The world has been long infected with these most absurd opinions, yet in every age men have been found--truth-loving men--who have striven against the absurdities of their day. This little treatise has been written from like motives, and in it the lovers of truth will doubtless meet with some things satisfactory. It is to them that I appeal, caring little for the opinion of those who substitute their own prejudices in place of infallible oracles. Happy the man, who, studying Nature's laws, Through known effects can trace the secret cause; His mind possessing in a quiet state, Fearless of Fortune, and resigned to Fate. Dryden's Translation of Virgil, Georgics, Book II. l. 700. NOTES [1] Daniel George Morof, who died suddenly on the 30th of June 1691. [2] Librum de tribus impostoribus absit ut Papæ tribuam, aut Papæ oppugnatoribus; jam olim inimici Frederici Barbarossæ Imperatoris famam sparserant libri talis, quasi jussu ipsius scripti, sed ab eo tempore, nemo est qui viderit; quare fabulam esse arbitror. [3] Apud Nevizanum 1. Sylvae nupt. 2. n. 121. [4] Doubtless Averroes here alludes to that law of Mahomet which wisely prohibits the use of pork in a hot and pestilential climate.--Translator's Note. [5] Disseminavit iste impius haereticus in Hispania, [such is the language made use of by Alvaro Pelagius], quod tres deceptores fuerunt in mundo, scilicet, Moises, qui decepterat Judaeos, et Christus, qui decepterat Christianos, et Mahometus, qui decepit Sarrazenos. [6] Et sic falsa est Porphirii sententia, qui dixit tres fuisse garrulatores qui totum mundum ad se converterunt; primus fuit Moises in populo Judaico, secundus Mahometus, tertius Christus. [7] Qui in quæstionem vertere presumunt, dicentes; quis in hec mundo majorem gentium aut populorum sequelam habuit, an Christus, an Moises, an Mahometus? [8] Every classical scholar must have heard of the demon of Socrates. The belief in the existence of such agencies was sufficiently prevalent in the East 2000 years ago, and the Jews were in this respect, as credulous as their neighbors. We read in Acts, c. iv. v. 7, that the leaders of the Sanhedrim enquired of the Apostle Peter, "By what power or by what name, have ye done this;" evidently acknowledging their belief that it was possible to work miracles by the invocation of some mysterious power. The Apostle, himself a Jew, seems to understand their creed; but he answers them in a way for which they were not altogether prepared.--Translator's Note. [9] Ædeficabat sine pecunia, judicabat sine conscientia, scribebat sine scientia. [10] Non Blandratum, non Alciatum, non Ochinum ad Mahotnetismum impulerunt; non Valleum ad atheismi professionem induxerunt; non alium quemdam ad spargendum libellum de tribus impostoribus, quorum secundus esset Christus Dominus, duo alii Moises et Mahometes, pellexerunt.