“Quasi vero quidquam sit tam valde, quam nil sapere, vulgare.”

          ["As if anything were so common as ignorance.” 
          —­Cicero, De Divin., ii.]

          “Sanitatis patrocinium est, insanientium turba.”

     ["The multitude of fools is a protection to the wise.” 
     —­St. Augustine, De Civit.  Dei, vi. 10.]

’Tis hard to resolve a man’s judgment against the common opinions:  the first persuasion, taken from the very subject itself, possesses the simple, and from them diffuses itself to the wise, under the authority of the number and antiquity of the witnesses.  For my part, what I should not believe from one, I should not believe from a hundred and one:  and I do not judge opinions by years.

’Tis not long since one of our princes, in whom the gout had spoiled an excellent nature and sprightly disposition, suffered himself to be so far persuaded with the report made to him of the marvellous operations of a certain priest who by words and gestures cured all sorts of diseases, as to go a long journey to seek him out, and by the force of his mere imagination, for some hours so persuaded and laid his legs asleep, as to obtain that service from them they had long time forgotten.  Had fortune heaped up five or six such-like incidents, it had been enough to have brought this miracle into nature.  There was afterwards discovered so much simplicity and so little art in the author of these performances, that he was thought too contemptible to be punished, as would be thought of most such things, were they well examined: 

“Miramur ex intervallo fallentia.”

     ["We admire after an interval (or at a distance) things that
     deceive.”—­Seneca, Ep., 118, 2.]

So does our sight often represent to us strange images at a distance that vanish on approaching near: 

“Nunquam ad liquidum fama perducitur.”

               ["Report is never fully substantiated.” 
               —­Quintus Curtius, ix. 2.]

’Tis wonderful from how many idle beginnings and frivolous causes such famous impressions commonly, proceed.  This it is that obstructs information; for whilst we seek out causes and solid and weighty ends, worthy of so great a name, we lose the true ones; they escape our sight by their littleness.  And, in truth, a very prudent, diligent, and subtle inquisition is required in such searches, indifferent, and not prepossessed.  To this very hour, all these miracles and strange events have concealed themselves from me:  I have never seen greater monster or miracle in the world than myself:  one grows familiar with all strange things by time and custom, but the more I frequent and the better I know myself, the more does my own deformity astonish me, the less I understand myself.