"
"Not believe in the tides!" repeated the healer of bodies in
astonishment. "Does the man distrust his senses? But perhaps it is the
influence of the moon that he doubts."
"That he does!" exclaimed Katy, shaking with delight at meeting with a
man of learning, who could support her opinions. "If you was to hear him
talk, you would think he didn't believe there was such a thing as a
moon at all."
"It is the misfortune of ignorance and incredulity, madam, that they
feed themselves. The mind, once rejecting useful information, insensibly
leans to superstition and conclusions on the order of nature, that are
not less prejudicial to the cause of truth, than they are at variance
with the first principles of human knowledge."
The spinster was too much awe-struck to venture an undigested reply to
this speech; and the surgeon, after pausing a moment in a kind of
philosophical disdain, continued,--
"That any man in his senses can doubt of the flux of the tides is more
than I could have thought possible; yet obstinacy is a dangerous inmate
to harbor, and may lead us into any error, however gross."
"You think, then, they have an effect on the flux?" said the
housekeeper, inquiringly.
Miss Peyton rose and beckoned her nieces to give her their assistance in
the adjoining pantry, while for a moment the dark visage of the
attentive Lawton was lighted by an animation that vanished by an effort,
as powerful and as sudden, as the one that drew it into being.
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