166 JOURNAL OF THE [july. 



occurrences themselves, nor the superstitious and ignorant con- 

 ditions of mind which attributed to them supernatural origins and 

 saw in them miraculous portents, have been entirely wanting in 

 any generation, — not even our own. Indeed, since I have 

 become interested in this subject, I have taken to cutting from 

 the newspapers of the day, and pasting into the back of one of 

 my very old chronicles of prodigies and monsters, all accounts I 

 have happened upon of wonders in nature approaching in 

 character to those recorded in the musty volume thus turned to 

 scrap-book purposes ; and already I have constructed a strik- 

 ing and startling parallelism both in matter and in spirit. 



But not only has there existed a sort of fetichism and a 

 crude worship of natural phenomena in every age of the world, 

 but there has persisted in every race and people something of 

 the taint imparted to the first of mankind by the father of lies, 

 so that when it comes to merely reporting the bare facts of any 

 case which is somewhat obscure or uncommon in character, 

 ordinary human testimony, is hardly to be trusted ; for mysticism 

 and imagination are found to have taken the place of sober sense 

 and scientific scrutiny. We all know how difficult it is now-a- 

 days to obtain from intelligent spectators, of general truthfulness, 

 absolutely veracious accounts of so-called spirit manifestations 

 or even of the confessed tricks of clever conjurers. What won- 

 der, then, if the people of centuries ago mixed fiction with fact 

 when attempting to record their impressions of the awe-inspiring 

 operations of the elements ? 



As the world whirls on and the sum of human knowledge 

 increases, there is more and more appropriateness in the words 

 of Plutarch, — " As geographers thrust into the extremities of 

 their maps those countries that are unknown to them, remarking 

 at the same time that all beyond is hills of sand and haunts of 

 wild beasts, frozen seas, marshes and mountains that are inacces- 

 sible to human courage or industry ; so, in comparing the lives 

 of illustrious men, when I have passed through those periods of 

 time which may be described with probability, and where history 

 may find firm footing in facts, I may say of the remoter ages, 

 that all beyond is full of prodigy and fiction, the region of poets 

 and fabulists, wrapt in clouds, and unworthy of belief." ' 



In ancient Rome every phenomenon of a character to inspire 



'Life of Theseus. Langhorn^s translation. 



