The history of the life and adventures of Mr. Duncan Campbell : $b a gentleman, who, tho' deaf and dumb, writes down any stranger's name at first sight, with their future contingencies of fortune
General
The history of the life and adventures of Mr. Duncan Campbell : $b a gentleman, who, tho' deaf and dumb, writes down any stranger's name at first sight, with their future contingencies of fortune
Campbell, Duncan, 1680?-1730; Deaf people -- Great Britain -- Biography; Occultism -- Early works to 1900; Prophets -- Great Britain -- Biography
persons of the highest honour and quality, and of the most undoubted
integrity? In fine, shall his infidelity, by a reverse kind of power to
that which is attributed to the philosopher's stone, be able to change
the nature of things, turn and transmute truth into falsehood, and make
a downright plain matter of fact to be no more than a chimera, or an
_ens rationis_? And shall a manifest experience be so easily exploded?
Taking it, therefore, for granted, that no modest man whatsoever, though
never so hard of belief, which is certainly as great a weakness as that
of too much credulity, will make bold openly to declare his disbelief of
things so well attested; and taking it much more for granted still, that
it is impossible for any man of common sense to have the front of
declaring his disbelief of them in such a manner as to urge it for an
argument and a reason why others should disbelieve them too; taking
this, I say, as I think I very well may, for granted, I think there
remains nothing farther for me to offer, before I conclude this chapter,
except a few remarks as to the similitude there is between those actions
which I have related above to have been performed by Mr. Campbell, and
these actions which so many learned, ingenious, and noble authors, as I
have just now quoted, have asserted to have been performed by persons
whom they knew to be gifted with the second-sight.
As to what is said several pages above, concerning Duncan Campbell when
a boy at Edinburgh, that he even told his little companions who would
have success at their little matches when they played at marbles, and
that he informed a great gamester there, whose name I have disguised
under that of Count Cog, what times he should choose to play if he would
win, as ludicrous as it may have appeared to be, and as much as it may
have seemed to my readers to carry with it nothing better than the face
of invention and the air of fiction, yet if they will be at the pains
of comparing that passage of Duncan Campbell's with the account given in
this chapter from the mouth of Sir Norman Macleod, concerning a man,
who, though he never played at tables in his life, instructed a skilful
gamester, when he was at a stand, to place one of his men right, upon
which the whole game depended, which the ignorant fellow, when asked how
he came to do it, said he was directed to by the spirit Brownie;
whoever, I say, will be at the pains of comparing these passages
together, will find they bear a very near resemblance, and that the way
we may most reasonably account for Duncan Campbell's prediction when he
was a boy, must be, that he was at that time directed by his little
genius or familiar spirit, which I described in the precedent pages, as
this fellow was by the spirit Brownie, according to Sir Norman Macleod's
assertion; which spirit Brownie, as Mr. Martin, a very good and credited
writer, assures us, in his History of the Western Islands, dedicated to
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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