CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL
OF
POPULAR
LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.
CONTENTS
PREDOMINANT DELUSIONS.
THE LAST OF THE HADDONS.
THE LAND OF THE PHARAOHS.
A QUEER CLUE.
A CURIOUS PICTURE-BOOK.
POPPET'S PRANKS.
MY BABY.
| No. 710. | SATURDAY, AUGUST 4, 1877. | Price 1½d. |
PREDOMINANT DELUSIONS.
Seeing is believing! Such is an old saw, notusually called in question, and yet it is exceedinglyfallacious. A great many phenomena seeminglytrue by the eyesight are not true at all. Ignoranceand prejudice have led to very extraordinarymistakes. We speak of the sun rising and setting,because it appears to do so, but it neither setsnor rises. The earth turns in front of it likea roast turning before a fire. A conjurer willclearly shew you that he will bring any numberof eggs out of an empty hat. He only bringsthem out of his sleeve, where they were cunninglyconcealed. And so on with a great many otherillusions, all seemingly fair and above board, butin which we are imposed on either by our senses,or by some fallacy in reasoning. Less than twohundred years ago, courts of justice were hangingand burning thousands of old women for beingwitches—all on a sort of evidence which in thepresent day would only be laughed at. The worldnow knows better than believe such trash, but ittook a long time to learn; and even yet this highlyexperienced and much complimented world occasionallyfalls into the most absurd crazes; orperhaps we should more correctly say, there arelarge numbers of tolerably educated but credulouspeople who with a taste for the wonderful are everready to believe in any kind of nonsense thatturns up. These worthy individuals are, of course,not without excuse. Starting with the principlethat there may be forces in nature which sciencehas as yet failed to disclose, we should be cautiousin asserting that any particular phenomenon thatseems incomprehensible is a result of mere illusionor imposture. Let every mysterious demonstration,they say, be impartially inquired into. Quitecorrect. The misfortune, however, is, that beforethe matters in question have been examinedimpartially by the light of science, the craze getsahead, and many persons weakly allowing themselvesto be carried away by their feelings, getpainfully compromised, and are by the more cooland cautious part of mankind set down as littlebetter than—fools. Very hard! But the warningoffered is useful. If people of good standing willbelieve in absurdities without proper examination,they m