Note 204 — DREAMS AT THE DAWN OF PHILOSOPHY.

Hall’s postulate is, that God’s work could not admit of any substantial change, which is above the reach of all infernal powers; but “Herein the divell plays the double sophister; the sorcerer with sorcerers. Hee both deludes the witch’s conceit and the beholder’s eyes.” In a word, Hall believes in what he cannot understand! Yet Hall will not believe one of the Catholic miracles of “the Virgin of Louvain,” though Lipsius had written a book to commemorate “the goddess,” as Hall sarcastically calls her. Hall was told, with great indignation, in the shop of the bookseller of Lipsius, that when James the First had just looked over this work, he flung it down, vociferating “Damnation to him that made it, and to him that believes it!”