Page:On the Fourfold Root, and On the Will in Nature.djvu/367

 MAGNETISM AND MAGIC. 335

than physical influences brought about in the way of the intelligible nexus of causality.

It is a fortunate circumstance, that the rectification of this view in our time should have come from medical science; because it ensures us at the same time against the danger of the pendulum of opinion receiving too strong an impulse in the contrary direction, and thus carrying us back to the superstition of ruder ages. Besides, as I have said, Animal Magnetism and Charm-curing only save the reality of a part of Magic, which included a good deal more, a considerable portion of which must, for the present at least, remain under the old sentence of condemnation or be left in uncertainty; whereas another portion will at any rate have to be conceived as possible, through its analogy to Animal Magnetism. For Animal Magnetism and Charm-cures are but salutary influences exercised for curative purposes, like those recorded in the History of Magic as practised by the so-called (Spanish) Saludadores, 1 who nevertheless were also condemned by the Church; whereas Magic was far oftener practised with an evil intent. Nevertheless, to judge by analogy, it is more than probable, that the same inherent force which, by acting directly upon another individuality, can exercise a salutary influence, will be at least as powerful to exercise a prejudicial and pernicious one. If therefore there was reality in any part of ancient Magic beyond what may be referred to Animal Magnetism and curing by charms, it must assuredly have been in that which is called maleficium [witchcraft] and fascinatio [sorcery], the very thing that gave rise to most of the trials for witchcraft. In Most's book, too, already mentioned, 2 a few facts are related which must

1 Delrio, Disquisitionum Magicarum, Book III, Part 2, Question 4, Scholium 7; and Bodinus, De magorum daemonomania, Book iii, Part 2.

2 See note 2, p. 334, especially pp. 40, 41, and Nos. 89, 91, and 97 of Most's book.

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