350 DISEASES CLASS III. 2. 2. 4. 



but not even a verbal analogy to the preceding propositions. 

 Thus a rustic devotee said to his priest, u I have often wonder- 

 ed, why God Almighty called the first man Adam?" " Don't 

 you know," replied the teacher, " that A is the first letter of the 

 alphabet?" a Aye, so it is," answered the contented inquirer. 



Another kind of false reasoning is called by logicians a logical 

 vice; and another kind arises from the first proposition being 

 untrue in respect to its existence: but as all these, and perhaps 

 many other sources of false reasonings, may be resolved into the 

 mistaken use of ideas of words, or general terms, instead of ideas 

 of the things, or parts of things, which they ought to suggest; 

 they belong properly to this article of ratiocinatio verbosa: 

 while the rare faculty of reasoning without words by comparing 

 ideas of things, as in the invention of new machines, and other 

 new discoveries, distinguishes the philosopher from the sophist. 



M. M. Children should be permitted to use their hands early 

 in their infancy, and should be supplied with pencils, pens, and 

 various tools; by which they will acquire accurate ideas of ex- 

 ternal things by the organ of touch, at the same time that they 

 acquire words; and will thence be less liable to be seriously de- 

 ceived by general terms, or by the double meanings of words, 

 or of sentences, or lastly by false propositions or inconclusive de- 

 ductions; and will thus be enabled to compare the analogies of 

 things, and to think without words; the faculty, which constitutes 

 genius, and which so few possess! 



4. Credulitas. Credulity. Life is short, opportunities of 

 knowledge rare; our senses are fallacious, our reasonings un- 

 certain; man therefore struggles with perpetual error from the 

 cradle to the coffin. He is necessitated to correct experiment 

 by analogy, and analogy by experiment; and not always to rest 

 satisfied in the belief of facts even with this two-fold testimony,, 

 till future opportunities, or the observations of others, concur in 

 their support. 



Ignorance and credulity have ever been companions, and have 

 misled and enslaved mankind; philosophy has in all ages en- 

 deavoured to oppose their progress, and to loosen the shackles 

 they had imposed; philosophers have on this account been called 

 unbelievers: unbelievers of what? of the fictions of fancy, of 

 witchcraft, hobgoblins, apparitions, vampires, fairies; of the 

 influence of stars on human actions, miracles wrought by the 

 bones of saints, the flights of ominous birds, the predictions 

 from the bowels of dying animals, expounders of dreams, for- 

 tune-tellers, conjurors, modern prophets, necromancy, cheiro- 

 mancy, animal magnetism, metallic tractors, with endless variety 



