Page:On the Fourfold Root, and On the Will in Nature.djvu/373

 MAGNETISM AND MAGIC. 341

&mdash; of that will, which constitutes at once the inner essence of Man and of the whole of Nature and in the assumption connected with it that, somehow or other, this omnipotence might possibly for once make itself felt, even when proceeding from the individual. People were unable to investigate and distinguish the difference between the capabilities of the will as thing–in–itself and the same will in its individual manifestation; but they assumed without further ado, that under certain circumstances, the will might be enabled to break through the barriers of individuation. For the above-mentioned feeling rebelled obstinately against the knowledge forced upon it by experience, that

"Der Gott der mir im Busen wohnt,

Kann tief mein Innerstes erregen,

Der über allen meinen Kraften thront,

Er kann nach Aussen nichts bewegen."

[The god that lives within my breast can deeply excite that which is within me, but he who is enthroned over all of my powers can move nothing outside of me. (Goethe, Faust, I, 1566–1569)]

According to the fundamental thought just expounded, we find that the physical medium used in all attempts at magic, never was regarded in any other light than in that of a vehicle for a thing metaphysical; otherwise it could evidently stand in no relation whatever to the effect contemplated. These media consisted in cabalistic words, symbolical actions, traced figures, wax images, &c. &c. We see too that, according to the original feeling, what this vehicle conveyed was in the last resort always an act of volition that had been connected with it. The very natural inducement to do this was the observation that every moment men became aware of a completely unaccountable, that is, evidently metaphysical, agency of the will, in the movements or their own bodies. Might not this agency, they thought, be extended to other bodies also? To find out a way to annul the isolation in which the will finds itself in each individual, and to extend the immediate sphere of the will's action beyond the organism of the person willing, was the task of Magic.

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