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
The fourth consists in omens, when, for example, a man from any words
which others may have spoken on purpose, or by accident, pretends to
gather a way of looking into and knowing anything of futurity.
The fifth is chiromancy, which consists in making a pretence to the
knowledge of future things by the figures and the lines of the hands;
and if it be by consulting the shoulder-bones of any beast, it goes by
the name of spatulamancy.
* * * * *
As the first kind of divination, by a tacit invocation of the devil is
divided into the five species above mentioned; so also is the second
kind of tacit divination, or invocation of the devil, divided into two
species by St. Thomas of Aquin.
_Secunda Secundae, questione nonagesima quinta articulo tertio_, and too
tedious to insert here.
Now all these ways are by these divines counted wicked, and I set them
down that people may avoid them. For how many gipsies and pretenders to
chiromancy have we in London and in the country? How many that are for
hydromancy, that pretend in water to show men mighty mysteries? And how
many in geomancy, with their beryls and their glasses, that, if they are
not under the instigation of the devil, propagate the scandal at least
by being cheats, and who ought to be punished to the utmost severity, as
our English laws enact? Mr. Campbell, who hates, contemns, and abhores
these ways, ought, methinks, to be encouraged by their being restrained;
and people of curious tempers, who always receive from him moral and
good instructions, which make them happy in the conduct of life, should
be animated in a public manner to consult him, in order to divert the
curious itch of their humours from consulting such wicked impostors, or
diabolical practisers, as too frequently abound in this nation, by
reason of the inquisitive vulgar, who are more numerous in our climate,
than any I ever read of.
But now to argue the case of conscience with regard to his particular
practice by way of the second-sight, whether, _in foro conscientiae_, it
is lawful for him to follow it, or others to consult him? The divines
above mentioned having never had any notice of that faculty in all
likelihood, or if they had, never mentioned it, makes it a point more
difficult for me to discuss; but I think they have stated some cases, by
the making of which my premises, I can deduce from all the learned men I
have above quoted, a conclusion in favour of our Mr. Duncan Campbell,
and of those who consult him; but my opinion shall be always corrected
by those who are wiser than myself, and to whom I owe entire submission.
I take leave to fix these premises from them first, and to form my
argument from them afterwards in the following manner:--
First, It is allowed by all these divines, that a knowledge which one
may have of future things within the order of nature, is and may be
lawful.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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