Sketches of Imposture, Deception, and Credulity

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

Effects of Incredulity and Credulity—Knowledge supposed to be Remembrance—Purpose of this Volume—Progress of rational Belief—Resemblance of Error to Truth—Contagious Nature of Excitement—Improved State of the Human Mind in Modern Times.

Incredulity has been said, by Aristotle, to be the foundation of all wisdom. The truth of this assertion might safely be disputed; but, on the other hand, to say that credulity is the foundation of all folly, is an assertion more consonant to experience, and may be more readily admitted; and the contemplation of this subject forms a curious chapter in the history of the human mind.

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A certain extent of credulity, or, more properly, belief, may, indeed, be considered as absolutely necessary to the well-being of social communities; for universal scepticism would be universal distrust. Nor could knowledge ever have arrived at its present amazing height, had every intermediate step in the ladder of science, from profound ignorance and slavery of intellect, been disputed with bigoted incredulity.

It has been said, that all knowledge is remembrance, and all ignorance forgetfulness,—alluding to the universal knowledge which, in the opinion of the schoolmen, our first father, Adam, possessed before the fall,—and that the subsequent invention of arts and sciences was only a partial recovery or recollection, as it were, of what had been originally well known. The undefined aspirations of many minds, to seek for what is distant and least understood, in preference to that near at hand and more in unison with our general state of knowledge, seem to favour this idea.

It will be the endeavour of the following pages to show that the credulity of the many—in some cases synonymous with the foolish—has been, from the beginning, most readily imposed upon by the clever and designing few. It is a curious task to investigate the gradual developement of rational belief, as exhibited in the proportionate disbelief and exposure of those things which, in earlier ages, were considered points of faith, and to doubt which was a dangerous heresy; and how, at first, the arts and sciences were weighed down and the advantages to be derived from them neutralized, by the fallacies of misconception or fanaticism. We are, in spite of ourselves, the creatures of imagination, and the victims of prejudice, which has been justly called the wrong bias of the soul, that effectually keeps it from coming near the path of truth; a task the more difficult to accomplish, since error often bears so near a resemblance to it. Error, indeed, always borrows something of truth, to make her more acceptable 

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to the world, seldom appearing in her native deformity; and the subtilty of grand deceivers has always been shown in grafting their greatest errors on some material truths, and with such dexterity, that Ithuriel’s spear alone, whose touch

“No falsehood can endure,”

would have power to reveal them.

Many, and even contradictory, causes might be assigned for the constant disposition towards credulity; the mind is prone to believe that for which it most anxiously wishes; difficulties vanish in desire, which thus becomes frequently the main cause of success. Thus, when Prince Henry, believing his father dead, had taken the crown from his pillow, the King in reproach said to him,[1]

“Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought.”

Belief is often granted on trust to such things as are above common comprehension, by some, who would thus flatter themselves with a superiority of judgment; on the other hand, what all around put faith in, the remaining few will, from that circumstance, easily believe. This is seen in times of popular excitement, when an assertion, quite at variance with common sense or experience, will run like a wild-fire through a city, and be productive of most serious results. It would appear that this springs from that inherent power of imitation, which is singularly exemplified even in particular kinds of disease,—comitial, as they were called by the Romans, from their frequent occurrence in assemblies of the people,—and, more fatally, when it impels us to “follow a multitude to do evil.”

After a long and dreary period of ignorance, the nations of Europe began to arouse themselves from the lethargy in which they had been plunged; religious enthusiasm then awakened the ardour of heroism, and the wild

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 but fascinating spirit of chivalry—whose actions were the offspring of disinterested valour, that looked for no reward but the smile of favouring beauty or grateful tear of redressed misfortune,—taught the world that humanity and benevolence were no less meritorious than undaunted courage and athletic strength.

Knowledge, however, advanced with slow and timid steps from the cells of the monks, in which she had been obliged to conceal herself, whilst her rival, Ignorance, had been exalted to palaces and thrones. From the period which succeeded that twilight of the Goths and Vandals, when all the useful arts were obscured and concealed by indolent indifference, we shall find that each succeeding age happily contributed to enlighten the world by the revival and gradual improvement of the arts and sciences; a corresponding elevation in the general sagacity of the human mind was the natural consequence: this can readily be shown by the proportionate decrease of the numerous methods by which specious impostors lived upon the credulity of others.

Few, it is to be hoped, in the present day seek consolation for disappointment in the mysteries of astrological judgments, or attribute their ill-success in life to an evil conjunction of the stars, as revealed by the deluding horoscope of a caster of nativities.

That age has at length passed away, when the search after the philosopher’s stone, or the universal solvent, terminated a life of incredible toil and hopeless expectation, in poverty and contempt. But there are still many who neglect the experience of the past, and, anxious to know their future fate, seek it in the fortune-teller’s cards; or, unhappily, a prey to some of those ills that flesh is heir to, would rather seek to expedite their cure by some specious but empirical experiment, than wait for the slower but surer results of time and experience.