Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/224

206 MAGIC medicine appear to have been chosen for magical rather than medical motives, by a kind of reasoning which comes out very plainly among Chinese physicians, who administer the heads, middles, and roots of plants to cure their patients heads, bodies, and legs respectively. In like manner European doctors long followed the " doctrine of signatures," which was in fact mere magic, prescribing euphrasy or "eye-bright" for complaints of the eyes, because of the likeness of an eye in the flower, and treat ing small-pox with mulberries because their colour made them" proper to diseases of the blood (see Pettigrew, Superstitions of Medicine and Surgery). The same easily- understood though practically absurd principle may be seen to have guided the processes of divination, many of which show plainly the association of ideas that suggested them. Thus, in the Roman augury already mentioned, there is no difficulty in following the fancy which made the war-eagle give an omen of victory, but attached a doleful foreboding to the melancholy owl. The same half- rational meaning explains the reversal of omens accord ingly as they come on the right or left, that is, the good or bad hand. Any one who glances through one of the cheap dream books still bought by servant-maids, which fairly represent the ancient books on oneiromancy, such as that of Artemidorus, will find many of the analogies still intelligible on which they are founded, as that to dream of washing one s hands presages relief from anxiety, while he who dreams of losing a tooth will lose a friend. The ancient art of chiromancy, or telling fortunes by the hand, goes on the evident analogy between the lines of the palm and the diverging courses of human life ; closely allied to this is scapulimancy or divining by the cracks of a shoulder-blade put into the fire. Of divination by lots, so common that the term for throwing lots (sortes) has passed into sorcery, there are many varieties. Some are quite pictorial, such as the Maori diviner s sticks set up in the ground to show by their standing or falling the fate of the warriors they represent. But this strong analogy is not necessary, for it only requires a particular lot to be mentally associated with a particular idea to make the diviner believe that the fall of that lot makes that idea true. It would be tedious to go at length through other details of magic where the same key of imperfect analogy applies. But it may be pointed out that this explanation is nowhere more conclusive than in astrology. The very foundation of the science of the horoscope lies in the mere analogy between the rising of a star above the horizon and the birth of a man. Such circumstances as whether a planet is in conjunction or opposition alter their effect on the " native " in corresponding ways. The names of gods, happening to be given also to certain planets, are taken as omens, so that because a planet bears the name of Mercury it is brought into fanciful connexion with wisdom, and in like manner the planet Venus with love. Each planet having a colour assigned to it, the aspect of Mars or Saturn is believed to tell one, when in quest of a thief, whether he will have on red or black clothes. So the arbitrary names of the signs of the zodiac are made into presages, a just person being found under the sign of Libra, and charms against bugs being effective in the sign, of Cancer. For convenience some of these examples are taken from modern handbooks of astrology, but in principle the old starcraft has changed little in the course of ages. In the study of magic it is necessary further to notice that precepts which seem quite arbitrary, not showing even fanciful half-reason, are often explained on further examination, which gives the key to the symbolic process by which they are formed. For instance, it would hardly be guessed why Cancer should be a sign involving movableness, but Scorpio firmness, were it not known that this result is obtained by arranging the twelve signs in order as they stand, as successively movable, fixed, and double (see Proclus, Paraphrmis, i. 15). Con sidering the antiquity of magic, the wonder is not that so much of its sense should be lost, but that so much is still intelligible. 1 Various other causes may be traced in the occult sciences, among which can only be mentioned here rliabdomancy or the use of the divining rod, by which the cunning man professes to discover water springs, murderers, or hidden treasure. Here it is evident that the decision is really arrived at by the diviner himself, not by the twig, and the same is true of various similar arts. From the earliest times also tricks of sleight-of-hand, &c., have been passed off by magicians as miracles to deceive their dupes ; our lan guage still testifies to this in the use of the word conjuror, the wonder-worker carrying on the old juggling, although no longer evoking demons to give him his mysterious power. Hitherto magic has been dealt with on its delusive and harmful side, this being what most practically manifests itself in history. Yet it must be borne in mind that in its early stages it has been a source of real knowledge. True as it is that misunderstood facts and misleading analogies have produced its delusions, its imperfect arguments have been steps towards more perfect reasoning. Analogy has always been the forerunner of scientific thought, and, as experience corrected and restricted it into real effectiveness, from age to age whole branches of what was magic passed into the realm of science. The vague and misleading parts which could not be thus transformed were left behind as occult science, and thus the very reason why magic is almost all bad is because when any of it becomes good it ceases to be magic. From this point of view the intellectual position of magic is well expressed by Adolf Bastian (Rechtsalterthumer, p. 242) : " Sorcery, or, in its higher expression, magic, marks the first dawning consciousness of mutual connexion throughout nature, in which man, feeling himself part of the whole, thinks himself able to interfere for his own wishes or needs. So long as religion fills the whole horizon of culture, the vague groping of magic contains the first experiments which lead to the results of exact science. Magic is the physics of mankind in the state of nature. It rests on the beginning of induc tion, which remains without result only because in its imperfect judgments by analogy it raises the post hoc to the propter hoc, &c." The nature-spirits and demons with which the magician has so much to do represent indeed the notion of physical cause in the rudimentary science of the lower races, while the association of ideas on which his sorcery and divination is based has much the same relation to the scientific induction which succeeds it. That this view is sound is best shown by noticing the great depart ments of science whose early development is known to have taken place through magic. Astronomy grew up in Babylon, not through quest of mechanical laws of the universe, but through observation of the heavens to obtain presages of wars and harvest ; while even in modern times Kepler s discoveries in physical astronomy were led up to through mystic magical speculations. In alchemy appears the early history of chemistry, which only emancipated itself in modern ages from its magical surroundings. The astrological connexion of the metals each with its planet was one of its fundamental ideas, of which the traces are still to be found in the name of the metal " mercury," and that of " lunar caustic " for silver nitrate. Lastly, the history of medicine goes back to the times when primi tive science accepted demoniacal possession as the rational means of accounting for disease, and magical operations with herbs originated their more practical use in materia medica. (E. B. T.) 1 For details of the association of ideas yi magic see Tylor, Early

His*, of Mankind, chap. vi. , and Primitive Culture, chap. iv.