TRAVELS 
-7f 
which they at firft are unwilling to believe, renders it familiar to- 
their thoughts, and in the end commands the belief of the cre¬ 
dulous. The whole aggregate of fociety is made up of wife men 
and fools. The w 7 ife men proudly reject a dodtrine which cannot 
furnifh reafons for pretended fadls ; a dodtrine, the reality oi w hich 
can be referred to no known caufe, and fenfible to w 7 hat a pitch 
of refinement impofture may be carried, they are prone to doubt 
every thing, and are for ever afraid of being duped. The half- 
wife are in many cafes more fceptical than even the wile; 
“ a little knowledge is a dangerous thing they will never talk or 
reafon on their belief: it is a maxim with them to believe as little 
as poffible, and thus they fet afide from levity what the former 
difapproved from depth of underftanding. The fools, however, 
are actually the moll dangerous to all founders of new dodtrines, 
fuch as we have had under our confideration : they fondly embrace 
whatever addrelfes itfelf more to the imagination than to the powers 
of reafon ; they have a greater relifh for wdiat is fupernatural than 
for what is philofophical: but fhould they take it into their heads 
to aferibe the phenomena that refult from the experiments before 
them, to the agency of the devil, the naturalift, w'hether he be a 
magnetifer or phiiofopher, will be judged w T orthy of damnation, 
and pafs all the reft of his life for a magician. It is probable the 
Baron Silfverkielm w T as not difpleafed at the arrival of a number 
of ftrangers, w T ho furnifhed him with a pretext for reviving his doc¬ 
trines, as well as for repeating his experiments on different inha¬ 
bitants, who, but to oblige ns, would not have fubmitted to his 
difeipline. 
