A Collection of Rare and Curious Tracts on Witchcraft and the Second Sight

A Collection of Rare and Curious Tracts on Witchcraft and the Second Sight - Unknown - Excerpt: If we wish to form a just estimate of the human character in its progress through the various stages of civilization, from ignorance and barbarism, to science and refinement, we must search into the natural causes that actuate the human mind.

The life of man is prolonged to a remoter period, but subjected to more casualities, and greater vicissitudes of fortune, than most other animals. From these causes arises his anxious solicitude about futurity, and an eager desire to know his destiny; and thus man becomes the most superstitious of all other creatures. In every nation there have been multitudes of oracles, augurs, soothsayers, diviners, fortune-tellers, witches, sorcerers, &c. whose business has been to communicate intelligence respecting futurity, to the rest of mankind.