When
interrogated with the strictness of judicial inquiry, and under the awe
of an oath, he recollected himself better, and retracted what he had
formerly asserted, apologising for his inaccuracy, by telling the
judges, 'A man will _say_ what he will not _swear_.' By many he was much
censured, and it was maintained that every gentleman would be as
attentive to truth without the sanction of an oath, as with it. Dr.
Johnson, though he himself was distinguished at all times by a
scrupulous adherence to truth, controverted this proposition; and as a
proof that this was not, though it ought to be, the case, urged the very
different decisions of elections under Mr. Grenville's Act,[1071] from
those formerly made. 'Gentlemen will not pronounce upon oath what they
would have said, and voted in the house, without that sanction.'
However difficult it may be for men who believe in preternatural
communications, in modern times, to satisfy those who are of a different
opinion, they may easily refute the doctrine of their opponents, who
impute a belief in _second sight_ to _superstition_. To entertain a
visionary notion that one sees a distant or future event, may be called
_superstition_: but the correspondence of the fact or event with such an
impression on the fancy, though certainly very wonderful, _if proved_,
has no more connection with superstition, than magnetism or electricity.
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