138 NATURAL HISTORY. 



such an one shall recover a sickness, or the like,) it 

 doth help any thing to the effecting- of the thing it 

 self. And here again we must warily distinguish; 

 for it is not meant (as hath been partly said before) 

 that it should help by making a man more stout, or 

 more industrious ; (in which kind constant belief 

 doth much;) but merely by a secret operation, or 

 binding, or changing the spirit of another : and in 

 this it is hard (as we began to say) to make any 

 new experiment ; for I cannot command myself to 

 believe what I will, and so no trial can be made. 

 Nay, it is worse ; for whatsoever a man imagineth 

 doubtingly, or with fear, must needs do hurt, if 

 imagination have any power at all ; for a man 

 represented that oftener that he feareth, than the 

 contrary. 



The help therefore is, for a man to work by an 

 other, in whom he may create belief, and not by 

 himself; until himself have found by experience, 

 that imagination doth prevail; for then experience 

 worketh in himself belief; if the belief that such a 

 thing shall be, be joined with a belief that his im 

 agination may procure it. 



946. For example : I related one time to a man that 

 was curious and vain enough in these things, that I 

 saw a kind of juggler, that had a pair of cards, and 

 would tell a man what card he thought. This pre 

 tended learned man told me it was a mistaking in me ; 

 &quot;for,&quot; said he, &quot;it was not the knowledge of the man s 



