Page:The place of magic in the intellectual history of Europe.djvu/58

50 arrest the progress of the largest vessel by attaching itself to the keel of the ship, was it for him to declare false the notion that a stone can calm winds or ward off hail and swarms of locusts? He characterized as "idle talk" the assertion of the magi that the stone "gorgonia" counteracted fascination, but he had already written: "Id quoque convenit, quo nihil equidem libentius crediderim, tactis omnino menstruo postibus inritas fieri magorum artes, generis vanissimi, ut aestimare licet." Apparently, then, the only charge which he could bring against magicians without reflecting upon himself was that of malicious and criminal practices. His beliefs were much like theirs.

Indeed, the varieties of magic in the Natural History have not yet been exhausted. For one thing, we must consider Pliny's position in regard to magic properties of the stars as well as of terrestrial matter. He believed in astrology, at least to some extent, although one might not think it if one read only the passage in which he speaks of the debt of gratitude mankind owe to the great geniuses who have freed them from superstitious fear of eclipses. He could, nevertheless, in naming some prominent personage in each of the primary arts and sciences, mention Berosus, to whom a public statue has been erected by the Athenians in honor of his skill in prognostication, in connection with astrology."

Pliny himself holds that the universe is a divinity, "holy eternal, vast, all in all—nay, in truth is itself all," a