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The ground of this easy credulity is not so much infirmity of intellect as it is an exuberance of sentiment, although it may reasonably be believed that its more pronounced manifestations as, e.g., the high protective tariff can be had only by force of a formidable cooperation of the two.
“All those conceptions of diabolical presence; all that predisposition toward the miraculous, which acted so fearfully upon the imaginations of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, existed; but the implicit faith, the boundless and triumphant credulity with which the virtue of ecclesiastical rites was accepted, rendered them comparatively innocuous.
I had a contempt for the understanding of men who accepted with credulity what they could not explain by reason. My favourite phrase was "common-sense." At the same time I had no prejudice against bold discovery, and discovery necessitates conjecture, but I dismissed as idle all conjecture that could not be brought to a practical test.
It is this excessive idea which the French instil into each other of their own superiority, joined to the extreme ignorance of the great body of the people, which composes that prominent feature in their national character their credulity and which has long rendered them the easiest of all nations to be imposed upon by political artifice, and the submissive dupes of those travelling quacks and ingenious charlatans, who in this country are more than commonly successful in ruining the health and impoverishing the pockets of their devoted patients.
Nothing, therefore, can be more contrary than such a philosophy to the supine indolence of the mind, its rash arrogance, its lofty pretensions, and its superstitious credulity. Every passion is mortified by it, except the love of truth; and that passion never is, nor can be, carried to too high a degree.
The young man smiled at her credulity and enthusiasm. He was not so entirely sceptical as to some possible clue being given by these verses as he would have her believe, but he could not see any daylight yet, and wished to save her from disappointment. "That is scarce like to be.
For this, however, he should not be judged too harshly, as he was firm in the belief that the Indian could be managed only by beating him, just as was affirmed by a friar who knew enough to write books, and Padre Damaso never disputed anything that he saw in print, a credulity of which many might have reason to complain.
My smile was simply that which marked the eventual voting down of this once celebrated measure, as merry and as bold a jest as ever was offered the credulity of a nation one conceivable only in the mad and bitter wit of Helena von Ritz! "Yes, Madam," I said, "I have heard of 'America Vespucci. I presume that you are now about to repeat that you are she!"
I managed to string together the following absurd story from his broken English. He said that if you heard a twig break in the forest once or even twice you were safe enough, but if a twig snapped a third time, and you did not call out that you saw the Negrito, you would get an arrow into you. I only mention this anecdote to illustrate the credulity of the Filipinos.
It is the supposed secrecy or low origin of the remedy that is its attraction. The basis of the vast proprietary medicine business is popular ignorance and credulity. And it needs to be pretty broad to support a traffic of such enormous proportions.
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