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
Men who will not believe such things as these, so well attested to us,
and given us by such authorities, because they did not see them
themselves, nor anything of the like nature, ought not only to deny the
demon of Socrates, but that there was such a man as Socrates himself;
they should not dispute the genii of Caesar, Cicero, Brutus, Marc Antony,
but avow that there were never any such men existing upon earth, and
overthrow all credible history whatsoever. Meanwhile, all men, but those
who run such lengths in their fantastical incredulity, will, from the
facts above mentioned, rest satisfied, that there are such things as
evil and good genii, and that men have sometimes a commerce with them by
all their senses, particularly those of seeing and hearing, and will not
therefore be startled at the strange fragments of histories which I am
going to relate of our young Duncan Campbell, and look upon some
wonderful adventures which he performed by the intervention of his
familiar demon or genius, as falsehoods, only because they are uncommon
and surprising, more especially since they were not done in a corner,
but by an open way of profession of a predictor of things, in the face
of the metropolis of London, where he settled young, as will appear in
the progress of his life. However, some people, notwithstanding all
this, may allege, that though a man may have a genius appear to him, so
as to convey into his mind, through his senses, the knowledge of things
that are to come to pass, yet this happens but on very eminent and
extraordinary occasions. The murder, for example, of a prime minister,
and the favourite of a monarch, in such a manner as it was performed on
the great Duke of Buckingham, by Felton, was a thing so uncommon, that
it might perhaps deserve, by the permission of Heaven, an uncommon
prediction; the others likewise are instances eminent in their way,
particularly that of the lady Everard's niece; for that young lady being
then marriageable, and a treaty for that end being on foot with Sir
William Perkins, the Divine Providence foreseeing that such a state
might call away her thoughts, hitherto bent on him and spiritual
affairs, and fix them on the trifles of this world, might perhaps permit
her to be called by a holy mother to the state of happiness she before
her enjoyed, lest her daughter's mind should change, and she go into the
ways of a sinner. But if these supereminent, these scarce and rare
examples, may be admitted of man's holding a conversation with the
spiritualized beings of another world; it will, however, be far below
the dignity of human reason, methinks, to make such large concessions to
people who pretend to converse that wonderful way, as to allow them the
credit of being able to do it upon every slight occasion, and every
indifferent occurrence of human life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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