APPENDIX

T is not that Mr. Duncan Campbell stands in need of my arguments to prove that he is in

I

no respect liable to the Acts of Parliament

made against fortune-tellers, &c., that I undertake the writing of this appendix, the true reason thereof being the more completely to finish this undertaking. For having in the body of the book itself fully proved a second-sight, and that the same frequently happens to persons, some of them eminently remarkable for piety and learning, and have from thence accounted for the manner of Mr. Campbell's performing those things he professes, to the great surprise, and no less satisfaction of all the curious who are pleased to consult him; and at the same time proved the lawfulness of such his performances from the opinions of some of the most learned in holy science; I thought it not improper to add the following short appendix (being a summary of several Acts of Parliament made against fortune-tellers, conjurers, Egyptians, sorcerers, pretenders to prophesy, &c., with some proper remarks, suited to our present purpose), as well to satisfy them who are fantastically wise, and obstinately shut their eyes against the most refulgent reason, and are wilfully deaf to the most convincing and

persuasive arguments, and thereupon cry out that Mr. Campbell is either an impostor and a cheat, or at least a person who acts by the assistance of unlawful powers; as also to put to silence the no less waspish curs, who are always snarling at such, whom Providence has distinguished by more excellent talents than their neighbours. True merit is always the mark against which traducers level their keenest darts; and wit and invention oftentimes join hands with ignorance and malice to foil those who excel. Art has no greater enemy than ignorance, and were there no such thing as vice, virtue would not shine with half its lustre. Did Mr. Campbell perform those wonderful things he is so deservedly famous for, as these cavillers say, by holding intelligence with infernal powers, or by any unjustifiable means, I am of opinion he would find very few in this atheistical age who would open their mouths against him, since none love to act counter to the interest of that master they industriously serve. And did he, on the other hand, put the cheat upon the world, as the world, as they maliciously assert, I fancy he would then be more generally admired, especially in a country where the game is so universally, artfully, and no less profitably played, and that with applause, since those pretenders to wisdom merrily divide the whole species of mankind into the two classes of knaves and fools, fixing the appellation of folly only upon those whom they think not wise, that is, wicked enough to have a share with them in the profitable guilt.

Our laws are as well intended by their wise makers

to screen the innocent as to punish the guilty; and where their penalties are remarkably severe, the guilt they punish is of a proportionable size. Art, which is a man's property when acquired, claims a protection from those very laws which false pretenders thereto are to be tried and punished by, or else all science would soon have an end; for no man would dare make use of any talent Providence had lent him, and his own industrious application had improved, should he be immediately tried and condemned by those statutes which are made to suppress villains by every conceited and half-learned pedant.

"Tis true, indeed, those excellent statutes which are made against a sort of people who pretend to fortune-telling, and the like, are such as are well warranted, as being built upon the best foundation, viz., religion and policy; and were Mr. Campbell guilty of any such practice as those are made to punish, I openly declare that I should be so far from endeavouring to defend his cause that I would be one of the first that should aggravate his crime, thereby to enforce the speedier execution of those laws upon him which are made against such offenders. But when he is so far from acting that he doth not even pretend to any such practice, or for countenancing the same in others, as is manifest from the many detections he has made of that sort of villainy which the book furnishes us with, I think myself sufficiently justified for thus pleading in his defence.

I cannot but take notice, in reading the statutes made against such offenders, our wise legislature hath not in any part of them seemed so much as

to imply that there are in reality any such wicked persons as they are made against, to wit, conjurers, &c., but that they are only pretenders to those infernal arts, as may reasonably be inferred from the nature of the penalties they inflict; for our first laws of that sort only inflicted a penalty which affected the goods and liberty of the guilty, and not their lives, though indeed they were afterwards forced to heighten the punishment with a halter; not that they were better convinced, as I humbly conceive, but because the criminals were most commonly persons who had no goods to forfeit, and to whom their liberty was no otherwise valuable, but as it gave them the opportunity of doing mischief. Indeed, our law-books do furnish us with many instances of persons who have been tried and executed for witchcraft and sorcery, but then the wiser part of mankind have taken the liberty to condemn the magistrate at that time of day of too much inconsideration, and the juries of an equal share of credulity. And those who have suffered for such crimes have been commonly persons of the lowest rank, whose poverty might occasion a dislike of them in their fellow creatures, and their too artless defence subject them to their mistaken justice; so that upon the whole I take the liberty to conclude, and I hope not without good grounds, that those laws were made to deter men from an idle pretence to mysterious and unjustifiable arts, which, if too closely pursued, commonly lead them into the darkest villainy, not only that of deceiving others, but, as far as in them lie, making themselves slaves to

the devil; and not to prevent and hinder men from useful inquiries, and from the practice of such arts which, though they are in themselves mysterious, yet are and may be lawful.

I would not, however, be thought in contradiction to my former arguments, to assert that there never were, or that there now are, no persons such as wizards, sorcerers, &c.; for by so doing I should be as liable to be censured for my incredulity as those who defame Mr. Campbell on that account are, for their want of reason and common honesty. Holy and profane writ, I confess, furnishes us with many instances of such persons; but we must not from thence hastily infer, that all those men are such, who are spitefully branded with the odious guilt; for were it in the devil's power to make every wicked man a wizard, and woman a witch, he soon would have agents enough to shake this lower world to atoms; but the Almighty, who restrains him, likewise restrains those.

Having premised thus much, I shall now proceed to consider some of the Acts of Parliament themselves, the persons against whom they were made, and the necessity of making the same; and some of the first Acts we meet with were those which were made against a sort of people called Egyptians; persons who, if in reality such, might, if any, be suspected of practising what we call the black art, the same having been for many ages encouraged in their country; nay, so much has it been by them favoured, that it was introduced into their superstitious religion (if I may, without an absurdity, call it so),