of food himself. But herein, as Plutarch observeth, he had no other intention than to dissuade men from magistracy, or undertaking the publick offices of state: for by beans was the magistrate elected in some parts of Greece; and after his days, we read, in Thucydides, of the Council of the Bean in Athens. The same word also in Greek doth signify a testicle, and hath been thought by some, an injunction only of continency, as Aulus Gellius hath expounded, and as Empedocles may also be interpreted, that is, testiculis miseri dextras subducite. And [this] might be the original intention of Pythagoras, as having a notable hint hereof in beans, from the natural signature of the venereal organs of both sexes. Again, his injunction is, not to harbour swallows in our houses; whose advice notwithstanding we do not contemn, who daily admit and cherish them. For herein a caution is only implied, not to entertain ungrateful and thankless persons, which like the swallow, are * πᾶν δεῖλοι κυαμῶν ἀπὸ χεῖρας ἔχεσθε.

7 converting metaphors into proprieties.] "Taking an expression or representation which only by simile applies to a subject, as if it had properly (or of propriety) belonged to it." Proprieties here

implies literalities.

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as having, &c.] See a curious paper on the ancient superstitions concerning beans and peas, in the Working Bee, iii, p. 11.-J.