Those who have maintain’d that Men would be more miserable than Beasts, were their Hopes confin’d to this Life only; among other Considerations take notice that the latter are only afflicted with the Anguish of the present Evil, whereas the former are very often pained by the Reflection on what is passed, and the Fear of what is to come.  This Fear of any Future Difficulties or Misfortunes is so natural to the Mind, that were a Man’s Sorrows and Disquietudes summ’d up at the End of his Life, it would generally be found that he had suffer’d more from the Apprehension of such Evils as never happen’d to him, than from those Evils which had really befallen him.  To this we may add, that among those Evils which befal us, there are many that have been more painful to us in the Prospect, than by their actual Pressure.

This natural Impatience to look into Futurity, and to know what Accidents may happen to us hereafter, has given birth to many ridiculous Arts and Inventions.  Some found their Prescience on the Lines of a Man’s Hand, others on the Features of his Face; some on the Signatures which Nature has impressed on his Body, and others on his own Hand-Writing:  Some read Men’s Fortunes in the Stars, as others have searched after them in the Entrails of Beasts, or the Flights of Birds.  Men of the best Sense have been touched, more or less, with these groundless Horrours and Presages of Futurity, upon surveying the most indifferent Works of Nature.  Can any thing be more surprizing than to consider Cicero, who made the greatest Figure at the Bar, and in the Senate of the Roman Commonwealth, and, at the same time, outshined all the Philosophers of Antiquity in his Library and in his Retirements, as busying himself in the College of Augurs, and observing, with a religious Attention, after what manner the Chickens peck’d the several Grains of Corn which were thrown to them?

Notwithstanding these Follies are pretty well worn out of the Minds of the Wise and Learned in the present Age, Multitudes of weak and ignorant Persons are still Slaves to them.  There are numberless Arts of Prediction among the Vulgar, which are too trifling to enumerate; and infinite Observations, of Days, Numbers, Voices, and Figures, which are regarded by them as Portents and Prodigies.  In short, every thing Prophesies to the superstitious Man, there is scarce a Straw or a rusty Piece of Iron that lies in his way by Accident.

It is not to be conceiv’d how many Wizards, Gypsies, and Cunning-Men are dispers’d thro’ all the Countries and Market-Towns of Great-Britain, not to mention the Fortune-tellers and Astrologers, who live very comfortably upon the Curiosity of several well-dispos’d Persons in the Cities of London and Westminster.