FALLACIES OF TESTIMONY. 581 



Xow, this constructive process becomes peculiarly obvious, m a 

 comparison of narratives given by the believers in mesmerism, spirit- 

 ualism, and similar " occult " agencies, when there has been time for 

 the building-up of the edifice, with contemporary records of the 

 events, made perhaps by the very narrators themselves. Every thing 

 which tends to prove the reality of the occult influence is exagger- 

 ated or distorted ; every thing which would help to explain it away 

 is quietly (no doubt quite unintentionally) dropped out. And convic- 

 tions thus come to be honestly entertained which are in complete dis- 

 accordance with the original facts. This source of fallacy was spe- 

 cially noticed by Bacon ; 



" "When the mind is once pleased with certain things, it draws all others to 

 consent, and go along with them; and though the power and number of in- 

 stances that make for the contrary are greater, yet it either attends not to them, 

 or despises them, or else removes them by a distinction, with a strong and per- 

 nicious prejudice to maintain the authority of the first choice unviolated. And 

 hence in most cases of superstition, as of astrology, dreams, omens, judgments, 

 etc., those who find pleasure in such kind of vanities always observe where the 

 event answers, iut slight and pass hy the instances where it fails, which are 

 much the more numerous.^'' Novum Oeganon. 



Of the manner in which this constructive process will build up a 

 completely ideal representation of a personality (with or without a nu- 

 cleus of reality), which shall gain implicit acceptance among a whole 

 people, and be currently accepted by the world at large, we have a 

 " pregnant instance " in the William Tell tradition. For the progres- 

 sive narrowing-down of his claims, which has resulted from the com- 

 plete discordance between the actions traditionally attributed to him 

 and trustworthy contemporary history, leaves even his personality 

 questionable ; while the turning-up of the apple-story in Icelandic 

 sagas and Hindoo myths seems to put it beyond doubt that this, at 

 any rate, is drawn from far older sources. The reality of this process 

 of gradual accretion and modification, in accordance with current 

 ideas in regard to the character of an individual or the bearing of an 

 event, cannot now be doubted by any philosophic student of history. 

 And the degree in which such constructions involve ascriptions of 

 supernatural power can be shown in many instances to depend upon 

 the prevalent notions entertained as to what the individual might be 

 expected to do. 



No figure is more prominent in the early ecclesiastical history of 

 Scotland than thaj of St. Columba, "the Apostle of the Scoto-Irish," 

 in the sixth century. Having left Ireland, his native country, through 

 having, by his fearless independence, been brought into collision with 

 its civil powers, and been excommunicated by its Church-synods, he 

 migrated to Scotland in the year 563, and acquired by royal donation 

 the island of lona, which was a peculiarly favorable centre for his 

 evangelizing labors, carried on for more than thirty years among the 



