758 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



At this point a very obvious objection arises and deserves full 

 and candid consideration. It may be said that critical skepticism 

 carried to the length suggested is historical pyrrhonism ; that if 

 we are to altogether discredit an ancient or a modern historian, 

 because he has assumed fabulous matter to be true, it will be as 

 well to give up paying any attention to history. It may be said, 

 and with great justice, that Eginhard's " Life of Charlemagne " is 

 none the less trustworthy because of the astounding revelation of 

 credulity, of lack of judgment, and even of respect for the eighth 

 commandment, which he has unconsciously made in the " History 

 of the Translation of the Blessed Martyrs Marcellinus and Paul." 

 Or, to go no further back than the last number of this review, 

 surely that excellent lady. Miss Strickland, is not to be refused all 

 credence because of the myth about the second James's remains, 

 which she seems to have unconsciously invented. 



Of course this is perfectly true. I am afraid there is no man 

 alive whose witness could be accepted, if the condition precedent 

 were proof that he had never invented and promulgated a myth. 

 In the minds of all of us there are little places here and there, like 

 the indistinguishable spots on a rock which give foothold to moss 

 or stone-crop ; on which, if the germ of a myth fall, it is certain to 

 grow, without in the least degree affecting our accuracy or truth- 

 fulness elsewhere. Sir Walter Scott knew that he could not repeat 

 a story without, as he said, " giving it a new hat and stick."' Most 

 of us differ from Sir Walter only in not knowing about this tend- 

 ency of the mythopceic faculty to break out unnoticed. But it is 

 also perfectly true that the mythopceic faculty is not equally active 

 on all minds, nor in all regions and under all conditions of the 

 same mind. David Hume was certainly not so liable to tempta- 

 tion as the Venerable Bede, or even as some recent historians who 

 could be mentioned ; and the most imaginative of debtors, if he 

 owes five pounds, never makes an obligation to pay a hundred out 

 of it. The rule of common sense is prima facie to trust a witness 

 in all matters in which neither his self-interest, his passions, his 

 prejudices, nor that love of the marvelous, which is inherent to a 

 greater or less degree in all mankind, are strongly concerned; 

 and, when they are involved, to require corroborative evidence in 

 exact proportion to the contravention of probability by the thing 

 testified. 



Now, in the Gadarene affair, I do not think I am unreasonably 

 skeptical if I say that the existence of demons who can be trans- 

 ferred from a man to a pig does thus contravene probability. Let 

 me be perfectly candid. I admit I have no a priori objection to 

 offer. There are physical things, such as tce^iicB and trichince, 

 which can be transferred from men to pigs, and vice versa, and 

 which do undoubtedly produce most diabolical and deadly effects 



