XXXV. p. 244.

CREDIBILITY OP THE MARVELLOUS. 15
his veracity, would have been sufficient to have placed the matter beyond a doubt."*
There is still one cause which diminishes and destroys much of the improbability of marvellous events: it is the facility which one finds in stripping these events of every thing monstrous, such as at first provoked a challenge. In order to effect this, it is always necessary to allow for that spirit of exaggeration peculiar to the human mind. It is ignorance which prepares credulity to receive prodigies and apparent miracles ; curiosity excites ; pride interests ; the love of the marvellous misleads ; anticipa- tion carries us on ; fear subdues ; and enthusiasm intoxi- cates us ; whilst chance, that is to say, a succession of events, the connection of which we do not perceive, and which also permits us to attribute effects to erroneous causes, seconding all these agents of error, sports with human credulity.
Apparent miracles have been produced by the science, or by the address of able men, who, in order to rule the people, have worked upon their credulity ; or the same individuals have made use of those prodigies which strike the eyes of the vulgar ; of those real or apparent miracles, the existence of which is rooted in their minds. Both cases will enter into our discussions. We will develop also the progress of a class of men, who, founding their empire upon the marvellous, are anxious
* This was one of those sports of nature, which are not unfre- quently seen, and which cannot be reasoned upon. As it may be a solitary instance of the kind, there might have been indeed, and properly, much doubt respecting the credibility of the narrative mentioning it, had the phenomenon not been seen, and the nature of it hnrestigated by those well qualified for the task. — Ed.
16 CREDIBILITY OF THE MARVELLOUS.
that it should be recognised in every thing; and as anxious to dupe the stupid multitude, who so easily consent to see the marvellous every where. .
We shall narrow also the domain of the Occult Sciences within its true limits ; the principal end of our investi- gations, if we can exactly point out the causes, which, with the eflforts of Science and the works of Nature, concur in producing apparent mirades, or even in deter- mining the importance, and solving the nature of the prodigies which thaumaturgists employ, prompt to bolster up their real powerlessness by the eflforts of their ingenuity.
In this discussion, we shall not be afiraid of multiplying examples, nor of hearing the reader exclaim : I know all that ! He, doubtless, may know it ; but has he deduced from it the consequences ? It is not enough to offer a plausible explanation of some solitary facts : we must collect and compare a considerable mass of them, in order to be able to draw the conclusion, that, as in each branch of our system, our explanations tend to preserve the foundation of truth, and to remove the marvellous from a great number of events, it is extremely probable this system has truth for its foundation, and that there are no facts to which it may not apply.
CAUSES OF HISTOaiCAI. FICTIONS. 17