Page:The battle of the books - Guthkelch - 1908.djvu/162

 lential vapours that annoyed his town of Agrigentum. He took some asses, and flea'd them, and hung their hides over those rocks that lay open to the Etesian winds; which hindered their passage and so freed the town. He tells another story of Democritus, that he was so nice in his observations, that he could tell whether a young woman were a virgin, by her looks, and could find it out, though she had been corrupted but the day before: and he knew, by looking upon it, that some goat's milk, that was brought him, was of a black goat, that had had but one kid.

These are instances very seriously recorded by grave authors, of the magical wisdom of the ancients: that is, as Sir William Temple defines it, of that "excelling knowledge of nature and the various powers and qualities in its several productions, and the application of certain agents to certain patients, which by force of some peculiar qualities, produce effects very different from what fall under vulgar observation and comprehension."