Page:On the Fourfold Root, and On the Will in Nature.djvu/376

 THE WILL IN NATURE.

them anything in return for their services, in a hell-compulsion 1 (Höllenzwang). But all these mere interpretions and outward trappings of the thing were received so entirely as its essence and as objective processes, that writers like Bodinus, Delrio, Bindsfeldt, &c., whose knowledge of magic was second-hand and not derived from personal experience, all assert the essential characteristic of Magic to be, that it does not act either through forces of Nature or in a natural way, but through the assistance of the Devil. This view was, and long remained, current everywhere, locally modified according to the religions which prevailed in different countries. The laws against sorcery and the trials for witchcraft were based upon it; likewise, wherever the possibility of Magic was contested, the attacks were generally directed against this opinion. An objective view, such as this, was an inevitable consequence of the decided Realism which prevailed throughout ancient and mediaeval Europe and which Descartes was the first to disturb. Till then, Man had not learnt to direct the light of speculative thought towards the mysterious depths of his own inner self, but, on the contrary, had sought everything outside himself. Above all the thought of making the will he found within him rule over Nature, was so bold, that people would have been alarmed by it: therefore it was made to rule over fictitious beings, supposed by the prevailing superstition to have command over Nature, in order through them to obtain at least indirect mastery over Nature. Every sort of god or demon more over, is always a hypostasis, by which believers of all sects and colours bring to their own comprehension the Metaphysical, that which lies behind Nature, that which gives her existence and consistence and consequently rules over her. Thus, when it is said, that Magic acts by the help of demons,

1 Delrio, Disquisitionum magicarum, Lib. ii. quaestio 2. &mdash; Agrippa a Nettesheim, De [incertitudine et] Vanitate  Scientiarum, c. 45.

ANIMAL