Page:The Works of Samuel Johnson ... A journey to the Hebrides. The vision of Theodore, the hermit of Teneriffe. The fountains. Prayers and meditations. Sermons.v. 10-11. Parliamentary debates.pdf/236

 true report that a spirit has been seen, may give occasion and birth to many false reports of similar incidents. But universal and unconcerted testimony to a supernatural casualty cannot always be untrue; nor is it conceivable, that they who lived in distant ages and nations, who never heard of one another, should agree, either in a delusion or imposture so remote from common conception, and so unlike any thing observable in the ordinary course of events. An appearing spirit is a prodigy too singular in its nature to become a subject of general invention. That this prodigy has been every where counterfeited, proves only that it has every where in reality occurred to view. The fable bears witness to the fact of its existence; and, to a mind not influenced by popular prejudice, it will be scarce possible to believe, that apparitions of the dead could have been vouched in all countries, had they never been seen in any.

The opinion we have been considering, whether true or false, may at last be thought of too trivial moment to require or justify a discussion in this place. But to show the credibility of this opinion, chiefly by our author's own arguments, to which nothing of equal weight can be added, seemed not only due to him on the present occasion, but requisite in another important view. Appearances of departed spirits are occasionally recorded in Scripture; and as all indiscriminate objections against the reality of such appearances hence evidently impeach the testimony of Scripture, the above notice of the fallacy of some currently urged objections of this sort was not unseasonable, and may not, it is hoped, be altogether useless. It was the superstition of the dark ages to believe in many false miracles and apparitions; whence it seems often the insinuated wisdom of our enlightened times, to accept none, however authenticated in any age, for true; as if the folly of baseless unbelief were less than that of credulity; and it were not the province of instructed judgment to decide in no case capriciously or blindly, resist prejudice, and be determined by evidence.

GEORGE STRAHAN.

Islington, May 2, 1789.