It will be the endeavour of the following pages to show that the credulity of the many--in some cases synonymous with the foolish--has been, from the beginning, most readily imposed upon by the clever and designing few. It is a curious task to investigate the gradual developement of rational belief, as exhibited in the proportionate disbelief and exposure of those things which, in earlier ages, were considered points of faith, and to doubt which was a dangerous heresy; and how, at first, the arts and sciences were weighed down and the advantages to be derived from them neutralized, by the fallacies of misconception or fanaticism. We are, in spite of ourselves, the creatures of imagination, and the victims of prejudice, which has been justly called the wrong bias of the soul, that effectually keeps it from coming near the path of truth; a task the more difficult to accomplish, since error often bears so near a resemblance to it. Error, indeed, always borrows something of truth, to make her more acceptable to the world, seldom appearing in her native deformity; and the subtilty of grand deceivers has always been shown in grafting their greatest errors on some material truths, and with such dexterity, that Ithuriel’s spear alone, whose touch “No falsehood can endure,” would have power to reveal them. Many, and even contradictory, causes might be assigned for the constant disposition towards credulity; the mind is prone to believe that for which it most anxiously wishes; difficulties vanish in _desire_, which thus becomes frequently the main cause of success. Thus, when Prince Henry, _believing_ his father dead, had taken the crown from his pillow, the King in reproach said to him,[1] “Thy _wish_ was father, Harry, to that thought.” Belief is often granted on trust to such things as are above common comprehension, by some, who would thus flatter themselves with a superiority of judgment; on the other hand, what all around put faith in, the remaining few will, from that circumstance, easily believe. This is seen in times of popular excitement, when an assertion, quite at variance with common sense or experience, will run like a wild-fire through a city, and be productive of most serious results. It would appear that this springs from that inherent power of imitation, which is singularly exemplified even in particular kinds of disease,--comitial, as they were called by the Romans, from their frequent occurrence in assemblies of the people,--and, more fatally, when it impels us to “follow a multitude to do evil.”