I04 On Popular Illufions. 



which might have been harmlefsly employed itr 

 compofing a rebus or a paraphrafe, have pro- 

 duced very ferious perplexities by their applica- 

 tion to philofophy. At lead nobody will dif- 

 pute, that the theorift as well as the poet, may be 

 qften faid to 



. . Give to airy nothing 



A local habitation and a name. 



The contemplation of literary abfurdity is far 

 from being vain or ufelefs; on the contrary it is 

 an indifpenfable objeft, to every one who wifhes 

 to make a proper ufe of books. To be con- 

 vinced of this, we need only to caft our eyes, on 

 the produiftions of thofe men who extraft, with- 

 out doubting, from writers of eminence j where 

 the underftanding is fhocked by lies of long 

 defcent, and blunders of venerable antiquity ; 

 where the author is fatisfied with having made 

 up a jufium volumeHy and the reader is content, 

 for his own fake, to miftake knowledge of books 

 for knowledge of things. 



Demonologifts have always afferted, that it is 

 impoffible to weaken the credit of their fads 

 without deflroying the foundations of hiftory; 

 and it is certain, that the abundant evidence 

 produced in fupport of manifeft contradiflions, 

 and phyfical impofTibilities, tends to leffen our 

 confidence in hiftorical narrations. But when 

 we inveftigate demonological fadls a little more 

 clofely^ when we trace the fame hiftory through 



many 



