This credulity has a scientific basis, and has no relation to the old absurd belief in Bimini.
Perhaps the most melancholy spectacle offered to us in our short sojourn in this pilgrimage, where the roads are so dusty and the caravansaries so ill provided, is the credulity of this pursuit.
He was, judged by his writings, a man of considerable education, a good deal of a pedant, and shared the credulity and fondness for embellishment of the writers of his time.
To her childish credulity fairy lore had been more interesting than wonderful, but the instincts and habits of these children of nature touched on mysteries that can never be solved.
There are certain phases of credulitythat I would not disturb for the world," he answered: "and who knows but you are right?
So what is sneeringly called the credulityof human nature is its holy faith, and, in spite of all the hard facts which you may charge upon it, is the glory of man.
It may be some consolation to any whose patriotism is shocked by the ready belief of Oates’s narrative, to know that the proverbial credulity of the English was fully equalled by the gullibility of the acute and polished Athenians.
But what was there in the enthusiasm and credulity of honest Goldsmith in this matter to subject him to the laugh of Johnson or the raillery of Walpole?
Sharpman felt that a fortune had slipped from his grasp, and that he had lost it by reason of his owncredulity and fear.
But you should not try to impose so glittering a romance on the verdant credulity of an old acquaintance at the first meeting in many weary years.
Rome reposed implicitly upon the credulity of the people, and neglected to throw even the slightest veil over its impositions.
Objects of credulity may be destroyed, but not those of pleasure; we shall forever love these true and lively images.
On the other hand, the last agony of paganism was marked by a new attack of the lowest credulity and superstition.
It is difficult to adjust one's credulity to accept as history this singular Indian picture-record.
To the real history of this singular individual credulity has attached several superstitious appendages.
His own bias, politically and otherwise, was only too apparent, besides which he displayed the faults of credulity and imagination already alluded to.
To be sure, some of the great writers, like Florián de Ocampo and Mariana, displayed too much credulity or a disposition to imagine events for which they lacked documentary proof.
Some (but their number is small) have imputed to our author too much credulity respecting miracles.
However, if credulity in private histories was too easy in any former age, certainly skepticism and infidelity are the characters of this in which we live.
Yet he is willing to become Don Quixote's esquire, and by his credulity and devotion shows what an ascendency a heroic and enthusiastic nature can gain over the most sluggish of men.
As the madness of Don Quixote is humanized by his natural intelligence and courage, so the grossness and credulity of Sancho are relieved by his homely wit.
And such was thecredulity of his age, such the blind faith of those men in the miraculous power of that charm, that none of them so much as attempted to test it with a dagger.
The mind of Roger Bacon was strangely compounded of almost prophetic gleams of the future course of science, and the best principles of the inductive philosophy, with a more than usual credulity in the superstitions of his own time.
He shows a good deal of credulity as to diabolical illusions, but takes these unfortunate persons for the devil’s victims rather than his accomplices.
It is impossible, I think, to deny that credulity is one of the points of resemblance between him and his namesake.
Apostolo Zeno and Tiraboschi have imputed less fraud than credulity to Annius, but most have been of another opinion; and it is unimportant for the purpose of the text.
They never gained over a more distinguished proselyte, or one whose credulity was more to be regretted, than a young man who appeared at Florence in 1485, John Picus of Mirandola.
Meiners, of all modern historians of literature, is the least favourable to Bacon, on account of his superstition and credulity in the occult sciences.
And Pierre, whilst chatting with him, was stupefied to find persistent, tenacious credulity springing up once more, in spite of everything, in the cultivated brain of this man of intellect.
Already, at the Verification Office, Pierre had suffered from this credulity of the folk among whom he lived.
It was like a return to the heroic days of the Church, when all nations prostrated themselves beneath the same blast of credulity in their terrified ignorance which led them to place their hope of eternal happiness in an Almighty God.
Credulity was boundless, fraud was audacious, and lying for the profit of the Church was regarded as a virtue.
Faith and credulityare the same thing with different names.
Mrs. Besant placed her feet upon the high road of credulitywhen she succumbed to the Theosophical high priestess, whose life is a highly interesting and instructive chapter in the history of imposture.
Telling us that a man rose from the dead is no reason why we should believe that three times one are one; it is only proving one wonder by another, and making a fresh draft on our credulity at every step in the demonstration.
Faith enables men to believe against reason, and one act of credulity is little easier than a thousand.
Ferdinand, conscious of his own innocence, which he had not always to plead, far from attempting to soothe her indignation, assumed the authority and prerogative of a husband, and sharply reprehended her for her credulity and indecent warmth.
First: the assertion that every marvel or narrative of supernatural interference seemed a matter of course to the superstitious credulity of the age, is inaccurate.
That the ordinary credulity of mankind with respect to the occurrence of supernatural events is so great and widespread, as to render the invention of miraculous narratives easy, and to destroy the credit of all narratives containing them.
Were they men of like credulity with the remainder?
The enthusiasm or credulity which easily creates the one belief, refuses to accept the other.
Would any amount of enthusiastic credulity mistake such a person for the Messiah of the future?
But to combine the charge of intense enthusiasm and credulity with that of conscious fraud, is a mode of reasoning which contains the grounds of its own refutation.
First, certain differences existing between the Septuagint and the Hebrew Scriptures are pressed into the service, which are no instances of eithercredulity or superstition.
But there is a reference made to Philo which deserves particular notice as an exemplification of the mode adopted by those who endeavour to fix the charge of unbounded credulity on the authors of the Gospels.
I submit therefore that the facts adduced utterly fail to establish the charge of intense superstition andcredulity against the followers of Jesus.
That the followers of Jesus were the prey of a credulity and superstition which greatly exceeded the limits of the ordinary credulity of mankind; and that therefore the value of their historical testimony is destroyed.
The next writer referred to, to prove that the followers of Jesus were a prey to credulity and superstition, is Josephus, in his narrative of the signs which preceded the destruction of Jerusalem.
Would not this be much more wonderful, calling for a much greater strain on our credulity than to believe that God had again spoken and brought to light this long-hidden treasure?
To consider this story, its origination and history, its claims on the credulity of mankind, and the weight of evidence for and against it, will be topic of the following pages.
He served with honor in the wars of Europe and Asia; and we may smile at the art or credulity of the historian, who supposes, that in every encounter he spared the Christians, while he fell with a thundering arm on his Mussulman foes.
But his credulity and injustice may teach an important lesson; to distrust the accounts of foreign and remote nations, and to suspend our belief of every tale that deviates from the laws of nature and the character of man.
A lively philosopher [25] derides on this occasion the credulity of the Greeks, and observes, with much reason, that we should always distrust the exaggerations of a vanquished people.
