CENTURY X. 143 



The experiments which may certainly demon 

 strate the power of imagination upon other bodies, 

 are few or none : for the experiments of witchcraft 

 are no clear proofs ; for that they may be by a tacit 

 operation of malign spirits. We shall therefore be 

 forced in this inquiry to resort to new experiments ; 

 wherein we can give only directions of trials, and 

 not any positive experiments. And if any man 

 think that we ought to have stayed till we had 

 made experiment of some of them ourselves, (as we 

 do commonly in other titles,) the truth is, that these 

 effects of imagination upon other bodies have so lit 

 tle credit with us, as we shall try them at leisure : 

 but in the mean time we will lead others the way. 



951. When you work by the imagination of another, 

 it is necessary that he by whom you work have a pre 

 cedent opinion of you that you can do strange things, 

 or that you are a man of art, as they call it ; for else 

 the simple affirmation to another that this or that shall 

 be, can work but a weak impression in his imagination. 



952. It were good, because you cannot discern fully 

 of the strength of imagination in one man more than 

 another, that you did use the imagination of more than 

 one ; that so you may light upon a strong one. As 

 if a physician should tell three or four of his patients 

 servants, that their master shall surely recover. 



953. The imagination of one that you shall use 

 (such is the variety of men s minds) cannot be always 

 alike constant and strong ; and if the success follow 

 not speedily, it will faint and leese strength. To 



