126 CAVE OF TROI'HONIUS. 



That the magical slumbers, dreams, and visions, which 

 were produced in the Cave of Trophonius, were the effect of 

 some powerful narcotic acting upon the body after the mind 

 had been predisposed by a certain train of ideas, seems now 

 correctly supposed; and to some ingenious mechanism may 

 be attributed the mystery of the same cave. Its entrance was 

 too narrow to admit the passage of a man; ye% when once 

 his knees had entered, the whole body was rapidly drawn 

 within. To the mechanism that acted upon the votary was 

 added, on this occasion, some other which enlarged the open- 

 ing.* Thus the progress of science enables us to account 

 for many of the supposed miracles of the Heathens; and it is 

 wiser, therefore, to conclude that they possessed many of the 

 secrets of science, than to accuse of falsehood so many ac- 

 counts, of which the advancement of knowledge has caused 

 the wonder and impossibility to disappear. 



* Salverte. 



