As to the givers of the supposed honours and presents--persons are indeed mentioned:--mentioned, but no otherwise than by the name of _others_. One individual alone is particularized: particularized as having received the benefit of these ceremonies. This is the father of Publius. This man, to use the phraseology of the passage, was _also healed_. But--this man who was he? He was no less a person than the father of the chief man in the island. Well then, what are the honours, what the allotment of "_such things as were necessary_?" What were the proofs of gratitude, afforded by this man, who was so much better able to afford such presents, than any of those other persons cured? By such proofs of remuneration, some evidence--some circumstantial evidence,--supposing them exhibited at a proper time, would have been afforded, in proof of the reality of the service. But, neither by the person thus spoken of as healed, nor by his son--the chief man in the island,--is it said that any such proofs were afforded. For such a silence when the case of an individual was brought to view, coupled with the express declaration made, of gifts presented by persons unnamed,--three cases cannot but present themselves, as being any one of them more probable, than that, on this occasion, a real miracle was performed. One is--that there was no disease, perhaps no such person: another is, that though there was a disease, it went off of itself: the third is, that it never went off at all. One thing may be asserted without much fear of contradiction: and that is, that in this country, if in terms such as these, accounts were inserted in the public prints;--accounts of diseases cured without medicine;--diseases cured by nothing but words and gesticulations;--though the accounts given were ever so numerous, not the smallest notice would they be thought worthy of,--not the smallest attention would they receive from anyone, unless it were for the joke's sake. What is more,--numerous are the publications, in which, encompassed with circumstantiality in all manner of shapes, not only the names of the fortunate patients are mentioned, but under the signatures of those patients declarations made, assuring the public of the reality of the cure,--and yet, when at the same time, by competent persons, due inquiry has been made, it turns out after all that no such cure has been performed. Accounts, which would not be believed were they to come out at a time of so widely diffused knowledge, are they to be believed, merely because the time they belonged to,--facts and accounts together,--was, as to all such matters, a time of universal ignorance? The less a man understands the subject, the more firmly is he to be believed, as to everything he says of it? Or is it that, between then and now, _men_ and _things_ have undergone a total change? and, if so, when did it take place? SECTION 14. CONCLUSION: THE SUPPOSABLE MIRACLES CLASSED AND SUMMED UP.