400 UNIVERSAL ERUDITION. 



true, that we fee in nature many effects, the 

 caufes of which the moft profound and fagaci- 

 ous philoibphy has not been able to difcover. 

 All thefe have been ranged under the dominion 

 of fympathy, and the vifionaries and mounte- 

 banks have affumed full powers, where philo- 

 Ibphers have prudently been filent. They have 

 invented lympathetic cures for wounds and other 

 diforders, fympathetic powders, &c. &c. They 

 have deprived both men and horfes of all power 

 of motion in the middle of a chace , have cauf- 

 ed convulfive or fwooning fits, and perform- 

 ed a thoufand -like matters, at an immenfe 

 diftance. We will here afiTume an affirmative 

 tone, without fear of being thought prefump- 

 tuous. Reft allured, reader, that there is no 

 fuch thing as fympathy, properly fo called, and 

 in the manner thefe quacks underftand the term. 

 No one body can ever act upon another, in any 

 manner whatever, at a very great diftance, and 

 where all communication is interrupted by the 

 air, or other intervening bodies. It is impof- 

 fible to reduce into fyftem an art or fcience, or 

 rather a chimera that is founded on no one prin- 

 ciple known to any mortal upon earth. We, 

 therefore, rank what Sir -Kenelm Digby, and 

 many others before and after him, have wrote on 

 this fubject, with the frivolous and pretended 

 arts. 



XVIII. It ftiould feem, that it is on fuch 

 books as thefe, which treat on fictitious and 



dangerous 



