The Minister Is Now Living By Whom
The Practice Was Abolished.
They have still among them a great number of charms for the cure of
different diseases; they are all invocations, perhaps transmitted
to them from the times of popery, which increasing knowledge will
bring into disuse.
They have opinions, which cannot be ranked with superstition,
because they regard only natural effects. They expect better crops
of grain, by sowing their seed in the moon's increase. The moon
has great influence in vulgar philosophy. In my memory it was a
precept annually given in one of the English Almanacks, 'to kill
hogs when the moon was increasing, and the bacon would prove the
better in boiling.'
We should have had little claim to the praise of curiosity, if we
had not endeavoured with particular attention to examine the
question of the Second Sight. Of an opinion received for centuries
by a whole nation, and supposed to be confirmed through its whole
descent, by a series of successive facts, it is desirable that the
truth should be established, or the fallacy detected.
The Second Sight is an impression made either by the mind upon the
eye, or by the eye upon the mind, by which things distant or future
are perceived, and seen as if they were present. A man on a
journey far from home falls from his horse, another, who is perhaps
at work about the house, sees him bleeding on the ground, commonly
with a landscape of the place where the accident befalls him.
Another seer, driving home his cattle, or wandering in idleness, or
musing in the sunshine, is suddenly surprised by the appearance of
a bridal ceremony, or funeral procession, and counts the mourners
or attendants, of whom, if he knows them, he relates the names, if
he knows them not, he can describe the dresses.
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