There is an amazingly silly proverb which quite mistakenly tells us that "seeing is believing." The
most ordinary conjurer at a village entertainment will prove the falsity of this saying. For who has
not seen one of these plausible mountebanks put a watch into a top-hat, and, after clearly
smashing it into a thousand pieces with a pestle, stir up the disintegrated fragments with a spoon
and produce an omelette? Or who is so unacquainted with the affairs of the village school ...