I thought I perceived in the scene that was passing before us, an exhibition that is not uncommon on our earth, of cunning knavery imposing on ignorance and credulity; and I expressed my opinion to the Brahmin; but he assured me that the class of persons in the moon, who were resorted to on account of their supposed powers of divination, was very different from the similar class in Asia or Europe, and that oracular art was here regularly studied and professed as a branch of philosophy.  “You would be surprised,” said he, “to find how successful they have been in investing their craft with the forms and trappings of science, the parade of classification, and the mystery imparted by technical terms.  By these means they have given plausibility enough to their theories, to leave many a one in doubt, whether it is really a new triumph of human discovery, or merely a later form of empiricism.  Its professors are commonly converts to their own theories, at least in a great degree; for, strange as it may seem, there can mingle with the disposition to deceive others, the power of deceiving one’s self; and while they exercise much acuteness and penetration in discovering, by the air, look, dress, and manner of those who consult them, the leading points in the history or character of persons of whom they have no previous knowledge, they at the same time persuade themselves that they see something indicative of their circumstances in their finger nails.  Such is the equivocal character of the greater part of their sect:  but there are some who are mere honest dupes to the pretensions of the science; and others again, who have not one tittle of credulity to extenuate their impudent pretensions.

“When I was here before, I remember a physician, who acquired great celebrity by affecting to cure diseases by examining a lock of the patient’s hair; and, not content with merely pronouncing on the nature of the disease, and suggesting the remedy, he would enter into an elaborate, and often plausible course of reasoning, in defence of his system.  That system was briefly this:  that the hair derived its length, strength, hue, and other properties, from the brain; which opinion he supported by a reference to acknowledged facts—­as, that it changes its hue with the difference of the mental character in the different stages of life; that violent affections of the mind, such as grief or fear, have been known to change it in a single night.  Science on this, as on other occasions, is merely augmenting and methodizing facts that the mass of mankind had long observed—­as, that red hair had always been considered indicative of warm temperament; that affliction, and even love, were believed to create baldness; and that in great terror, the hair stands on end.  The different ages too, are distinguished as much by their hair as their complexion, their facial angle, or in any other way.  He was led to this theory first, by observing at school that a boy of a stiff, bristly