Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/298

284 on a sheet of rice paper and hands it to his pupil, who proceeds to compound it. Generally the prescription is made from the directions in some book, which are simply referred to by name or number. The pupil goes to the book for the directions. The seeds, herbs, leaves, and stems, the essences of which are to be combined to form the remedy, are generally weighed out or measured, and given to the patients with directions to boil them at home with a prescribed quantity of drinking water to a measure which is exactly indicated: "Put all these plants into an earthenware pot with a large glass of water and boil them over a bright fire down to a teacupful; then strain carefully and drink hot." The remedies are all taken in bed, and rest, or sleep, if possible, is recommended The potions as administered have very powerful effects.

Talismans.—The word talisman a corrupted Arabic term, which has come to us through the Moors and France—means properly a figure or thing endowed with magical powers, which enables its possessor to summon supernatural beings to his aid, whether to defend him in a hard strait or to realize some great wish. The existence of such things is an Arab belief probably older than Mohammedanism, and has for its origin a profound Semitic belief in created beings of a much higher class than man, who might, under certain persuasion or compulsion, be induced to give him the aid of their loftier prerogatives. The superstition of talismans has been made familiar by the Arabian Nights, is probably as wide as the world, and lingers still, even among the cultivated classes of Europe, to an extraordinary extent. It is doubtful "if there is a dynasty in the West which does not possess some article—usually a jewel or a sword—which the vulgar believe to be its ‘luck’ or source of fortune, and which the owners themselves, while theoretically rejecting the belief as nonsense, would be vexed to the very heart to lose. . . . The relation of the picture, usually the founder's portrait, and the sword to the founders of the house has, indeed, passed into literature, and is one of the few bits of supernatural machinery which do not excite the ridicule of modern readers." Seeking its mental origin, a writer in the London Spectator finds that it is utterly opposed to the spirit of all the greater creeds, which, except perhaps Hinduism, make fortune dependent on conduct or the favor of the Almighty, or both. "There is, no doubt, in Hinduism a lurking idea, to which a profound student of the East like Sir Alfred Lyall attributes great importance, that any inanimate thing which is exceedingly odd or separate must be in some sense divine. The notion is that Nature produces only the usual, and that everything unusual must be the product of special interference from the creating power, and therefore possess some portion of the divine spirit, or at least some influence emanating from an unusual source." This does not account, however, for the prevalence of the idea in Europe and among people of a skeptical turn. There is nothing like the notion of consecration connected with the talisman—it may even be supposed to have come from the devil—nor is there anything in the idea akin to astrology. The writer we have cited suggests that the origin sought for may lie in men's "lingering belief in Destiny as a force apart from Providence, a power having its origin, not in design, but in the very nature of things. . . . If a man thus believing that Destiny pursues him for good or evil once admits the idea, however irrational, that an inanimate substance is connected with his destiny, the substance becomes the ‘talisman’ of which we have been speaking, and he can not endure either to lose it or to see it injured. His brain may reject the superstition with utter scorn, he may even be angry with himself for giving it five minutes' attention, but an inner faith in it if we may so desecrate the word ‘faith’—as strong as the faith of some men in omens, forbids him to disregard the ‘talisman.’ The faith again would, of course, like the faith in omens, be greatly strengthened by accidental coincidences, but it survives the want of them, and sometimes, we suspect, the occurrence of events entirely at variance with the secret belief."

Science-Teaching in Secondary Schools.—The summaries of a series of conferences concerning teaching in secondary schools held in 1893 under the direction of the National Council of Education, and published in the last report of the United States Commissioner of that department, contain