e
wondered at that when some portion was manifestly wrong, its own
requirements should be complied with, and the whole rejected. The
system which required an implicit belief in such absurdities as those
related in these volumes, and placed them on a level with the most
awful verities of religion, might indeed make some interested use of
them in an age of comparative darkness, but certainly contained within
itself the seeds of destruction, and which could not fail to germinate
as soon as light fell upon them. The state of Calmet's own mind, as
revealed in this book, is curious and interesting. The belief _of the
intellect_ in much which he relates is evidently gone, the belief _of
the will_ but partially remains. There is a painful sense of
uncertainty as to whether certain things _ought_ not to be received
more fully than he felt himself able to receive them, and he gladly
follows in many cases the example of Herodotus of old, merely relating
stories without comment, save by stating that they had not fallen
under his own observation.

The time, indeed, had hardly come to assert freedom of belief on
subjects such as these. Theology embraced philosophy, and the Holy
Inquisition defended the orthodoxy of both; and if the investigators
of Calmet's day were permitted to hold, with some limitation, the
Copernican theory, it was far otherwise with regard to the world of
spirits, and its connection with our own. The rotundity of the earth
affected neither shrines nor exorcisms; metaphysical truth might do
both one and the other; and the cry of "Great is Diana of the
Ephesians," was not raised in the capital of Asia Minor, till the
"craft by which we get our wealth" was proved to be in danger.

Reflections such as these are painfully forced on us by the evident
fraud exhibited by many of the actors in the scenes of exorcism
narrated by Calmet, the vile purposes to which the services of the
church were turned, and the recklessness with which the supposed or
pretended evil, and equally pretended remedy, were used for political
intrigue or state oppression.

Independent of these conclusions, there is something lamentable in a
state of the public mind, which was so little prone to examination as
to receive such a mass of superstition without sifting the wheat, for
such there undoubtedly is, from the chaff. Calmet's work contains
enough, had we the minor circumstances in each case preserved, to set
at rest many philosophic doubts