ABSURDITY OF SUPERSTITION. 



las opinions on this subject. The pernicious 

 effects in mines, occasioned by the explosion of 

 hydrogen gas, were formerly imputed to the de 

 mons of the mine. Van Helmont, Bodinus, 

 Strozza, and Luther, attributed thunder and 

 meteors to the devil. Socrates believed he was 

 guided by a demon. Dr.Gudworth, Glanvil, 

 and others, wrote in defence of witchcraft and 

 apparitions. But it would be endless to detail 

 all the foolish opinions which have been imbibed 

 and propagated even by men who pretended to 

 genius and learning. 



Besides the opinions to which I have now 

 adverted, and which have a direct tendency to 

 fill the mind with unnecessary apprehensions, 

 there is also an immense variety of foolish and 

 erroneous opinions which passed current for 

 genuine truths among a great majority of man 

 kind. That a man has one rib less than a wo 

 man, that there is a certain Jew still alive, 

 who has wandered through the world since the 

 crucifixion of Christ, that the coffin of Maho 

 met is suspended in the air between two load 

 stones, that the city of Jerusalem is in the 

 centre of the world, that the tenth wave of the 

 sea is greater and more dangerous than all the 

 rest, that all animals on the land have their 

 corresponding kinds in the sea, that there is a 

 white powder which kills without giving a re 

 port, that the blood of a goat will dissolve a 

 diamond, that all the stars derive their light 

 from the sun, that a candle made of human 

 fat, when lighted, will prevent a person asleep 

 from awaking, with many other similar un 

 founded positions, are regarded as indispu 

 table truths by thousands, whose adherence to 

 tradition and authority, and whose indolence 

 and credulity, prevent them from inquiring, with 

 a manly independence, into the true state and 

 nature of things. 



Such are a few, and but a very few, of the 

 superstitious notions and vain fears by which 

 the great majority of the human race, in every 

 age and country, has been enslaved. To have 

 attempted a complete enumeration of such hal 

 lucinations of the human intellect, would have 

 been vain, and couid only have produced satiety 

 and disgust. That such absurd notions should 

 ever have prevailed, is a most grating and hu 

 miliating thought, when we consider the noble 

 faculties with which man is endowed. That 

 they still prevail, in a great measure, even in our 

 own country, is a striking proof, that we are, 

 as yet, but just emerging from the gloom of in 

 tellectual darkness. The prevalence of such 

 opinions is to be regretted, not only on account 

 s&amp;gt;i the groundless alarms they create, but chiefly 

 on account of the false ideas they inspire with 

 regard to the nature of the Supreme Ruler of 

 the universe, and of his arrangements in the go 

 vernment of the world. While a man, whose 

 /nind is enlightened with true science, perceives 



throughout all nature the most striking evidences 

 of benevolent design, and rejoices in the benig 

 nity of the Great Parent of the universe, while 

 he perceives nothing in the arrangements of the 

 Creator, in any department of his works, which 

 has a direct tendency to produce pain to any in 

 telligent or sensitive existence, the supersti 

 tious man, on the contrary, contemplates the 

 sky, the air, the waters, and the earth, as filled 

 with malicious beings, ever ready to haunt him 

 with terror, or to plot his destruction The one 

 contemplates the Deity directing the movements 

 of the material world, by fixed and invariable 

 laws, which none but himself can counteract or 

 suspend ; the other views them as continually 

 liable to be controlled by capricious and malig 

 nant beings, to gratify the most trivial and un 

 worthy passions. How very different, of course, 

 must be their conceptions and feelings respect 

 ing the attributes and government of the Su 

 preme Being ! While the one views Him as an 

 infinitely wise and benevolent Father, whose 

 paternal care and goodness inspire confidence 

 and affection ; the other must regard him, in a 

 certain degree, as a capricious being, and offer 

 up his adorations under the influence of fear. 



Such notions have likewise an evident ten 

 dency to habituate the mind to false principles 

 and processes of reasoning, which unfit it for 

 forming legitimate conclusions in its researches 

 after truth. They chain down the understand 

 ing, and sink it into the most abject and sordid 

 state ; and prevent it from rising to those noble 

 and enlarged views which revelation and modern 

 science exhibit, of the order, the extent, and the 

 economy of the universe. It is lamentable to 

 reflect, that so many thousands of beings en 

 dowed with the faculty of reason, who cannot 

 by any means be persuaded of the motion of the 

 earth, and the distances and magnitudes of the 

 celestial bodies, should swallow, without the 

 least hesitation, opinions ten thousand times 

 more improbable ; and find no difficulty in be 

 lieving that an old woman can transform herseh&quot; 

 into a hare, and wing her way through the air 

 on a broomstick. 



But what is worst of all, such notions almost 

 invariably lead to the perpetration of deeds of 

 cruelty and injustice. Of the truth of this po 

 sition, the history of almost every nation affords 

 the most ample proof. Many of the barbarities 

 committed in pagan countries, both in their re 

 ligious worship and their civil polity, and most 

 of the cruelties inflicted on the victims of the 

 Romish inquisition, have flowed from this 

 source.* Nor are the annals of our own coun- 



In the duchy of Lorraine, 900 females were dell 

 vered over to the flames, for being witches, by one 

 inquisitor alone. Under this accusation, it is reck 

 oned that upwards of thirty thousand women have 

 perished by the hands of the Inquisition.&quot; 

 tim Unmasked,&quot; by Puigblanch. 



