If, my father had taken the pains to explain to me that the principles of agrippa had been entirely exploded and that the powers of [agrippa] were chimerical, i should certainly have thrown agrippa a chimera is a deception or fantasy of the mind. why does the author use the word chimerical here?
to show that everything in the world seemed imaginary

to show that the narrator was an old man at the end of life

to show the principles seemed true when they were not

to show the narrator has been haunted by his own past for years