If we attend to phenomena taking
place in our time, such as a shower of blood, tremendous hail stones
weighing a pound each, and containing a stone within them; showers of
frogs, and other almost unaccountable occurrences, we must consign them
to, "the annals in which science has inserted the facts, she has
recognized as such, without as yet pretending to explain them."
Respecting the second reason, the deceptive appearance which nature
sometimes assumes, the exaggeration, almost unavoidable, by partially
informed observers, of the details of a phenomenon, or its duration;
improper, ill-understood, or badly translated expressions, figurative
language, and a practical style; erroneous explanations of emblematical
representations; apologues and allegories adopted as real facts. Such
are the causes, which, singly or together, have frequently swollen with
prodigious fictions the page of history; and it is by carefully removing
this envelope, that elucidations must be sought of what has hitherto
been improperly and disdainfully rejected. A few examples will
illustrate these several positions.
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