Page:On the Fourfold Root, and On the Will in Nature.djvu/389

 MAGNETISM AND MAGIC. 357

much is at any rate certain, that at the bottom of all the experiments, successful or unsuccessful, which have ever been made in Magic, there lies an anticipation of my Meta- physic. For in them is expressed the consciousness, that the causal law only connects phenomena, while the inner nature of things remains independent of it; and also, that if any direct influence on Nature be possible from within, it can only take place through the will itself. But even if Magic were to be ranked as practical Metaphysic, according to Bacon's classification, it is certain that no other theoretical Metaphysic would stand in the right relation to it but mine, by which the world is resolved into Will and Representation.

The zealous cruelty with which Magic has always been persecuted by the Church and to which the papal malleus maleficarum bears terrible evidence, seems not to have for its sole basis the criminal purposes often associated with the practice of Magic or the part assumed to be played by the Devil, but rather to proceed partly from a vague foreboding and fear lest Magic should trace back its original power to its true source; whereas the Church has assigned to it a place outside Nature. 1 The detestation shown by the cautious clergy of England towards Animal Magnetism 2 tends to confirm this supposition, and also the active zeal with which they oppose table-turning, which at any rate is harmless, yet which, for the same

1 They scent something of the Nos habitat, non tartara sed nec sidera caeli: Spiritus in nobis qui viget, illa facit. [Not in the heavens it lives, nor yet in hell; The spirit that does it all, doth in us dwell. (Agrippa von Nettesheim, Epistles, 5, 14)]

Compare Johann Beaumont, Historisch-Physiologisch-und Theologischer Tractat von Geistern, Erscheinungen, Hexereyen und andern Zauber-Händeln, [Historical–Physiological–and Theological Treatise on Ghosts, Apparitions, Witchery and other Magical Affairs], Halle im Magdeburgischen, 1721, p. 257. [Add. to 3rd ed.]

2 Compare Parerga, vol. i. p. 257 "Essay on Spirit–seeing," (2nd ed. vol. i. p. 286).

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