The advantages which I have stated to have occasionally arisen from superstitious influence, must be understood as being generally accidental; indeed, in the history of superstitious practices, we do not find that their application was exclusively commended in cases likely to be influenced by the powers of faith or of the imagination, but, on the contrary, that they were as frequently directed in affections that were entirely placed beyond the control of the mind. Homer tells us, for instance, that the bleeding of Ulysses was stopped by a charm:[31] and Cato the censor has favoured us with an incantation for the reduction of a dislocated limb. In certain instances, however, we are certainly bound to admit that the pagan priesthood, with their characteristic cunning, were careful to perform their superstitious incantations, in such cases only as were likely to receive the sanative assistance of Nature, so that they might attribute the fortunate results of her efforts, to the potent influence of their own arts. The extraordinary success which is related to have attended various superstitious ceremonials will thus find a plausible explanation: the miraculous gift, attributed by Herodotus to the Priestesses of Helen, is one amongst many others of this kind that might be adduced; the Grecian historian relates, that when the heads of ugly infants were adjusted on the altar of this temple, the individuals so treated acquired comeliness, and even beauty, as they advanced in growth: but is not such a change the ordinary and unassisted result of natural developement? Those large and prominent outlines which impart an unpleasing physiognomy to the infant, when proportioned and matured by growth, will generally assume features of intelligence in the adult face.