FALLACIES OF TESTLMONY. 255 



be doubted by any philosophic student of history. And the 

 degree in which such constiuctions involve ascriptions of super- 

 natural power, can be shown in many instances to depend upon 

 the prevalent notions entertained as to what the individual might 

 be expected to do. 



No figure is more prominent in the early ecclesiastical history 

 of Scodand, than that of St. Columba, "the Apostle of the Scoto- 

 Irish," in the sixth century. Having left Ireland, his native 

 country, through having by his fearless independence been brought 

 into collision with its civil powers, and been excommunicated by 

 its church-synods, he migrated to Scotland in the year 563, and 

 acquired by royal donation the island of lona, which was a 

 peculiarly favourable centre for his evangelizing labours, carried 

 on for more than thirty years among the Picts and Scots, and also 

 among the northern Irish, No fewer than thirty-two separate 

 religious foundations among the Scots, twenty-one among the 

 Picts, and thirty-seven among the Irish, many of which occupied 

 conspicuous places in the monastic history of the earlier Middle 

 Ages, seem to have been planted by himself or his immediate 

 disciples ; the most celel)rated of all these being the college of the 

 Culdees at lona, which kept alive the flame of learning during a 

 prolonged period of general ignorance and superstition, and be- 

 came a centre of religious influence, which extended far beyond 

 the range of its founder's personal labours, and caused his memory 

 to be held in the deepest veneration for centuries afterwards. 

 The point on which I here desire to lay stress, is the cofitinuity of 

 kistory, as trustworthy as any such history can be ; the incidents 

 of St. Columba's life having been originally recorded in the con- 

 temporary fasti of his religious foundation, and transmitted in 

 unbroken succession to Abbot Adamnan, who first compiled a 

 complete Vita of his great predecessor, of which there still exists 

 a manuscript copy, whose authenticity there is no reason to doubt, 

 which dates back to the early part of the eighth century, not much 

 more than one hundred years after St. Columba's death. Now, 

 Adamnan's Vita credits its subject with the possession of every 

 kind of miraculous power. The saint prophesied events of all 

 kinds, trivial as well as grave, from battles and violent deaths, 

 down to the spilling of an inkhorn, the falling of a book, the 



