owe their mesmeric faculty are not yet understood, their influence is well known to those who have examined into the subject. Among the Jews, the subjects of these current maladies were said to be possessed by devils. And it was a common profession to cast out these so-called devils,[20] for we are told that it was practiced by the adherents of the Pharisees. What means they employed we do not know. Probably they were not of the mesmeric order, but consisted in charms and exorcisms which, being believed by the patients to have the power of curing them, actually had it. At any rate, the fact remains that Jesus and the Pharisees are reputed to have possessed a similar influence over the demons, and if we accept the statement as true in the one case we cannot consistently reject it in the other. It remains to be considered, however, whether the evidence is such as to induce us to believe it in either. Now it is quite true that a great many absurd and impossible miracles are ascribed to Jesus in the Gospels. But considering the important place occupied in his life—as it has come down to us—by his cures of sick people; considering the possibility above suggested that many of these might have taken place by known methods; considering too the extremely easy field which Palestine presented for their application, it would appear more likely that there might be a basis of truth in the numerous accounts of sudden recoveries effected by him, than that they were all mere inventions. We may then assume, without here entering into details, that a number of unfortunate people, thought to be possessed by devils, either met him on his way, or were brought to him by relations, and were restored to health by the authoritative command addressed to the evil spirit to depart; mingled with the sympathetic tone and manner towards the tormented subject of possession. Individual examples of these apparently miraculous cures may be open to doubt from the very inaccurate character of the records, and for this reason it will be better for the present to admit the general fact without binding ourselves to this or that special instance of its occurrence.