Note 73 — HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.

This species of delusion, from mistaking the Post hoc, for the Propter hoc, always reminds me of the story of the Florentine Quack, who gave the countryman six pills which were to enable him to discover his lost Ass,—the pills beginning to operate on his road home, obliged him to retire into a wood, where he found his ass. The clown soon spread a report of the wonderful success of the empiric, who in consequence, no doubt, reaped an ample reward from the proprietors of strayed cattle.