CREDULITY. CHAPTER I. 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.