FAITH AND CEEDULITY 75 



der could withstand fire, but an old Catholic traveler 

 in the sixteenth century says he caught one and put 

 it into the fire, and it died. But he believed the 

 story of the basilisk ; namely, that its look was 

 fatal. He said, though, that it was necessary for the 

 animal to look its victim in the eye at a certain dis- 

 tance. He saw a basilisk, but it was dead. If it 

 had been living, probably he would not have been 

 as ready to tests its powers as he was those of the 

 salamander. Like Dr. Johnson, he was not credu- 

 lous unless his credulity could take a superstitious 

 turn. 



A good instance of the credulity of science in its 

 youth is furnished by Albert Magnus, who in his 

 book upon animals, in the sixteenth century, says 

 that eels leave the water in the night, invade fields 

 and gardens, and feed upon peas and lentils. A 

 Prench missionary, writing on natural history in the 

 seventeenth century, says of the humming bird that 

 it passes the winter in a torpid state, hanging by 

 its feet from the under side of a limb in the woods. 

 The credulity of country people in reference to the 

 divining-rod, or the efficacy of twigs of the beech or 

 the willow in the hands of certain persons in locat- 

 ing hidden springs or water-veins, etc., is equally 

 childish. 



Credulity and superstition have to do mainly 

 with the visible material universe ; faith with the 

 spiritual invisible world. 



Faith is, as Amiel says in his " Journal," " certi- 

 tude without proof," and is therefore opposed to 



