Page:The place of magic in the intellectual history of Europe.djvu/112

104 observing the movements of human bipeds. It led him also to the conclusion that the various parts of the universe were more than passive mirrors in which one might see the future of the other parts; that they further exerted, by virtue of the magic sympathy which united all parts of the universe, a potent active influence over other objects and occurrences. The wise man might not only predict the future; he might, to a great extent, control it.

For it must be, I think, that of this whole, so joined in sympathy and in agreement, the parts are closely connected as if members of a single body. And does not this explain the spells of the magi? For things, besides being signs of each other, have magic power over each other. The wise man, then, is he who knows the relationships of the parts of the universe. For he draws one object under his control by means of another object, holding what is at hand as a pledge for what is far away, and working through sounds and material substances and forms.

Synesius explained that plants and stones are related by