of knowledge ; and from his powers of reasoning, the love of disputation and the vain-glory of superior vigour. His piety, in some instances, bordered on superstition. He was willing to believe in preternatural agency, and thought it not more strange that there should be evil spirits than evil men x . Even the question about second-sight held him in suspense. ' Second- sight,' Mr. Pennant tells us, ' is a power of seeing images im pressed on the organs of sight by the power of fancy, or on the fancy by the disordered spirits operating on the mind. It is the faculty of seeing spectres or visions, which represent an event actually passing at a distance, or likely to happen at a future day. In 1771, a gentleman, the last who was supposed to be possessed of this faculty, had a boat at sea in a tempestuous night, and, being anxious for his freight, suddenly started up, and said his men would be drowned, for he had seen them pass before him with wet garments and dropping locks. The event corresponded with his disordered fancy. And thus,' continues Mr. Pennant, ' a distempered imagination, clouded with anxiety, may make an impression on the spirits ; as persons, restless and troubled with indignation, see various forms and figures while they lie awake in bed 2 .' This is what Dr. Johnson was not willing to reject 3 . He wished for some positive proof of communications with another world 4 . His benevolence embraced the whole race of man, and yet was tinctured with particular prejudices. He was pleased with the minister in the Isle of Sky, and loved him so much that he began to wish him not a Presbyterian 5 .
1 Life, v. 45. 4 Speaking of 'Thomas Lord Lyt-
2 Apparently quoted from Pen- telton's vision ' he said : ' " I am so nant's Tour in Scotland, 1769, 4th glad to have every evidence of the ed., p. 198. spiritual world that I am willing to
3 ' Johnson (Works, ix. 107) thus believe it." DR. ADAMS. "You have
sums up his examination of second- evidence enough ; good evidence,
sight :' There is against it, the which needs not such support."
seeming analogy of things confusedly JOHNSON. "I like to have more.'"
seen, and little understood ; and for Life, iv. 298.
it, the indistinct cry of natural per- 5 Johnson wrote of the ministers :
suasion, which may be, perhaps, re- ' I saw not one in the islands whom
solved at last into prejudice and I had reason to think either deficient
tradition. I never could advance my in learning, or irregular in life ; but
curiosity to conviction ; but came found several with whom I could not
away at last only willing to believe.' converse without wishing, as my re-
To
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