140 NATURAL HISTORY. 



for they were both my father s servants, and lie had 

 never played in the house before. 1 The juggler also 

 did cause a garter to be held up, and took upon him to 

 know that such an one should point in such a place of 

 the garter ; as it should be near so many inches to the 

 longer end, and so many to the shorter ; and still he 

 did it, by first telling the imaginer, and after bidding 

 the actor think. 



Having told this relation, not for the weight 

 thereof, but because it doth handsomely open the 

 nature of the question, I return to that 1 said ; that 

 experiments of imagination must be practised by 

 others, and not by a man s self. For there be three 

 means to fortify belief : the first is experience ; the 

 second is reason; and the third is authority: and 

 that of these which is far the most potent, is au 

 thority ; for belief upon reason or experience will 

 stagger. 



947. For authority, it is of two kinds ; belief in an 

 art, and belief in a man. And for things of belief in 

 an art, a man may exercise them by himself; but for 

 belief in a man, it must be by another. Therefore if a 

 man believe in astrology, and find a figure prosperous ; 

 or believe in natural magic, and that a ring with such 

 a stone, or such a piece of a living creature, carried, 



1 The psychology, if it may be so called, of juggling is an exceedingly 

 curious matter. The common explanation of tricks of the kind of that 

 described in the text, namely, that the juggler forces a particular card 

 on the person who is to choose, and that the latter remains unconscious of 

 the compulsion put upon him, is, I suppose, correct. Bacon speaks only 

 of thinking of a card, not of drawing one from the. pack; but as the jug 

 gler had with him a pair (or pack) of cards, it may be presumed that the 

 thought was manifested in an overt act. So, too, in the garter trick. 



