CENTURY X. 513 



there is less credit to be given to those things, except 

 it be by working of evil spirits. 



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 ex 

 periment of some of them ourselves, as we do com 

 monly in other titles, the truth is, that these effects 

 of imagination upon other bodies have so little 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 precedent 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 patient s 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 



