Consid. 2.
Vid. Credul. and Incredul. p. 101.
2. Again we are to note that some Authors of great credit and learning do hold these things to be but meer Aniles fabulæ, of which opinion (it seems) Aristotle, and Galen were, though Trallianus doth affirm (though some say falsly) that he made a retractation of that opinion, and this was the judgment of the learned Spaniard Valesius, who in his book, De sacra Philosophia, hath taken great pains to perswade men, though he deny not supernatural operations by Devils and Spirits, that inchanting by magical words are impossible, and whatsoever is alledged by any ancient or late writer to that purpose, he doth reject as meerly fabulous. But upon as good grounds may any one reject this his single opinion as fabulous, because there are a whole cloud of witnesses against him, of as great credit and authority as himself, and experience every day will make it manifest, that great effects do follow from the appension of charms and characters, not determining here whether they cause those effects causally as efficients, or but meerly accidentally and occasionally, and therefore in this point Dr. Casaubon saith well: “As for Valesius opinion (he saith) though a learned Man, and for ought I know Pious and Wise, yet it is no wonder to me, that any one man, though pious and learned, should fall into an opinion very Paradoxical and contrary to most other mens belief, especially in a thing of this nature, which most depends of experience.”
Consid. 3.
Centur. 3. Curat. 14.
Hist. 1.
Hist. 2.
3. Notwithstanding all this, for the most part all charms, spells and characters are inefficacious, fallacious, superstitious and groundless, and hardly fit for an honest and wise man to use, except only to settle the imaginations of patients, that they may more readily and hopefully take those things that may effectually cure them. I say for the most part, not alwayes, because I grant that they do sometimes either efficiently or accidentally produce real effects. But that they are sometimes fallacious is manifest in the Charmer of Saltzburg, who though with his charms he could prevail against the little serpents, yet that great one that came prevailed against him, and threw him into the ditch and killed him. And how vain it is to put any confidence in these idle trifles, and how fallacious and ineffectual and destructive they are, may appear by two deplorable examples. Amatus Lusitanus, a learned and experienced Physician; and a man of great repute and veracity doth relate this: “That in the end of the Spring, the Summer coming on, two young men did go from Ancona to the City Auximum, and by the way, the one of them turning aside to make water, found a Viper in an hole at the bottom of a Tree, with a great deal of rejoicing, but with an unhappy success. He did contend with his companion, that he could take the Viper with his hand, without any hurt, and did brag that with the murmuring of certain words, he could make all Serpents obey him, lying still as stupid. The other did laugh him to scorn. At last they come to a wager. But the Viper more audacious than was right, remained always truculent and unaltered. At last when he stretched forth his hand to take her, it being stirred up with a mad and venemous fury, lifting up the neck did bite him in the finger, which beginning to pain him, he quickly put his finger to his mouth perhaps to suck forth the blood, but within a small while the unhappy young man died by his own fault, neither did medical helps yield him any succour, but he might have escaped, if he had not put the poyson of the Serpent to his mouth.” And this wofull example may be a sufficient warning to all that they be not too hasty to put confidence in these fallacious trifles. Another story we shall give of our own knowledge, and is this. “I had dismembred a pretty Young-mans leg by reason of a Gangrene, his name Robert Taylor, a good Scholar, and had been a Clerk to a Justice of Peace, and about three weeks after when the stump was near healed, I being gone from home, his Mother lying in the same room with him, but having gotten too much drink, he calling upon her to help him to the Close-stool, but she not hearing, he scrambled up himself as well as he could, but hit the end of the stump that was not quite closed, whereby the arteries were opened, and a great Hemorrhage followed. And there being an honest simple man that owed the house where he lay, having a vain confidence that with a charm he said he had, he could undoubtedly stay the bleeding, and therefore would not suffer them to call up my man to stay the Flux until day; which continuing so long, the vain and fruitless charm prevailing nothing, though my man when he came did stop it, yet had he lost so much blood that he died the next day;” and this may serve for a sufficient caution against vain confidence in charms.
Consid. 4.
De Morbo Sacro lib. Sect. 3. p. 301.