Historical records furnish innumerable instances of superstition,
fraught with circumstances of inexpressible horror. It is an infirmity
inherent in our nature, and extremely difficult to eradicate; no
lesson on moral evil, or lecture on physical destiny, can sever the
spell or dissolve the dark enchantment. So peculiarly fascinating is
the love of the marvellous, that when ignorance and bigotry cooperate,
the pure fountain of truth is polluted, and the most preposterous
tales of antiquity are held in veneration by every fiery zealot. From
this cause, millions of innocent lives have been sacrificed. The
intellects of thousands have been shackled, and their energies
perverted by irrational fears, and by degrading conceptions of the
nature of Deity, and of the purposes and modes of religious worship
and obedience. It was in the darkest days of superstition, that the
rack was in exercise to chain down the understanding, to sink it into
the most abject and sordid condition, punishing imaginary crimes, and
repressing truth and philosophical research.
The science of medicine had to encounter the scourge of superstition
at an early period; the epithet of magician was applied to the
physician, who appeared to be endowed with superior genius and
knowledge. The inquisition was constantly prepared to take holy
cognizance of those who distinguished themselves by extraordinary
cures, and hundreds of miserable wretches were dragged to the stake
for this cause alone. Galileo, in the 17th century, was condemned by
the inquisition to a rigorous punishment, for his noble and useful
discoveries in astronomy and geometry; and about the same period, Dr
Bartolo suffered a similar fate at Rome, because he unexpectedly cured
a nobleman of the gout.
The University of Salamanca decreed that no physician should dare to
bleed his patient in a pleurisy in the arm of the affected side;
declaring that such practice was of no less pernicious consequences to
medicine, than Luther's heresy had been to religion. The inquisition
having adopted the irrational and foolish doctrine that diseases
should be ascribed to fascination, a physician who opposed that
doctrine was compelled to accede to it, and to declare that he had
seen a beautiful woman break a steel mirror to pieces, and blast trees
by a single glance of her fascinating eyes. Superstitious opinions
prevailed in regard to the cure of diseases, also. Some were supposed
to be cured by a song. Josephus asserted that he saw a certain Jew,
named _Eleazer_, draw the devil out of an old woman's nostrils, by the
application of Solomon's seal to her nose, in the presence of the
Emperor Vespasian. Numerous remedies were employed for expelling the
devil, among which was flagellation, purgatives, and antispasmodics.
Several bewitched persons being cured by a plaster of assafœtida, the
question arose, in what way this article excited so much efficacy.
Some supposed, that the devil considered so vile an application an
insult, and ran off in a passion; but others very sagely observed,
that as devils are supposed to have eyes and ears, it is possible that
they have noses also, and that it proved offensive to their olfactory
nerves. It may be observed that superstition is not confined to those
who are ignorant of the laws of the physical world; but through the
infirmity of human nature, it has prevailed to the perversion of the
profoundest understanding, and the purest intellect. It has arrested
the progress of literature and science, and shackled the mind with
vulgar fictions, errors, and prejudices. Even the sublime genius of
Lord Bacon was subjected to its influence; he believed in witchcraft,
and asserted that he was cured of warts by rubbing them with a piece
of lard with the skin on, and then exposing it to the sun. Dr More,
and the enlightened Cudworth, applied the epithet _Atheist_ to those
who opposed the belief of witchcraft. The celebrated Dr Hoffman, the
father of the modern theory and practice of medicine, in the large
edition of his work in 1742, says, that the devil can raise storms,
produce insects, and act upon the animal spirits and imagination; and,
in fine, that he is an excellent optician, and natural philosopher, on
account of his long experience.
But, blessed be the Almighty Ruler, the present is an era,
preeminently distinguished for improvement in physical and moral
philosophy; and forgetting the things that are behind, we are
pressing forward in the race with rapid strides to the melioration of
the condition of the physical and moral world. Had the stupendous
works performed, and those contemplated at the present day, been
predicted to our fathers in the 17th century, they would have trembled
with alarm, lest their posterity were destined to form a league with
the infernal powers. The paralyzing idea that the present state of
knowledge is as perfect as our nature will admit, should be utterly
reprobated; for knowledge is eternally progressive, and we can have no
claim to be estimated as the benefactors of posterity, unless by our
own efforts and toils we add to the achievements of our ancestors. We
may take a retrospect of the meritorious characters of our fathers
with exultation, and when disposed to animadvert on the frailties and
follies peculiar to their times, let us reflect that it is our happy
lot to live in an age in many respects the most glorious the world
ever knew. We have a moral interest in all that concerns the human
race, and, as philanthropists, we ought to sympathize in every
calamity with which our species may be afflicted. Being apprised with
what facility mankind deceive themselves, and with what tenacity the
mind clings to its darling delusion, sober reflection is awakened to a
lively sense of the evils resulting from our imperfections. As the
germs of plants may lie dormant in the earth for ages, and be
resuscitated, so may the troubles created by unhallowed superstition,
revive and be reiterated by means of some depraved spirits in our day.
_Ventriloquism_ is an art which may be made subservient to knavery and
deception. An ingenious work on this subject was published in 1772, by
M. de la Chapelle, who was of opinion that the responses of many of
the oracles were delivered by persons thus qualified to serve the
purposes of priestcraft and delusion. That ventriloquism may be made
thus subservient to the purposes of knavery, will clearly appear by
the following anecdotes.
Louis Brabant, valet de chambre to Francis the First, was a capital
ventriloquist, and a great cheat. He had fallen in love with a young,
handsome, and rich heiress; but was rejected by the parents as an
unsuitable match for their daughter. The young lady's father dying,
Brabant made a visit to the widow, who was totally ignorant of his
singular talent. Suddenly, on his first appearance, in open day, and
in presence of several persons who were with her, she heard herself
accosted, in a voice perfectly resembling that of her dead husband,
and which seemed to proceed from above, exclaiming, 'Give my daughter
in marriage to Louis Brabant. He is a man of great fortune, and of an
excellent character. I now endure the inexpressible torments of
purgatory for having refused her to him. If you obey this admonition,
I shall soon be delivered from this place of torment. You will at the
same time provide a worthy husband for your daughter, and procure
everlasting repose to the soul of your poor husband.' The widow could
not for a moment resist this dread summons, which had not the most
distant appearance of proceeding from Louis Brabant, whose countenance
exhibited no visible change, and whose lips were closed and
motionless, during the delivery of it. Accordingly, she consented
immediately to receive him for her son-in-law. Louis's finances,
however, were in a very low situation, and the formalities attending
the marriage contract, rendered it necessary for him to exhibit some
show of riches, and not to give the ghost the lie direct. He
accordingly went to work upon a fresh subject, one Cornu, an old and
rich banker at Lyons, who had accumulated immense wealth by usury and
extortion, and was known to be haunted by remorse of conscience on
account of the manner in which he had acquired it. Having contracted
an intimate acquaintance with this man, he one day, while they were
sitting together in the usurer's little back parlor, artfully turned
the conversation on religious subjects, on demons and spectres, the
pains of purgatory and the torments of hell. During an interval of
silence between them, a voice was heard, which to the astonished
banker seemed to be that of his deceased father, complaining, as in
the former case, of his dreadful situation in purgatory, and calling
upon him to deliver him instantly from thence, by putting into the
hands of Louis Brabant, a large sum for the redemption of Christians
then in slavery with the Turks; threatening him at the same time with
eternal damnation if he did not take this method to expiate likewise
his own sins. The reader will naturally suppose that Brabant affected
a due degree of astonishment on the occasion, and further promoted the
deception, by acknowledging his having devoted himself to the
prosecution of the charitable design imputed to him by the ghost. An
old usurer is naturally suspicious. Accordingly, the wary banker made
a second appointment with the ghost delegate for the next day; and to
render any design of imposing upon him utterly abortive, took him into
the open fields, where not a house, or a tree, or even a bush was in
sight, capable of screening any supposed confederate. This
extraordinary caution excited the ventriloquist to exert all the
powers of his art. Wherever the banker conducted him, at every step,
his ears were saluted on all sides with the complaints and groans not
only of his father, but of all his deceased relations, imploring him,
for the love of God, and in the name of every saint in the calendar,
to have mercy on his soul and their's, by effectually seconding with
his purse the intentions of his worthy companion. Cornu could no
longer resist the voice of heaven, and accordingly carried his guest
home with him, and paid him down 10,000 crowns, with which the honest
ventriloquist returned to Paris and married his mistress. The
catastrophe was fatal. The secret was afterwards blown, and reached
the usurer's ears, who was so much affected by the loss of his money,
and the mortifying railleries of his neighbors, that he took to his
bed and died.
Another French ventriloquist, named M. St Gile, was not less adroit in
his secret art. Entering a convent, and finding the whole community in
mourning, he inquired the cause, and was told that one of their body
had lately died, who was the delight and ornament of the whole
society, and they spoke feelingly of the scanty honors they had
bestowed on his memory. Suddenly a voice was heard, apparently
proceeding from that part of the church where the singing of the choir
is performed, lamenting the situation of the defunct in purgatory, and
reproaching the brotherhood with their lukewarmness, and want of zeal
on his account. The friars, as soon as their astonishment gave them
power to speak, consulted together, and agreed to acquaint the rest of
the community with this singular event, so interesting to the whole
society. M. St Gile, who wished to carry on the joke still farther,
dissuaded them from taking this step, telling them that they would be
treated by their absent brethren, as a set of fools and visionaries.
He recommended to them, however, the immediately calling of the whole
community into the church, where the ghost of their departed brother
might probably reiterate his complaints. Accordingly, all the friars,
novices, lay brothers, and even the domestics of the convent, were
immediately summoned and collected together. In a short time the voice
from the roof renewed its lamentation and reproaches, and the whole
convent fell on their faces, and vowed a solemn reparation. As a first
step, they chanted a _De profundis_ in a full choir; during the
intervals of which the ghost occasionally expressed the comfort he
received from their pious exercises, and ejaculations on his behalf.
When all was over, the friar entered into a serious conversation with
M. St Gile; and, on the strength of what had just passed, sagaciously
inveighed against the absurd incredulity of our modern sceptics and
pretended philosophers, on the article of ghosts or apparitions. M. St
Gile thought it now high time to disabuse the good fathers. This
purpose, however, he found it extremely difficult to effect, till he
had prevailed upon them to return with him into the church, and there
be witnesses of the manner in which he had conducted this ludicrous
deception.