To what then are we to attribute this power that fallacy possesses of inspiring the mind with visionary hopes and fears? Simply because we cease to reason upon matter of fact, and soar in fanciful regions in search of a flittering phantom, a creature of our own imaginative faculties. What falls every day under our personal observation ceases to amaze, and one might even become familiarized to miracles were they of frequent occurrence. Man is naturally disposed to admire what he cannot understand, and to venerate what is incomprehensible. The nature of the divinity being essentially incomprehensible, a religious character is attached to all other subjects that are equally beyond the limits of our understanding. Sir Thomas Brown has said, "Methinks there be not impossibilities enough in religion for an active faith. I love to lose myself in a mystery, to pursue my reason to an _O altitudo_! I can answer all the objections of Satan and my rebellious reason, with that odd resolution I learned from Tertullian, _Certum est quia impossibile est_." From our earliest infancy we are delighted with fictions, which we verily fancy to be relations of true facts, and whether we believe with the ancients in the metamorphoses of heathen mythology, the absurd papal stories of the miracles of their saints, or the wondrous incidents of a fairy tale, we listen to these rhapsodies with avidity; whether Jupiter is turned into a shower of gold, St. Denis and St. Livarius travel with their heads under their arm, or Tom Thumb pulls on his seven-league boots. These absurdities are our day thoughts, our night dreams--nay, busy fancy does so dwell on these enchanting phantasies, that, in some cases, the intellectual faculties become deranged, and I have at present under my care, a female who lost her reason by constantly reading the Arabian Nights, and who in her hallucinations, describes as many marvellous voyages as could have done the sailor Sinbad. The foundation of incredulity no doubt is ignorance, but too often we find men of refined education and feeling the most easily imposed upon by incredible assertions; we seldom experience as much enthusiasm in the possession of any object as in the pursuit, more especially if that pursuit be vain. The merchant who has realized a splendid fortune in his commercial ventures, is satiated with his business, and becomes careless in the pursuit of greater riches, but let him for one moment contemplate the possibility of discovering the philosopher's stone, he will lose, and cheerfully too, all his past earnings in the chimerical pursuit, and the man who would doze over his ledger, will spend his sleepless nights contemplating his crucibles, and studying the black art.