Secondly, it is objected, that there are none among the learned able to oblige the world with a satisfactory account of these visions; therefore they are not to be believed.
He answers, if everything of which the learned are not able to give a satisfactory account, shall be condemned as false and impossible, we shall find many other things, generally believed, which must be rejected as such.
Thirdly, it is objected, that the seers are impostors, and the people who believe them are credulous, and easy to be imposed upon.
He answers, the seers are generally illiterate, and well-meaning people, and altogether void of design; nor could he ever learn that any of them made the least gain of it; neither is it reputable among them to have that faculty; beside, the people of the Isles are not so credulous as to believe an impossibility, before the thing foretold be accomplished; but when it actually comes to pass, afterwards it is not in their power to deny it, without offering violence to their senses and reason; beside, if the seers were deceivers, can it be reasonable to imagine that all the islanders, who have not the second-sight, should combine together and offer violence to their understandings and senses, to force themselves to believe a lie from age to age? There are several persons among them, whose birth and education raise them above the suspicion of concurring with an imposture merely to gratify an illiterate and contemptible sort of persons. Nor can a reasonable man believe, that children, horses, and cows, could be engaged in a combination to persuade the world of the reality of a second-sight.
Every vision that is seen comes exactly to pass according to the rules of observation, though novices and heedless persons do not always judge by those rules; concerning which he gives instances.
There are visions seen by several persons, in whose days they are not accomplished; and this is one of the reasons why some things have been seen, that are said never to have come to pass; and there are also several visions seen, which are not understood till they are accomplished.
The second-sight is not a late discovery, seen by one or two in a corner, or a remote isle; but it is seen by many persons of both sexes, in several isles, separated about forty or fifty leagues from one another; the inhabitants of many of these isles never had the least converse by word or writing; and this faculty of seeing visions having continued, as we are informed by tradition, ever since the plantation of these isles, without being disproved by the nicest sceptic after the strictest inquiry, seems to be a clear proof of its reality.
It is observable, that it was much more common twenty or thirty years ago than at present; for one in ten does not see it now, that saw it then.
The second-sight is not confined to the Western Isles alone, the author having an account that it is in several parts of Holland, but particularly in Bommel, where a woman has it, for which she is courted by some, and dreaded by others. She sees a smoke about one's face, which is the forerunner of the death of a person so seen, and she actually foretold the deaths of several that lived there. She was living in that town a few winters ago.
The second-sight is likewise in the Isle of Man, as appears by this instance: Captain Leathes, the chief commander of Belfast, in his voyage 1690, lost thirteen men by a violent storm; and upon his landing in the Isle of Man, an ancient man, clerk to a parish there, told him immediately that he had lost thirteen men there; the captain inquired how he came to the knowledge of that; he answered that it was by thirteen lights, which he had seen come into the churchyard; as Mr. Sacheverel tells us in his late description of the Isle of Man. Note, that this is like the sight of the corpse-candles in Wales, which is also well attested.