of judgment, and even of
respect for the eighth commandment, which he has unconsciously made in
the "History of the Translation of the Blessed Martyrs Marcellinus and
Paul." Or, to go no further back than the last number of the _Nineteenth
Century_, surely that excellent lady, Miss Strickland, is not to be
refused all credence, because of the myth about the second James's
remains, which she seems to have unconsciously invented.

Of course this is perfectly true. I am afraid there is no man alive
whose witness could be accepted, if the condition precedent were proof
that he had never invented and promulgated a myth. In the minds of all
of us there are little places here and there, like the indistinguishable
spots on a rock which give foothold to moss or stonecrop; on which, if
the germ of a myth fall, it is certain to grow, without in the least
degree affecting our accuracy or truthfulness elsewhere. Sir Walter
Scott knew that he could not repeat a story without, as he said,
"giving it a new hat and stick." Most of us differ from Sir Walter only
in not knowing about this tendency of the mythopoeic faculty to break
out unnoticed. But it is also perfectly true that the mythopoeic
faculty is not equally active in all minds, nor in all regions and under
all conditions of the same mind. David Hume was certainly not so liable
to temptation as the Venerable Bede, or even as some recent historians
who could be mentioned; and the most imaginative of debtors, if he owes
five pounds, never makes an obligation to pay a hundred out of it. The
rule of common sense is _prima facie_ to trust a witness in all matters,
in which neither his self-interest, his passions, his prejudices, nor
that love of the marvellous, which is inherent to a greater or less
degree in all mankind, are strongly concerned; and, when they are
involved, to require corroborative evidence in exact proportion to the
contravention of probability by the thing testified.

Now, in the Gadarene affair, I do not think I am unreasonably sceptical,
if I say that the existence of demons who can be transferred from a man
to a pig, does thus contravene probability. Let me be perfectly candid.
I admit I have no _a priori_ objection to offer. There are physical
things, such as _laeniae_ and _trichinae_ which can be transferred from men
to pigs, and _vice versa_, and which do undoubtedly produce most
diabolical and deadly effects on both. For anything I can absolutely
prove to t