Page:On the Fourfold Root, and On the Will in Nature.djvu/377

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the meaning which lies at the bottom of this thought still is, that it is an agency which is not physically, but metaphysically exercised: that it is not a natural, but a supernatural, agency. Now if, in the small amount of fact which speaks in favour of the reality of Magic: that is, in Animal Magnetism and charm-cures, we still do not recognise anything but an immediate action of the will which here manifests its direct power outside, instead of inside, the individual; if moreover, as I am about to show and to substantiate by decisive, unequivocal citations, those who are more deeply initiated into ancient Magic, derive all its effects from the magician's will alone: this is surely strong empirical evidence in support of my doctrine, that the Metaphysical in general, that which alone exists apart from representation, the thing–in–itself of the universe is nothing but what is known to us within ourselves as the will.

Now, if the direct power which may occasionally be exercised over Nature by the will, was conceived by those magicians as a merely indirect one, acquired by the help of demons, this still could not prevent its efficiency wherever and whenever it may have taken place. For, precisely because, in things of this kind, the will acts in itself, in its primariness, therefore apart from representation, its efficiency cannot be frustrated by erroneous conceptions of the intellect; on the contrary, the distance here is a wide one between theory and practice: the errors of the former do not stand in the way of the latter, nor does a correct theory qualify for practice. Mesmer, in the beginning, attributed his agency to the magnetic rods he held in his hands and later on explained the wonders of Animal Magnetism by a materialistic theory of a subtle, all-permeating fluid; nevertheless he produced wonderfully powerful effects. I once myself knew the proprietor of an estate, whose peasants were wont by tradition to have their feverish attacks dispelled by their master's spell. Now,

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