D. Rolleston, "Lucian and Medi- of Medicine, VIII, 49-58, 72-84.

cine," 1915, 23 pp., reprinted from * See the close of Nigrinus.
IX ATTACKS UPON SUPERSTITION 285
Our chapter which set out to note cases of scepticism Inevitable
in regard to superstition has ended by including a great gHng"of '
deal of such superstition. The sceptics themselves seem scepticism
, T • . • 1 ^"^ super-
credulous on some pomts, and Lucian s satire perhaps more stition.
reveals than refutes the prevalence of superstition among even the highly educated. The same is true of other literary satirists of the Roman Empire whose jibes against the astrologers and their devotees only attest the popularity of the art and who themselves very probably meant only to ridicule its more extreme pretensions and were perhaps at bottom themselves believers in the fundamentals of the art. Our authors to some extent, as we have pointed out, pro- vided an arsenal of arguments from which later Christian writers took weapons for their assaults upon pagan magic and astrology. But sometimes subsequent writers confused scepticism with credulity, and the influence of our authors upon them became just the opposite of what they intended. Thus Ammianus Marcellinus, the soldier-historian of the falling Roman Empire upon whom Gibbon placed so much reliance, was so attached to divination that he even quoted its arch-opponent, Cicero, in support of it. For he actually concludes his discussion of the subject in these words : "Wherefore in this as in other matters Tully says most admirably, 'Signs of future events are shown by the gods.' " 1
But in order to conclude our chapter on scepticism with Lucian on a less obscurantist passage, let us return to Lucian. His J^jg^Q^y essay. How to Write History, gives serious expression to those ideals of truth and impartiality which also lie behind his mockery of impostors and the over-credulous. "The historian's one task," in his estimation, "is to tell the thing as it happened." He should be "fearless, incorruptible, in- dependent, a believer in frankness, ... an impartial judge, kind to all but too kind to none." "He has to make of his brain a mirror, unclouded, bright, and true of surface." "Facts are not to be collected at haphazard but with careful, ^ Rerum gestarum libri qui supersunt, XXI, i, 14.
286 MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap, ix
laborious, repeated investigation." "Prefer the disinterested account." ^ Such sentences and phrases as these reveal a scientific and critical spirit of high order and seem a vast improvement upon the frailty of Cicero's historical criticism. But how far Lucian would have been able to follow his own advice is perhaps another matter.
^The wording of these excerpts is that of Fowler's translation.