r to have contradicted the fame of the cure, or even to have
questioned it. And what is very observable in the account is, that the
report of the physicians is just such a report as would have been made
of a case in which no external marks of the disease existed, and which,
consequently, was capable of being easily counterfeited; viz. that in
the first of the patients the organs of vision were not destroyed, that
the weakness of the second was in his joints. The strongest circumstance
in Tacitus's narration is, that the first patient was "notus tabe
oculorum," remarked or notorious for the disease in his eyes. But this
was a circumstance which might have found its way into the story in its
progress from a distant country, and during an interval of thirty years;
or it might be true that the malady of the eyes was notorious, yet that
the nature and degree of the disease had never been ascertained; a case
by no means uncommon. The emperor's reserve was easily affected: or it
is possible he might not be in the secret. There does not seem to be
much weight in the observation of Tacitus, that they who were present
continued even then to relate the story when there was nothing to be
gained by the lie. It only proves that those who had told the story for
many years persisted in it. The state of mind of the witnesses and
spectators at the time is the point to be attended to. Still less is
there of pertinency in Mr. Hume's eulogium on the cautious and
penetrating genius of the historian; for it does not appear that the
historian believed it. The terms in which he speaks of Serapis, the
deity to whose interposition the miracle was attributed, scarcely suffer
us to suppose that Tacitus thought the miracle to be real: "by the
admonition of the god Serapis, whom that superstitious nation (dedita
superstitionibus gens) worship above all other gods." To have brought
this supposed miracle within the limits of comparison with the miracles
of Christ, it ought to have appeared that a person of a low and private
station, in the midst of enemies, with the whole power of the country
opposing him, with every one around him prejudiced or interested against
his claims and character, pretended to perform these cures, and required
the spectators, upon the strength of what they saw, to give up their
firmest hopes and opinions, and follow him through a life of trial and
danger; that many were so moved as to obey his call, at the expense both
of every