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Sketches of imposture, deception, and credulity

Name: Sketches of imposture, deception, and credulity
Author: R. A. Davenport

by R. A. Davenport

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Subjects

Impostors and imposture Common fallacies

In: History - Other·Psychiatry/Psychology

Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #61993.

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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.

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 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 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.

The knowledge of the origin of the ancient oracles is lost in the distance of time; yet it seems reasonable to suppose, that traditionary accounts and confused recollections of the revelations graciously vouchsafed to Noah, to Abraham, and the Patriarchs, more especially Moses, may have been the foundation of these oracles, which were venerated in ancient times; and established in temples, which were, in some instances, supposed to be even the abode of the gods themselves: thus, Apollo was supposed to take up his occasional residence at Delphos, Diana at Ephesus, and Minerva at Athens.

The manner of prophecy was various, but that employed by oracles enjoyed the greatest repute; because they were believed to proceed, in a most especial manner, from the gods themselves. Every thing of essential consequence being, therefore, referred to them by the heads of states, oracles obtained a powerful influence over the minds of the people; and this popular credulity offered tempting opportunities to the priests for carrying on very lucrative impostures, nor did they disdain or neglect to take advantage of those opportunities. Added to this, the different functions of the gods, and the different and often opposite parts which they were made to take in human affairs by the priests and poets, were plentiful sources of superstitious rites, and therefore of emolument to those who, in consequence either of office or pretension, were supposed to have immediate communications with the deity in whose temples they presided.

Much has been written on this subject; and some have even gone so far as to suppose that Divine permission was granted to certain demons, or evil spirits, to inhabit pagan shrines, and thence, by ambiguous answers, to deceive, and often to punish, those who sought by their influence to read the forbidden volume of futurity.

This doctrine was strenuously opposed by Van Dale; and Mœbius (of Leipsic), although opposed to Van Dale’s opinion, allows that oracles did not cease to grant responses immediately at the coming of Christ; and this has been considered a sufficient proof as well as argument, that demons did not deliver oracular responses; but that those responses were impostures and contrivances of the priests themselves.

The true cause of the cessation of oracular prophecy, however, appears to be, that the minds of men became enlightened by the wide-spreading of the Christian faith; and by the circumstance, that their superstition was compromised by the metamorphoses of their favourite heroes and deities into saints and martyrs. As an instance of which, it will hereafter be shown, that the statues of the ancient gods, even to this day, are allowed to stand and hold places in the churches and cathedrals of many Catholic countries.

Those who argue that oracles ceased immediately at the coming of Christ, relate, in confirmation of their opinion, that Augustus having grown old, became desirous of choosing a successor, and went, in consequence, to consult the oracle at Delphos. No answer was given, at first, to his inquiry, though he had spared no expense to conciliate the oracle. At last, however, the priestess is reported to have said, “the Hebrew Infant, to whom all gods render obedience, chases me hence; He sends me to the lower regions; therefore depart this temple, without speaking more.”

Superstition was formed into a system in Egypt at an age prior to our first accounts of that country. Vast temples were built, and innumerable ceremonies established; the same body, forming the hereditary priesthood and the nobility of the nation, directed with a high hand the belief and consciences of the people; and prophecy was not only among their pretensions, but perhaps the most indispensable part of their office.

Bœotia was also a country famous for the number of its oracles, and from its localities was well suited for such impostures, being mountainous and full of caverns, by means of which sounds and echoes, apparently mysterious, could be easily multiplied to excite the astonishment and terror of the supplicants.

Herodotus informs us, that one of the first oracles in Greece was imported from the Egyptian Thebes. It happened, says Mr. Mitford in his History of Greece, that the master of a Phœnician vessel carried off a woman, an attendant of the temple of Jupiter, at Thebes on the Nile, and sold her in Thesprotia, a mountainous tract in the northwestern part of Epirus, bordering on the Illyrian hordes. Reduced thus unhappily to slavery among barbarians, the woman, however, soon became sensible of the superiority which her education in a more civilized country gave her over them; and she conceived hopes of mending her condition, by practising upon their ignorance what she had acquired of those arts which able hands imposed upon a more enlightened people. She gave out that she possessed all the powers of prophecy to which the Egyptian priests pretended; that she could discover present secrets, and foretell future events.

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