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Rh reality of sorcery, which, although cautiously expressed, seems to have been complete, affords a decisive proof of the soundness of his judgment, where he conceived himself to have any latitude in exercising it. The following sentences contain more good sense on the subject, than I recollect in any contemporary author. I shall quote them, as well as the other passages I may afterwards extract from his writings, in his own words, to which it is seldom possible to do justice in an English version.

“Les hommes même les plus sages se conduisent plutôt par l’imagination des autres, je veux dire par l’opinion et par la coûtume, que par les regles de la raison. Ainsi dans les lieux où l’on brule les sorciers, on ne voit autre chose, parce que dans les lieux où l’on les condamne au feu, on croit veritablement qu’ils le sont, et cette croyance se fortifie par les discours qu’on en tient. Que l’on cesse de les punir et qu’on les traite comme des fous, et l’on verra qu’avec le tems ils ne seront plus sorciers; parce que ceux qui ne le sont que par imagination, qui font certainement le plus grand nombre, deviendront comme les autres hommes.

“C’est donc avec raison que plusieurs Parlemens ne punissent point les sorcièrs: ils s’en trouve beaucoup moins dans les terres de leur ressort: Et l’envie, la haine, et la malice des méchans ne peuvent se servir de ce prétexte pour accabler les innocens.”

How strikingly has the sagacity of these anticipations and reflections been verified, by the subsequent history of this popular superstition in our own country, and indeed in every other instance where the experiment recommended by Malebranche has been tried! Of this sagacity much must, no doubt, be ascribed to the native vigour of a mind struggling against and controlling early prejudices; but it must not be forgotten, that, notwithstanding his retired and monastic life, Malebranche had breathed the same air with the associates and friends of Descartes and of Gassendi; and that no philosopher seems ever to have been more deeply impressed with the truth of that golden maxim of Montaigne—“Il est bon de frotter et limer notre cervelle contre celle d’autrui.”

Another feature in the intellectual character of Malebranche, presenting an unexpected contrast to his powers of abstract meditation, is the attentive and discriminating eye with which he appears to have surveyed the habits and manners of the comparatively little circle around him; and the delicate yet expressive touches with which he has marked and defined some of the nicestshadesnicest shades [sic] and varieties of genius. To this branch of the Philosophy of Mind, not certainly the least important and interesting, he has contributed a greater num-