The subject of quackery, in every sphere of life, whether it be resorted to by diplomatists or physicians, sanctimonious adventurers or fashionable _roues_, leads to serious consideration. How comes it that man seems more anxious to be deceived than enlightened? Simply from the errors of his education, which foster a love for the marvellous, and induce him to admire that which really is not or cannot be comprehended. The superiority of the intellectual faculties of the ancients, at an earlier age than the generality of men in the present times, is solely to be attributed to their having been brought up with philosophical views. Mallebranche has justly said, "that to become a philosopher, we must _see clearly_; but to be endued with faith, we must _believe blindly_." Although we cannot admit this axiom in matters of revealed religion, yet in many worldly concerns it does hold. If a youth was not educated with the scholastic jargon, commonly called learning, he would be considered ignorant. Helvetius has said, that man is born ignorant, but not a fool; and that it is even no easy matter to make him one; and the same writer has very justly divided stupidity into that which is natural, arising from ignorance, and that which is acquired and the result of instruction. It is thus that, by speaking to the passions, naturally weak, and to our desires and apprehensions, ever ready to grasp at a favourite phantom,--the artful manage to exercise a more powerful control, and incline persons to believe what their senses actually discredit. The traffic of hope and fear has ever been a lucrative trade; and while fear became the staple commodity of priestcraft, hope was the fortune of medical quacks. The multiplication of sins increased the profits of the one; the various diseases, real and imaginary, to which flesh is heir, became the source of emolument to the other. It is under these cherished impressions of ameliorating our condition, that many men of common sense, and even of judgment, are induced to rely on the most absurd and fallacious promises; so prone are we to believe all that we wish;--the fidelity of a woman, the truth of a sycophant, and the candour of a flatterer. If there could be established a regular college of quackery, where the errors of mankind might be studied, and pupils taught to avail themselves of their follies, as a future vocation, a more perfect knowledge of the world would be acquired than in all the universities in Europe. Our sovereigns would be wise in selecting their ministers amongst the graduates of this academy. Cardinal Du Perron, who, in a long homily, convinced his sovereign, Henry III., of the existence of a God, and afterwards informed him that he would prove the contrary, if it could afford his Majesty any consolation, might have been selected as a proper rector for such an institution.