Page:The place of magic in the intellectual history of Europe.djvu/43

35] and attended by a black cat. They warn us, on the other hand, not to regard the learned students of nature, mathematics and medicine in ages past as modern scientists in mind and spirit, who were merely handicapped by such obstacles as crude instruments and want of data. We perceive the anachronism involved in explaining away as mere passing fancies, personal eccentricities or anomalous beliefs the superstitious or bizarre notions of those to whom tradition has accorded great fame. We are warned to consider carefully whether such notions were not ingrained in the very being of those men and characteristic of their whole mental attitude.

Science and magic are very unlike, but even the distinction between East and West varies according to where the speaker takes his stand. We have come to regard science as abstract truth, scientific investigation as necessarily correct and sensible; we forget that science has a past. In their actual history science and magic were not unassociated. Scientists might accept magical doctrines and magic might endeavor to classify its fancies and to account for them by natural causes. Roger Bacon could regard the attainment of magical results as the great end of experimental science. Francis Bacon could place magic in the same category with metaphysics and physics.

It is with this mingling of magic and science—or more broadly of magic with learning in general—in the history of our Western world that this essay has to do. It is a theme of no narrow interest. Such ideas as have been cited, not only held by the most learned men of the times but incorporated in their scientific and philosophical systems—in so far as they had any—deserve consideration in the history of science and philosophy as well as in that of magic, or in an investigation of the mental make-up of the men of the past.