248 Mr Dugald Stewart on Ventriloquism. 



Mr Gray, in his comments upon Plato, seems plainly to have 

 given credit to this supposition. " Those" (says he) " who 

 are possessed of this faculty,'' (that is, of fetching a voice from 

 the belly or stomach,) " can manage their voice in so wonder- 

 ful a manner that it shall seem to come from what part they 

 please, not of themselves only, but of any other person in the 

 company, or even from the bottom of a well, down a chimney, 

 from below stairs, &c. &c. of which I myself have been wit- 

 ness *." In what manner this faculty of fetching a voice from 

 the belly or stomach should enable the possessor to work all 

 these apparent miracles, Mr Gray has not attempted to ex- 

 plain. Among the moderns, a different theory has become 

 prevalent, — that this peculiar faculty consists in the power of 

 speaking in the act of inspiration. Hobbes is the earliest 

 author, by whom I have found this idea started : '* A man" 

 (says he) " that has practised to speak by drawing in his breath, 

 (which kind of men in ancient time were called Ventriloqui,) 

 and so make the weakness of his voice seem to proceed, not 

 from the weak impulsion of the organs of speech, but from 

 distance of place, is able to make very many men believe it is 

 a voice from Heaven, whatsoever he pleases to tell them -J*." 

 The same theory has been adopted in the present times by 

 philosophers of the highest name, and has received countenance 

 from some very accurate observers of my own acquaintance. 



* Gray's Works, Edit, by Mathias, vol. ii. p. 424. 



t Hobbes Of a Christian Commonwealth, Chap, xxxvii. — If the ventri- 

 loquist really possesses this power, it is probably much less by weakening 

 the voice, (as Hobbes supposes) than by divesting it of all the common 

 marks of direction and of locality, that so unnatural a modification of 

 speech is rendered subservient to the purposes of the impostor. 



In Plato's Diabgue, entitled Sophista, the following words occur : Ektoc 

 Cvo^BtyyofAtvoy, «c aroToy Eu$ux.ktet. (Plato, Ed. Serrani, vol. i. p. 252. C.) 

 Mr Gray remarks on this passage that Eurycles was an Eyyuar^t/xu^ot, 

 and that those who had the same faculty were called after him Euryclitw. 

 Serranus translates anvov, importunum et ahsurdum. Is it not more rea- 

 sonable to suppose that Plato used the word atottoi in its literal, and, in 

 this case, much more appropriate sense, to denote the distinguishing facul- 

 ty of a ventriloquist, by which he contrives to appear without place or po- 

 sition, or, which comes to the same* thing, to change his appareut place at 

 pleasure : in the words of Seneca, Nusquam est, qui ubique est. — (Sen. 

 Epist. 2.) 



