a councillor of Toulouse, printed, of a strange incident, of two men who
presented themselves the one for the other. I remember (and I hardly
remember anything else) that he seemed to have rendered the imposture of
him whom he judged to be guilty, so wonderful and so far exceeding both
our knowledge and his own, who was the judge, that I thought it a very
bold sentence that condemned him to be hanged. Let us have some form of
decree that says, "The court understands nothing of the matter" more
freely and ingenuously than the Areopagites did, who, finding themselves
perplexed with a cause they could not unravel, ordered the parties to
appear again after a hundred years.

The witches of my neighbourhood run the hazard of their lives upon the
report of every new author who seeks to give body to their dreams. To
accommodate the examples that Holy Writ gives us of such things, most
certain and irrefragable examples, and to tie them to our modern events,
seeing that we neither see the causes nor the means, will require another
sort-of wit than ours. It, peradventure, only appertains to that sole
all-potent testimony to tell us. "This is, and that is, and not that
other." God ought to be believed; and certainly with very good reason;
but not one amongst us for all that who is astonished at his own
narration (and he must of necessity be astonished if he be not out of his
wits), whether he employ it about other men's affairs or against himself.

I am plain and heavy, and stick to the solid and the probable, avoiding
those ancient reproaches:

"Majorem fidem homines adhibent iis, quae non intelligunt;
--Cupidine humani ingenii libentius obscura creduntur."

["Men are most apt to believe what they least understand: and from