[ *9 3 
never be loft fight of in our inquiries ; otherwife no- 
velty and the love of the marvellous will be apt to 
mifiead us. On the other hand, the indulgence of 
an extravagant Pyrrhonifm may prove equally 
detrimental in every endeavour to extend the bounds 
offcience. It may prevent the giving due weight to 
matters of real information, and hinder their being 
made ufeful. For my own part, I fhould think it 
an indignity offered to the Royal Society, to lay be- 
fore you any extraordinary phaenomenon, which is 
fupported only by a flight degree of evidence. On 
the contrary, when a number of concurrent circum- 
ftances tend to eftablifh a fad:, we ought not in a 
certain degree to refufe our afifent to it, though fome- 
what out of the common courfe. Thus in the cafe 
before us ; when an unufual difeafe of feveral months 
continuance, and when the patient was fuppofed to 
be reduced to the laft extremity ; when medicines 
and applications of every kind, celebrated by the 
ableft writers and praditioners both antient and mo- 
dern, had been tried with little or no effed, at leaft 
with regard to the rigidity; when during a courfe 
of eledrifing no medicines or applications of any kind 
were made ufe of ; when likewife, during this 
courfe, the patient voided no worms, had no purg- 
ings, eruptions on the fkin, or kindly impoftuma- 
tions, which might have been confidered as critical 
difcharges, and to have brought about the cure; 
when, I fay, none of thefe things happened, and 
the patient under eledrifing only, and that at a very 
fevere feafon of the year, has been reftored to perfed 
health, I cannot refufe my aflent in believing it 
effeded by the power of eledricity. That fo adive 
D 2 a principle, 
