Volume 1

The occult sciences. The philosophy of magic, prodigies, and apparent miracles / From the French of Eusèbe Salverte, with notes illustrative, explanatory, and critical, by Anthony Todd Thomson.

  • Salverte, Eusèbe, 1771-1839.
Date:
1847
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The occult sciences. The philosophy of magic, prodigies, and apparent miracles / From the French of Eusèbe Salverte, with notes illustrative, explanatory, and critical, by Anthony Todd Thomson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    52/350 (page 44)
    That winch seemed incredible to the wise, and mivaculous to the vulçar, becomes a curions but undeniable fact : the vulgar are amused by it; the learned study it, and endeavor to develop its cause. A single question remains then to be resolved in order to form a just estiraate of the past. Must we admit that men hâve imprudently uttered and re- corded falsehoods, and hâve found other men, in ail times, ready to believe absurdities 'l Is it not more l'ational to conclude that those récitals, in ap- pearance mai'velous, are founded on reality, pai'- ticulai'ly when they can be explained sometimes by the human passions, occasionally by the State of science in former times 1 I shall fearlessly cite those witnesses hitherto re- garded with suspicion, although they hâve narra- ted events that hâve been reputed impossible. The discrédit into which they hâve fallen makes part of our argument, which goes to show that discrédit can not be justly opposed to their narrations. Is it crédible, I may ask, that, in the year A.D. 197, a slîower of quicksilver could hâve fallen in the Forum of Augustus at Rome] Dion Cassius,* who relates the event, did not see it fall, but he observed it immediately after its de- scent : he collected some of the drops, and rubbed them upon a piece of copper in order to give to it the appearance of silver, which he affirms it pre- served for three entire days.f Glycas also speaks * Dion Cassius Cocceianus, tlie son of Cassius Apronianus, a Roman senator, was boni at Nicæa, in Bithynia, A.D. 155. Al- thougb he was on bis inotber’s sitie of Greek descent, and wrote in the langaage of bis native province, yet be was truly a Ro- man, and enjoyed the rank of a senator under Commodus. He also held several important official situations under Alexander Severus. His History of Rome, from the period of Augustus to Lis own âge, is justly esteemed.—En. t CcbIo sereno pluvia rori similliina, colorisqve argentei, in fo- rum Avgusti dejluxit, quam ego, et si non vidi cum caderet, tamen