n good, or avert evil, I was not
informed. The Minister is now living by whom the practice was abolished.

They have still among them a great number of charms for the cure of
different diseases; they are all invocations, perhaps transmitted to them
from the times of popery, which increasing knowledge will bring into
disuse.

They have opinions, which cannot be ranked with superstition, because
they regard only natural effects. They expect better crops of grain, by
sowing their seed in the moon's increase. The moon has great influence
in vulgar philosophy. In my memory it was a precept annually given in
one of the English Almanacks, 'to kill hogs when the moon was increasing,
and the bacon would prove the better in boiling.'

We should have had little claim to the praise of curiosity, if we had not
endeavoured with particular attention to examine the question of the
Second Sight. Of an opinion received for centuries by a whole nation,
and supposed to be confirmed through its whole descent, by a series of
successive facts, it is desirable that the truth should be established,
or the fallacy detected.

The Second Sight is an impression made either by the mind upon the eye,
or by the eye upon the mind, by which things distant or future are
perceived, and seen as if they were present. A man on a journey far from
home falls from his horse, another, who is perhaps at work about the
house, sees him bleeding on the ground, commonly with a landscape of the
place where the accident befalls him. Another seer, driving home his
cattle, or wandering in idleness, or musing in the sunshine, is suddenly
surprised by the appearance of a bridal ceremony, or funeral procession,
and counts the mourners or attendants, of whom, if he knows them, he
relates the names, if he knows them not, he can describe the dresses.
Things distant are seen at the instant when they happen. Of things
future I know not that there is any rule for determining the time between
the Sight and the event.

This receptive faculty, for power it cannot be called, is neither
voluntary nor constant. The appearances have no dependence upon choice:
they cannot be summoned, detained, or recalled. The impression is
sudden, and the effect often painful.

By the term Second Sight, seems to be meant a mode of seeing, superadded
to that which Nature generally bestows. In the Earse it is called
Taisch; which signifies likewise a spectre, or a vision. I know not, no