by a skilful physician there, with a number of remedies for some serious complaint to which he was subject, found, to his dismay, when suffering under a severe paroxysm in the fortress of Akaba, that he had lost the directions which told him in what order the medicines were to be taken.  Whether pill, powder, or draught was to come first, he knew not:  ‘on which,’ says he, ’in a fit of desperation, I placed them all in a row before me, and resolved to swallow them all serialim till I obtained relief.’  George has equal faith.”

“You have omitted,” said I, “one character,—­that of the sceptic, who believes in no medicine at all; who sturdily dies with his doubts unresolved, and unattended by any physician.  But it must be confessed that he is a still rarer character than the sceptic in religion.  Nature, my dear Harrington, everywhere decides against you.”

“I acknowledge,” he said, “that we are but a scanty flock in any department of life; but, upon my word, the parallel you have suggested is so striking, that I think I must in consistency, extend my scepticism to physic at least, and, if I am ill, refrain from availing myself of so uncertain an art, practised by such uncertain hands and which are to be selected by one who cannot even guess whether they are ignorant or skilful;—­doctors, who may perhaps, as Voltaire said, put drugs of which they know nothing into bodies of which they know still less.”

“Act upon that resolution, Harrington,” said I, “and you will at least be consistent:  but, depend upon it, nature will confute you.”

“Why,” said he, jestingly, “perhaps in the case of medicine, at all events, I might face the consequences of scepticism’.  I remember reading, in some account of Madagascar, that the natives are absolutely without the healing art; ‘and yet,’ says the author, with grave surprise, ‘it is not observed that the number of deaths is increased.’  Perhaps, thought I, that is the cause of it.”

“The statistics,” I replied, “of more civilized countries amply refute you, and show you that, uncertain as is the evidence on which God has destined and compelled men to act in this, the most important affair of the present life, and absolute as is the faith they are summoned to exercise, neither is the study of the art (uncertain as it is in itself), nor the dependence of patients upon it (still more precarious as that is), unjustified on the whole by the result; and as to the abuses of downright quackery, a little prudence and common sense are required, and are sufficient to preserve men from them.”

He mused, and, I thought, seemed struck by this analogy between man’s temporal and spiritual condition I said no more, hoping that he would ponder it. ____

July 25.  I had been so much interested in the discussion between Harrington and young Robinson on the fair application of the principle of Strauss to history in general, that I could not resist the temptation to tell the youth, in secret, that I thought the matter would admit of further discussion, and that he would do well to challenge Harrington plausibly to show that some undoubted modern event might, when it became remote history, be rendered dubious to posterity.  He willingly acted on the hint the next morning.  To some remark of his, Harrington replied thus:—­