Note 9 — Chapter I

In the year 1601, a horse, which had been taught to perform a number of tricks, was tried, as possessed by the devil, and condemned to be burnt. Joblonski affirms in his Lexicon, &c. that he was condemned to the flames in Lisbon. Nothing was a greater imposition on mankind than the Oracles. The imposition of causing statues to speak, as the head of Orpheus in the island of Lesbos, the Æsculapius of Alexander, &c. may be readily perceived, when Lucius relates, that, in the case of Alexander's oracle, he took instead of a pipe, the gullet of a crane, and transmitted the voice through it to the mouth of the statue! Bishop Theophilus, in the fourth century, broke to pieces the statues at Alexandria. He found some which were hollow, and placed in such a manner against a wall, that a priest could slip unperceived behind them, and speak to the ignorant populace through their mouths. Professor Beckman observes, "that the Pagan priests, like our jugglers, were afraid that their deceptions, if long practised, might be discovered. They considered it, therefore, as more secure to deliver the answers themselves, or cause them to be delivered by women instructed for that purpose, or by writings, or by any other means. We read, nevertheless, that idols, and the images of saints once spoke; for at present the latter will not venture to open their mouths. If their votaries ever really heard a voice proceed from the statue, it may have been produced in the before-mentioned manner." We think, that a contrivance, similar to the bull of Phalaris, in the place of hollow statues, would furnish a good reality.

The oracle of Apollo at Delphos, says Percy, having been consulted about the manner of stopping a plague then raging at Athens, returned for answer, that the plague should cease, when Apollo's altar, which was cubical, should be doubled. The philosophers of Athens immediately applied themselves to discover the duplicature of the cube, which henceforward was called the Delian Problem, and continued for a long time to be an object of the keenest pursuit to the curious. The first who discovered the solution was Hippocrates Chias.