304 THE PHILOSOPHY 



night. Some of thofe hairy caterpillars •which live in fociety upon 

 nettles, likewlfe emit an excrementitious matter of a red colour. A 

 thoufand examples of the fame kind might be enumerated. Hence 

 the notion of miraculous or portentous fhowers of blood fliould be 

 forever banifhed from the minds of men. 



I would not have faid fo much upon this fubjedt, if I had not 

 confidered it to be the duty of every man, when it is in his power, 

 to remove popular prejudices, efpecially when they have a diredl ten- 

 dency to terrify the minds of men, and to cherifli ignorance and fu- 

 perftition. 



We not only read of fhowers, but, what feems to be more unac- 

 countable, of fountains running occafionally with blood inftead of 

 water. Sir David Dalrymple, one of the Senators of the College 

 of Juftice in Scotland, a gentleman not more diftinguifhed by his 

 learning and deep refearch, than by his fcrupulous integrity and pro- 

 priety of condud, relates, in his Annals of Scotland *, upon the au- 

 thority of Hoveden and Benedidtus Abbas, that, in the year 1 184, 



* A fountain near Kilwinning f, in the fliire of Air, ran blood for 



* eight days and eight nights without intermiflion. This portent 

 ' had frequently appeared, but never for fo long a fpace. In the 



* opinion of the people of the country, it prognofticated the eifufion 



* of blood. Benedi(3:us Abbas, and R. Hoveden, relate the ftory of 

 ' this portent with perfed credulity. Benedidus Abbas improtes a 

 ' little upon his brother ; for he is pofitive that the fountain flowed 

 ' with pire blood.' If Kilwinning, like Aix, had poffeffed fuch a 

 philofopher as Peirefc, the rednefs of the water, if ever it did appear, 

 would have received a moft fatisfadory explanation. 



Transformations 



* Vol. I. page 29S. 

 ■f A Scottifli village. 



