Page:On the Fourfold Root, and On the Will in Nature.djvu/378

 THE WILL IN NATURE.

although he believed he had convinced himself of the impossibility of all such things, yet he continued good- naturedly to comply with their wish as usual, and indeed often succeeded in relieving them. This success he ascribed to his peasants firm belief, forgetting that a similar faith ought also to bring success to the medical treatment which is so often applied with complete inefficacy to believing patients.

Now, if Theurgy and Demonomagic, as described above, were but the mere interpretation and outward trappings of the thing, the mere husk, at which the majority were content to stop short; there were nevertheless some, who went below the surface and quite recognised that the agent in influences supposed to proceed from magic, was absolutely nothing but the will. We must not however look for such deeper observers as these among the discountenancers and antagonists of Magic, and the majority of the writers on this subject belong precisely to these: they derived their knowledge exclusively from Courts of Justice and from the examination of witnesses, so that they merely describe the outside of the matter; and, if at any time they chanced, through confessions, to gain an insight into the inner processes, they took good care not to betray that knowledge, lest, by doing so, they should contribute to diffuse the terrible vice of sorcery. To this class belong Bodinus, Delrio, Bindsfeldt, and others. For information as to the real nature of the thing, we must on the contrary go to philosophers and investigators of Nature, who wrote in those times of prevailing superstition. Now, from what they say, it clearly follows, that the real agent in Magic, just as in Animal Magnetism, is nothing but the will. Here I must quote some passages in support of this assertion. 1 Paracelsus especially discloses

1 Roger Bacon already in the thirteenth century said: "Quod si ulterius aliqua anima maligna cogitat fortiter de infectione altcrius, atque ardenter desideret et certitudinaliter intendat, atque vehementer consideret, se posse nocere, non est dubium, quin natura obediet cogitationibus animae." [When an evil–minded man resolutely thinks of injuring another, when he passionately desires this and intends to do so with determination, and is firmly convinced that he can injure him, then there is no doubt that nature will obey the intentions of his will] (See Rogeri Bacon, Opus Majus, Londini, 1733, p. 252.)

ANIMAL