Although it is nearly allied to Superstition, yet it differs very widely
from it. Credulity is an unbounded belief in what is possible, although
destitute of proof and perhaps of probability; but Superstition is a
belief in what is wholly repugnant to the laws of the physical and moral
world. Thus, if we believe that an inert plant possesses any remedial
power, we are _credulous_; but if we were to fancy that, by carrying it
about with us, we should become invulnerable, we should in that case be
_superstitious_. Credulity is a far greater source of error than
Superstition; for the latter must be always more limited in its
influence, and can exist only, to any considerable extent, in the most
ignorant portion of society; whereas the former diffuses itself through
the minds of all classes, by which the rank and dignity of science are
degraded, its valuable labours confounded with the vain pretensions of
empiricism, and ignorance is enabled to claim for itself the
prescriptive right of delivering oracles, amidst all the triumphs of
truth, and the progress of philosophy. This is very lamentable; and yet,
if it were even possible to remove the film that thus obscures the
public discernment, I question whether the adoption of such a plan would
not be outvoted by the majority of our own profession. In Chili, says
Zimmerman, the physicians blow around the beds of their patients to
drive away diseases; and as the people in that country believe that
physic consists wholly in this wind, their doctors would take it very
ill of any person who should attempt to make the method of cure more
difficult—_they think they know enough, when they know how to blow_.
But this mental imbecility is not characteristic of any age or country.
England has, indeed, by a late continental writer,[33] been accused of
possessing a larger share of credulity than its neighbours, and it has
been emphatically called “_The Paradise of Quacks_,” but with as little
truth as candour. If we refer to the works of Ætius, written more than
1300 years ago, we shall discover the existence of a similar infirmity
with regard to physic. This author has collected a multitude of
receipts, particularly those that had been celebrated, or used as
_Nostrums_,[34] many of which he mentions with no other view than to
expose their folly, and to inform us at what an extravagant price they
were purchased. We accordingly learn from him that the collyrium of
Danaus was sold at Constantinople for 120 numismata, and the cholical
antidote of Nicostratus for two talents; in short, we shall find an
unbounded credulity with respect to the powers of inert medicines, from
the elixir and _alkahest_ of Paracelsus and Van-Helmont, to the tar
water of bishop Berkeley, the metallic tractors of Perkins, the animal
magnetism of Miss Prescott, and may I not add, with equal justice, to
the nitro-muriatic acid bath of Dr. Scott? The description of Thessalus,
the Roman empiric in the reign of Nero, as drawn by Galen, applies with
equal fidelity and force to the medical Charlatan of the present day;
and, if we examine the writings of Scribonius Largus, we shall obtain
ample evidence that the same ungenerous selfishness of keeping medicines
secret, prevailed in ancient no less than in modern times; while we have
only to read the sacred orations of Aristides to be satisfied, that the
flagrant conduct of the Asclepiades, from which he so severely
suffered,[35] was the very prototype of the cruel and remorseless
frauds, so wickedly practised by the unprincipled Quack Doctors and
advertising “_Medical Boards_,” of our own times: and I challenge the
apologist of ancient purity to produce a more glaring instance of
empirical effrontery and success, in the annals of the nineteenth
century, than that of the sacred impostor described in the Alexander of
Lucian, who established himself in the deserted temple of Esculapius,
and entrapped in his snares some of the most eminent of the Roman
senators.