ARMY MEDICAL LIBRARY
FOUNDED 1836
WASHINGTON, D.C. 
 
• 
                   i
THE  OCCULT  SCIENCES.
                   THE

    PHILOSOPHY  OF  MAGIC,


PRODIGIES,  AND APPARENT  MIRACLES.

             FROM THE FRENCH OF

         EUSEBE  SALVERTE.

   WITH NOTES ILLUSTRATIVE, EXPLANATORY,
               AND CRITICAL,

BY ANTHONY TODD THOMSON, M.D., F.L.S., &c.
 " Non igitur uportet nos roagicis illusionibus uti, cum potestas philoso-
phicadoceat operari quod sufficit."—Rog. Bacon, De seer. Oper. Art. ei
Xat., c. v.
N TWO VOLUMES.

  VOL.  II.
            NEW YORK:

HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,
            82 CLIFF STREET
                 184 7.
V    UBRAW 
BF'

 1847
  v.2. 
        CONTENTS

                 OF

THE  SECOND VOLUME.
                    CHAPTER I.                   *

Preparations of Drugs and Beverages, some Soporific, others for
  producing temporary Imbecility.—Circe.—Nepenthes.—Delight-
  ful Illusions ; feaiful  Illusions ;  involuntary  Revelations.—In-
  vincible Courage, produced by Meats and Potions.—The Old
  Man of the Mountain deceived his Disciples by Illusions :  he
  probably fortified them against Torture by stupefying Drugs.—
  The Use of them becomes habitual, and conduces to bodily In-
  sensibility and Imbecility.....Page 7-35


                    CHAPTER II.

Effect of Perfumes on the Moral Nature of Man.—Action of Lini-
  ments ; the Magic  Ointment frequently operated by occasion-
  ing Dreams, which the Predisposition to Credulity converted
  into Realities.—Such Dreams may explain the whole  History
  of Sorcery.—The principal Causes which multiplied the Num-
  ber of Sorcerers were the Employment of Mysterious  Secrets.
  —The Crimes  which these pretended Mysteries served to con-
  ceal ; and the  rigorous Laws  absurdly directed against  the
  Crime of Sorcery   .    . m......35-62


                   CHAPTER III.

Influence of the  Imagination, seconded  by physical Accessories,
  in producing an habitual  Belief in marvelous Narrations, by
  Music, by the  Habit  of exalting the Moral  Faculties, by  un-
  founded Terror, and by Presentiments.—Sympathetic Emotions
  increase the Effects of the Imagination.—Cures produced by
  the Imagination.—Flights  of the Imagination effected by Dis-
  eases,  Fastings, Watchings, and Mortifications.—Moral and
  physical Remedies successfully opposed to these Flights  of the
  Imagination.........62-89 
IV
CONTENTS.
                   CHAPTER  IV.

Medicine formed a Part of the Occult  Science :  it was not long
  exercised by the Priests ;  Diseases were supposed to be sent
  by Malevolent Genii, or the irritated Gods;  the  Cures were
  considered Miracles, or Works of Magic.—Credulity and the
  Spirit of Mystery  attributed marvelous  Properties to  Inan-
  imate Substances; and Charlatanism assisted this Species of
  Deception.—Counterfeit Cures.—Extraordinary Abstinences.—
  Nutritious Substances taken in an almost imperceptible Form.
  —Apparent Resurrections.....Page 89-113
                    CHAPTER V.

Poisonous Substances.—Poisons, the Effect of  which can  be
'  graduated.—Miraculous Deaths.—Poisons employed in Ordeals.
  —Diseases asserted to be caused by Divine Vengeance.—Dis-
  eases foretold........113-128
                   CHAPTER  VI.

Sterility of the Soil.—The Belief in the Means which the Thau-
  maturgists were supposed to possess for causing Sterility arose
  particularly from the Language of Emblems.— Sterility produced
  naturally.—Cultures which  injure one another.—Substances
  which are prejudicial to Vegetation.—The Atmosphere render-
  ed Pestilential.—Deleterious Powder and Nitrate of Arsenic
  employed as offensive Weapons.—Earthquakes and Rumblings
  of the Earth foreseen and predicted  ....  128-140
                  CHAPTER VII.

Meteorology.—The Art of foreseeing Rain, Storms, and the Direc-
  tion of the Winds ;  this is converted, in  the Minds of the Vul-
  gar, into the Power of granting or refusing Rain and favorable
  Winds.—Magical Ceremonies for conjuring a Hail-storm
                                                   140-150
                  CHAPTER  VIII.

The Art of drawing Lightning from the Clouds.—Medals  and
  Traditions that indicate the Existence of that Art in Antiquity.
  —Disguised under the Name of the Worship of Jupiter Elicius
  and of Zeus  Cataibates,  it was known  to Numa and many
  others among the Ancients.—The Imitators of Thunder made
  Use of it.—It may be traced from Prometheus; it explains the 
CONTENTS.
V
Fable of Salmonious ; it was known to the Hebrews, and the
Construction of the Temple of Jerusalem is a Proof of this.—
Zoroaster made Use of it to  light the  Sacred Fire, and  oper-
ate in the Initiation of his  Followers: his Experiments and
Miracles.—If the Chaldeans  possessed  the Secret, it was  after-
ward lost among them.—There existed some Traces of it in
India in Ctesias's time.—Wonders resembling those  performed
through this Art, which, however, may be otherwise explained
                                           Page 150-177
                   CHAPTER IX.

Phosphorescent Substances.—Sudden Appearance  of Flames.—
  Heat developed by the Slackening of Lime.—Substances which
  are kindled  by Contact with Air and Water.—Pyrophorus,
  Phosphorus, Naphtha, and Alcoholic Liquids employed in differ-
  ent apparent Miracles.—The Blood of Nessus was a Phosphu-
  ret of Sulphur;  and also the Poison that Medea employed
  against Creusa.—Greek  Fire. — This Fire  rediscovered after
  many Attempts.—In Persia and Hindostan an unextinguishable
  Fire  was used........177-197
                   CHAPTER X.

Compositions similar to Gunpowder.—Mines worked by it under
  Herod ; by the Christian Priests under the Emperor Julian at
  Jerusalem ; in Syria under the Caliph Motassem ; and by the
  Priests of Delphi, in order to repulse the Persians and Gauls.—
  Antiquity of the Invention of Gunpowder; its probable Origin
  in  Hindostan; it has been known from Time immemorial in
  China.—Tartar Army repelled by Artillery.—Priests of India em-
  ployed the same Means to hurl Thunder upon their Enemies.—
  The Thunder  of Jupiter compared to our Firearms.—Many as-
  sumed Miracles explained by the Use of these Anns.—Gunpow-
  der was known in the latter Empire, probably until the Twelfth
  Century.........197-211
                   CHAPTER XI.

The Thaumaturgists might have worked pretended Miracles with
  the Air-gun, the Power of Steam, and the Magnet.—The Com-
  pass was probably known to the Phocians, as well as the Phoe-
  nician Navigators.—The Finns have a Compass of their own;
  and in China the Compass had been used since the Foundation
  of the Empire.—Other Means of working pretended Miracles.—
  Galvanic Phenomena.—Action of Vinegar upon Lime.—Amuse-
  ments of Physics.— Lachryma Batavica, &c.   .    .  211-228 
VI
CONTENTS.
                  CHAPTER XII.
Conclusion.—Principles followed in the Course of the Discussion.
  —Reply to the Objection that the scientific Acquirements of the
  Ancients are lost.—Democritus alone, among them, occupied
  himself with Observations on Experimental Philosophy.—This
  Philosopher perceived, in the Operations of Magic, the scientific
  Application of the Laws of Nature.—Utility of studying the ap-
  parent Miracles of  the Ancients in this Point of View.—The
  Thaumaturgists did not connect together their learned Concep-
  tions by any Theory, which is a proof that they had  received
  them from a prior Period.—The first Thaumaturgists can not be
  accused of Imposition ; but it would be dangerous, in this day,
  to attempt to subjugate a People by apparent Miracles.—Volun-
  tary Obedience to the Laws  is a certain Consequence of the
  Happiness which just Legislation procures to Men    228-235 
       THE  PHILOSOPHY
                    OF

MAGIC,   PRODIGIES,
                    AND

     APPARENT   MIRACLES.
                 CHAPTER I.
Preparations of Drugs and Beverages, some Soporific, others for
 producing temporary Imbecility.—Circe.—Nepenthes.—Delight-
 ful Illusions ; fearful Illusions ; involuntary Revelations.—In-
 vincible Courage, produced by Meats and Potions.—The Old
 Man of the Mountain deceived his Disciples by Illusions: he
 probably fortified them against Torture by stupefying Drugs —
 The Use of them becomes habitual, and conduces to bodily In-
 sensibility and Imbecility.
  Triumphant over the obstacles which debarred
him from attaining perfection, the initiated beheld
all the hidden treasures of science laid open to him.
It was no difficult task for him to unravel the secret
of the wonders that, in the scenes of his first recep-
tion, penetrated him with religious admiration ; but
destined, thenceforth, to  lay open to  the profane
the path  of light, it was time he  should learn to
what operations he himself had been submitted;
how his whole moral being had  been subjected to
their influences, and how he must employ the same
means that had been used in his initiation, in  order
to obtain dominion over  the  minds of those who
might aim at  attaining to the same point at which
he had arrived, and by what means he should dis-
play  himself all-powerful,  by  his works, before 
8
PREPARATION  OF
those who were not permitted to participate in the
divine dignity of the priesthood.
   The aspirants to initiation, and those who came
to request prophetic dreams of the gods, were pre-
pared by a fast, more or less prolonged, after which
they  partook of  meals expressly prepared;  and
also of mysterious drinks, such  as  the water of
Lethe* and the water of Mnemosyne in the  grotto
of Trophonius,  or of the Ciceion in the mysteries of
the Eleusinia.  Different drugs were easily mixed
up with the meats, or introduced into the drinks,
according to the  state of mind or body into which
it  was  necessary to  throw  the recipient, and the
nature of the visions he was desirous of procuring.
   We  know what accusations had been  raised
against some of  the early sects of Christianity—
charges  which  were  unjustly  reflected  upon  all
Christian assemblies.  They would scarcely be con-
sidered as unfounded, had many heresiarchs adopt-
ed  the criminal practices imputed by popular ru-
mor to  the high-priests of the Markesians.t  It is
said that  in their religious ceremonies aphrodisiac
beverages were administered to women.   Without

  * The river which yielded the water of Lethe, and the fountain
Mnemosyne, were both  near the Trophonian grotto, which was
in Boeotia. The waters of both were drunk by whoever consulted
the oracle :  the Lethian  draught was intended to make him forget
all his former thoughts; the Mnemosynian, to strengthen his
memory, that he might remember the visions which he was about
to see in the grotto.  The latter seemed essential, as the consulter
was obliged, after emerging from the grotto and recovering from
his alarm, to write down his vision  on a small tablet which was
preserved in the temple.—En.
  t The  Markesians  were a sect named from their chief, the
heresiarch Mark, who was  guilty of so many superstitions and
impostures.  Among others, St. Irenaeus informs us, that in con-
secrating chalices filled with water and wine, according to the
Christian rite, he filled  the chalices with a certain red liquor
which he called blood.  He also permitted women to consecrate
the holy mysteries.—Butler, Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, cf-c,
vol. v., chap, xxviii 
ASPIRANT3 TO  INITIATION.
9
 judging in this particular case, we believe that pow-
 erful aphrodisiacs* were occasionally used in the
 mysterious orgies of Polytheism ; and it is only by
 admitting  such a supposition, that we can explain
 the  monstrous  debaucheries to  which the votaries
 of Bacchus gave themselves up in the Bacchanalian
 festivals, denounced and punished  at  Rome, in the
 year 186 b.c.   A scene in a romance by Petroniust
 shows that they were used much later in the  noc-
 turnal reunions where superstitious rites were em-
 ployed as a veil and an excuse for the excesses of
 libertinism.  But such an expedient was extremely
 limited in  its power :  it disordered the senses ; yet
 it did not act on the  imagination, though it deliv-
 ered up the physical man to the power of the guilty
 Thaumaturgist; it did not destroy the moral fac-
 ulty.  The substances destined to produce, in se-
 cret ceremonies, the  most important  effects, were
 the simplest and most common opiates.   We may
 readily conceive of what service they were to the
 Thaumaturgist; whether intended to  close eyes too
 observing, and  too quick to scrutinize  the causes
 of the apparent miracles ;  or to  produce the alter-
 natives of an  unconquerable  sleep, and a sudden
 awakening:  effects well adapted  to  persuade the
 man who  experiences them, that a  supernatural
 power is sporting with his existence,  and  changing
 at his pleasure every circumstance that troubles or
 that amuses it.  Their methods were various;  a
 collection that we possess, and from which we  shall

  *  St. Epiphan., contr. Haereses, lib. i., tome iii.; contr. Marco-
 sios, Haeres., 24.
  t Arbiter Petronius is supposed to have been  a fictitious name
bestowed upon the romance alluded to in the text; while others
assert that the romance was the production of Caius Petronius, a
favorite  of Nero, and a minister to his vicious pleasures.  The
work is a picture of the profligate manners of the period it de-
 scribes, totally unfit for general perusal.—Ed. 
10
PREPARATION OF
quote, furnishes  us with two  examples.  In one
case we are informed that a young prince was sent
to sleep every evening by the juice of a plant, and
every morning recovered from his torpor by the
scent of a perfume.*   Again—a sponge, steeped
in vinegar and passed under the nose of Aben Has-
san, provoked sneezing and a slight vomiting, which
suddenly destroyed the effects of the soporific pow-
der which rendered him insensible.  In another
instance, the same symptoms and results were pro-
duced, when a young princess, who had been sent
into  a deep sleep  by a narcotic, was  exposed to
the open air.t
   In  a spot, far  removed from the  scenes  of the
Thousand and one Nights, we find the employment
of a similar secret.  Among the NadoessisJ in South
America,  there existed a religious society of men
devoted  to  the Great Spirit.  Carver witnessed
the admission  of a new member into it.  The
priests threw into the mouth of the candidate some-
thing that resembled a bean :  almost immediately
he fell down, immovable,  insensible,  and  appa-
rently dead.  They gave him violent blows on the
the back,  but these did not restore sensibility, nor,
for some minutes, bring him as it were to life again.
When he did revive, he was agitated with convul-
sions, that did  not cease until he had  thrown up
what they had made him swallow.§
   Plutarch  has preserved to  us  a description of
the mysteries of Trophonius, related  by a man who
  * The Arabian Nights, 26th night, vol. i., p. 221.
  t Ibid., 295th night, vol. iv., pp. 97-149.
  X Carver, Travels in South America, pp. 200, 201.
  § It is probable that the seed employed was the fruit of a spe-
cies of strychnos, the effect of which is to produce paralysis,
with convulsions. That it did not cause death might depend on
the entire seed  having been swallowed; its influence in that state
being considerably less than if it had been administered in pow-
der.—Ed. 
ASPIRANTS TO  INITIATION.         11
had  passed two nights  and a day in the grotto.*
They appear to be rather the dreams of a person
intoxicated by a powerful narcotic than the descrip-
tion  of a real spectacle.   Timarches, the name of
the initiate, experienced a violent headache when
the apparitions commenced—that is to say, when
the drugs began to affect his senses ;  and when the
apparitions vanished and he awoke  from this  de-
lirious slumber, the same pain was as keenly felt.
Timarches died three months after his visit to the
grotto; the priests, no doubt, having made use of
very powerful drugs.  It is said that  those  who
had  once consulted the oracle acquired a melan-
choly which lasted all their lives ;t the natural con-
sequence, no doubt, of the serious shock  to their
health from the potions administered to them.
   The  consulters  of the oracle, were, I  believe,
carried to the gate of the grotto, when their forced
sleep began to be dissipated.   The visions that oc-
cupied this slumber most probaby formed (as has
been also suspected by Clavier)! all  the incidents
of the miraculous spectacle they believed to have
been exhibited by the  gods.  On awakening also,
after having been presented with a drink, probably
intended to restore entirely the use of their senses,
they were ordered to relate every thing they had
seen and heard ; the priest requiring to know what
they had dreamed.
   Powerful soporifics often possess the property
of deranging the intellect: the berries of the bel-
ladonna^ when eaten,  produce  furious madness,

   * Plutarch, De Dcemonio Socratis.
   t Suidas. . .  . Clavier, Memoire sur  les Oracles, <$ec, pp. 159,
 160.
   t Clavier, Memoire sar les Oracles, Src., pp. 158, 159.
   6 Atropa belladonna, deadly nightshade, has fruit resembling a
 black cherry, seated within a large, green, persistent  flower-cup
 or calyx   The fruit is of a deep-black purple color, and contains 
12                PREPARATION OF
followed by a sleep that lasts twenty-four hours.
Still  more frequently than  bodily sleep, the  sleep
of the soul, temporary imbecility, delivers  up man
to the  power of those who could reduce  him to
this humiliating state.   The juice of the  datura*
seed  is  employed  by  the Portuguese women of
Goa: they mix it,  says  Linschott,t in the liquor
drank by their husbands, who fall, for twenty-four
hours at least, into a stupor, accompanied by contin-
ued laughing; but so deep is the sleep, that  nothing
passing before them affects them; and when they
recover their senses, they have  no recollection of
what has  taken place.   The  men, says  Pyrard,J
make use of the same secret in order to submit to
their desires  women  who  would consent by no
other means.  Francis Martin,§ after having de-

many seeds, enveloped  in a sweetish  juice.  Every part of the
plant is poisonous, and when eaten causes symptoms resembling
those of intoxication, with fits of laughter and violent  gesticula-
tions, followed by dilatation  of the  pupils of the eyes, delirium
and death.  Buchanan, the Scottish historian, states that the vic-
tory of Macbeth over the Danes was obtained chiefly by mixing
the juice of this plant with wine, which was sent as a donation
from the Scots to Sweno during a truce.  He adds, " Vis fructui,
radici, ae maxime semini somnifera, et quae in amentium, si lar-
gius sumantur, agat."—Rerum Scot. Hist., lib. viii., § vi.—Ed.
  * Datura feros, in doses sufficiently large to  affect the brain,
causes indistinctness of vision, with a disposition to restless
sleep,  accompanied with delirium, in which  the  most ridiculous
actions and absurd positions are  exhibited.   All  the daturas,
namely, fastuosa, metel,  tatula, and  even stramonium,  which  is
employed as  a medicine in  this country, possess nearly similar
poisonous properties.  The species metel and tatula are  employed
in the East Indies to cause intoxication for licentious and crimi-
nal purposes.—Ed.
  t Linschott, Narrative  of a Voyage to the East Indies, with the
notes of Paludanus, 3d edit., folio, pp. 63, 64, 111.  The thorn-
apple, stramonium, a plant of the same family as the datura, pro-
duces  similar effects ; it has sometimes been criminally  employed
in Europe.
  % Voyage of Francis Pyrard (2 vols,  in 4tO., Paris, 1679), tome
ii., pp. 68, 69.
  § Francis Martin, Description of  the first  Voyage made by the
French to the East Indies, pp.  163, 164. 
ASPIRANTS TO INITIATION.         13
 tailed all the injurious effects of the daturas, adds,
 that the  delirium may be arrested by placing the
 feet of the patient in hot water; the remedy causes
 vomiting, a circumstance which reminds us of the
 manner in which the sleeper and the young prin-
 cess in the Arabian Nights, and the initiated Na-
 doessis, were delivered from their stupor.
   A secret so effectual having fallen into the hands
 of the ignorant, must, there is reason to believe,
 have belonged to the Thaumaturgists, to whom it
 was much more important.  Among the aborigi-
 nes of Virginia, the aspirant to the priesthood was
 made  to  drink, during the course  of his painful
 initiation, a liquor* which threw  him into a state
 of imbecility.   If, as we may suppose, the  object
 of this  practice was to render him docile, we may
 believe also, that  the custom did not commence in
 the New World.t   Magicians  have, in all  ages,
 made use of similar secrets.
   The Oriental tales frequently present to us sto-
 ries of powerful magicians changing men into ani-
 mals.  Varro,  quoted by  St. Augustin,| relates
 that the magicians of Italy, attracting near  them
 the unsuspecting traveler, administered  to him, in
 cheese, a drug which changed him into a beast of
burden.   They loaded  him then with  their bag-
 gage, and at the end of the journey restored him
 to his own form.   Under these figurative expres-
 sions, quoted from Varro, who  probably  quoted
from some prior work, we perceive that the trav-
eler, being intoxicated  by the drug he had taken,

  * This liquor  was procured by decoction from certain roots
called vissocan ; and the initiation was termed Husea nawar.
  t In consulting most of the Grecian oracles, it was the custom
either for the officiating priest, or the consulting person, to drink
 of some secret well, the water of which, most probably, contained
 some narcotic infusion.—Ed.
  X St. Augustin, J)e civit. Dei, lib. xviii., cap. xvii. et xviii. 
14
PREPARATION  OF
blindly submitted himself to this singular degrada-
tion until the magician released him by giving him
an  appropriate  antidote.  This  tradition has, no
doubt, the same origin as that of Circe.*
  Wearied  by  the  amorous pursuit of Calchus,
King of the Daunians,  Circe, if we may believe
Parthenius,  invited him  to a banquet, in all the
viands of which she had  infused narcotic drugs.
Hardly had he  eaten of them, when he fell into
such imbecility that  Circe shut  him up with the
swine.   She afterward  cured him,  and restored
him to the Daunians, binding them, however, by a
vow, never to allow him  to return to the island she
inhabited.
  The cup of Circe, says Homer, contained a poison
that transformed men into beasts; implying that,
when plunged by it into  a state of stupid inebriety,
they believed themselves reduced to this  shameful
degradation.  This explanation,  the  only one ad-
missible, agrees with the  relation of Parthenius.
In  spite  of  the  decision  of some commentators, I
venture to affirm, that the  poet did not intend this
narration as an allegorical  lesson  against voluptu-
ousness.  Such  an explanation would not accord
with the rest of the narrative, which terminates by
the wise  Ulysses throwing himself into the arms
of the enchantress, who  kept him there a whole
year.   In many other passages also of his poem,
Homer has  noticed purely physical facts.  This is
so  true that he  mentions a  natural preservative
against the  effect of poison; a root  which he de-
scribes with that  minuteness, which, better  than
any other poet, he knew  how to unite with the

  * This does not contradict the assertion of Solinus, that Circe
deceived the eyes by phantasmagorial illusions.  She might make
use of these to  strengthen the established  belief, that the drugs
which rendered men imbecile metamorphosed them into beasts. 
ASPIRANTS TO  INITIATION.          15
brilliancy of poetry and the  elegance of versifi-
cation.
   Neither can we take, in a  figurative  sense, the
account given by the prince of poets respecting the
nepenthes which,  bestowed by Helen on Telema-
chus, had the effect of suspending all feelings of
grief in the  heart of the hero*   Whatever might
have been the substance thus  designated, it is cer-
tain that in Homer's time there was a belief in the
existence of certain liquors, which were  not less
stupefying than wine, and more efficacious than the
juice of the grape, in diffusing a delicious calm
over the mind.  It is probable that Homer was ac-
quainted with these  beverages, and those  also that
Circe poured  out for her guests, either from hav-
ing witnessed  the  exhibition  of their effects, or

  * Many opinions have been advanced  respecting nepenthes;
but the most probable is, that which  refers it to the  hemp, can-
nabis salira, from which the Hindoos make their bang, which is
narcotic, and produces delightful dreams.
  The native plant, after it has flowered, is dried, and sold in the
bazars of Calcutta, for smoking, under the name of ganjah.  The
large leaves and capsules, employed also for smoking, are called
bang, or subjee.  In both of these forms the smoking of the hemp
causes a species of intoxication of a most agreeable description,
and consequently the  plant  has acquired many epithets, which
may be  translated " assuager of sorrow," " increaser of pleas-
ure," " cementer  of friendship," " laughter-mover," and  several
others of the same description.
  In Nepaul, the resin only is used, under the name  of churrus.
It is collected in some places by naked coolies walking through
the fields of hemp at the time when the plant exudes the resin,
which sticks  to  their skin, from which it is scraped off,  and
kneaded into balls.  In whatever manner it is collected, when it
is taken in doses of from a grain to two grains, it causes not only
the most delightful delirium, but, when  repeated, it is followed
by catalepsy, or that condition of insensibility to all external im-
pressions which enables the body to be, as it were, molded into
any position, like a Dutch jointed doll, in which the limbs remain
in the position  in which they are placed, however contrary to the
natural influence of gravity;  and this state will continue for
many hours.  Such an instrument could not fail to prove a most
powerful agent in working apparent  miracles in the hands of a
Thaumaturgist.—Ed, 
16
PREPARATION OF
from tradition only;  it  always appears from  his
narrative, that the ancients possessed the means of
making them.  Wherefore -should we, then, doubt
that such a  secret was practiced in the temples,
whence the Greek poet derived the greatest part
of his knowledge, and where all the secrets of  ex-
perimental philosophy were concentrated 1
  Roman and Greek historians, and  also  modern
naturalists, in speaking of the properties of differ-
ent  beverages, mention  facts,  which prove that
they were known  to  the ancient  Thaumaturgists,
and that  their powers have not been exaggerated.
  A. Laguna,  in his Commentary on Dioscorides,
mentions a species of solanum, the  root of which,
taken in  wine  in a dose  of a drachm weight, fills
the  imagination with the  most delicious illusions.
It is well known  that opium, when administered
in certain quantities,  produces sleep accompanied
with dreams  so distinct  and so  agreeable that no
reality can  equal the charm of them.*   In recapit-

  * The  magical influence of opium is well described, allowing
for some degree of exaggeration, in M. de Quincy's extraordinary
work entitled The Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, to which
the Editor refers the reader. It is necessary to mention here  only
a few facts  descriptive of its influence on the  inhabitants of Tur-
key and India.
  In  the Teriakana, or opium  shops of Constantinople,  and
throughout  the Ottoman Empire, opium is usually mixed with
aromatics,  and made into  small cakes or lozenges, which are
stamped with the words " Mash Allah,"—gift of God.  After a
certain number of these have been swallowed, the first effect is a
degree of vivacity, which is even followed by  delirium and hallu-
cinations, that vary in their character according to the natural
disposition  of the individual.  Is the opium-eater ambitious—he
beholds his sublime ideas realized,  monarchs at his  feet, and
slaves in chains following his triumphant chariot.  Is he timid—
he feels himself either endowed with courage to which he is nat-
urally a stranger, or scenes of horror and dismay arise before him ;
the brain of the lover heaves with tenderness and rapture ;  that
of the vindictive man swells with a ferocious delight, in feeling
his victim within his power, and  his dagger already in his heart.
High-flown compliments are uttered, and the  most  ridiculous
actions performed, until sleep overpowers the senses, and leaves. 
ASPIRANTS TO INITIATION.          17
ulating  all the  speculations that have been made
respecting nepenthes, M. Virey supposes that he
has discovered  it to  be the hyosciamus datura of
Forskhal,* which  is  still  employed for the  same
purpose in Egypt, and throughout the East.  Many
other substances, capable  of producing effects not
less marvelous,  are mentioned by the same learned
person.
   The  potamantis,  or  thalassegle,  says  Pliny,t
grows on the banks of the Indus, and gelatophyllis
near  to Bactria.  The juices extracted  from  both
these  plants produce delirium; the one causing
extraordinary visions, the other exciting continual
laughter.  The one acts in a similar manner as the
beverage made with  the hyosciamus  of Forskhal;
the other like that expressed from the seeds of the
datura.J  Other compositions concealed virtues still
more  useful  to  the workers of miracles.
   In Ethiopia,  says Diodorus,§  was a square lake
of a hundred and sixty feet in  circumference and

the person on awaking pensive, melancholy, and exhausted, until
recourse is again had to the regular daily supply.
  In China, Siam, Borneo, and Sumatra, opium prepared in a
peculiar manner, and called chandoo, is both eaten and smoked
with nearly the  same effects as the Turks experience ; but it ren-
ders the Malays almost frantic.  When  misfortune, therefore, or
a desire of desperate revenge influences a Malay, he makes him-
self delirious with opium ; then sallies forth armed, and running
forward, calling out " Amok !  amok!" he attempts to stab, indis-
criminately, every one he meets, until he himself is killed for the
preservation of others.              „ ,. .   .          , .,
   Such is the  apparent  supernatural felicity in  some, and the
demoniacal frenzy and wretchedness in others, which the juice
of the poppy occasions; and there can be little doubt that it was
administered in some form to the aspirants during their initiation
into the mysteries of Polytheism.—Ep.
   *,Bulletin de Pharmacie, tome v. (tevner, 1813), pp. 49-60.
   t Plin., Hist. Nat., lib. xxiv., cap. xvii.
   X All the daturas are narcotic ; but, from its native place, that
 species mentioned by Pliny  under the name gelatophyllis, was
 either datura ferox or datura metel.—Ed.
   <> Diod. Sic, lib. ii., cap., xii., p. 12.
      11.                  B 
18
PREPARATION OF
forty feet broad, the waters of which were of the
color of vermillion, and exhaled an agreeable odor.
Those who drank these waters became so delirious,
that they confessed all their crimes, and even those
that time  had permitted them to forget.  Ctesias*
mentions  a fountain in India, the waters of which
became, when  newly  drawn,  like cheese.   This
coagulum, when dissolved  in water, possessed vir-
tues like  those mentioned by Diodorus.  In the
first example the name of lake, particularly after
the dimensions specified, reminds  us  of the sea of
brass in the Temple of Jerusalem, which signified
only a large basin hollowed by the hand  of man,t
such as  is seen in every  village  of Hindostan.|
The word  fountain  as  employed by Ctesias  is
equally applied to the spring whence water flows,
and to a reservoir from  which water is drawn.
When we reflect  on the  color and scent of the
water  contained in the lake of Ethiopia, the prop-
erty of the Indian liquid of coagulating like cheese,
and call to remembrance also  the fluid drugs em-
ployed by the magicians of Egypt—do they not all
announce pharmaceutical preparations  ?
   Democritus had, before Ctesias and Diodorus,
mentioned plants  that were  endowed with  such
virtues, that they caused the guilty to confess what
the  most rigorous tortures would not have  con-
strained them to avow.  According to Pliny,§ there
is an Indian plant  called  achcemenis, the root of

  * Ctesias, Indie apud. Photium.  Biblioth.,  cod. Ixxii.
  t Lacus, in Latin, often  takes  the same  signification.  Pliny
applies this  name to the basin of  a fountain situated  near Man-
durium, in the country of Salente.  Vitruvius also applies it to
a basin for receiving lime.
  X Some of these basins  (tanks) are more than twenty-three
thousand two hundred and thirty-nine yards in  circumference.
Haafner, Travels in the Western Peninsula of India, <fc, passim
tome ii., p. 299.
  i Plin. Hist. Nat., lib. xxiv.,'cap. xvii 
ASPIRANTS TO  INITIATION.         19
which, when made into lozenges and swallowed in
wine during the day, torments the guilty all night.
They suppose  that they are pursued by the gods,
who appear to  them under many forms ; and they
confess their crimes.   The juice of the ophiusa, a
plant of Ethiopia, when taken internally, creates a
belief  of  being attacked by  serpents:  the  terror
that it produces  is so violent, that it leads  to sui-
cide ;  therefore the sacrilegious were compelled to
drink this liquor.
   These  wonders seem  fabulous ; they may  be
repeated, however, every day under the eye of the
observer.   The extract of belladonna is given to
children affected  with the  hooping-cough;  if the
quantity exceeds ever so little the proper dose,
this remedy occasions the  most  painful dreams,
that fill the little patients with fear.   In Kamts-
chatka  they  distill from  a  sweet herb* " a spirit
which  easily intoxicates in a very violent manner.
Those who drink it, although even in  very small
quantities, yet are tormented during the night with
fearful  dreams;  and  the following day they are
afflicted by inquietudes and  agitations as great as
if they had committed some crime."
   The muchamore is  a fungus common to Kamts-
chatka and Siberia.t   If it be eaten dry, or infused
in liquor and drunk, it sometimes produces death,
and always profound delirium, which is  sometimes
gay, sometimes  full  of sorrow and fear.  Those
who partake of it believe themselves subject to the
irresistible power of the spirit that inhabits the
poisonous  fungus.  In a  fit  of this stupor, a Cos-
sack imagined  that the spirit ordered him  to con-
  * Pastinaca.—Gmelin.
  t Krachenninikof, Description du Kamtschatka, 1st part, chap.
xiv. Beniowski relates that a Siberian Schaman whom he con-
sulted made use of an infusion of muchamore; the beverage first
plunged him into raving delirium, and then into deep sleep. 
20               PREPARATION OF
fess his sins; he made, therefore,  a general  con-
fession before all his comrades.*
   Other beverages have a different influence, but
are  equally  capable  of creating the  marvelous.
The  Caliph Abdallah,  son  of Zobeir,  when  be-
sieged in Mecca, decided  on  making  a sally, and
thus  finding either deliverance or death.   He re-
ceived from the hands of his  mother a beverage
containing musk,t to sustain his  courage ;  and he
only yielded after prodigies of valor, which made
the  victory, for  a  long  time,  uncertain.^   When
the Turks go to battle, a strong drink,  named  mas-
lach, mixed with opium, is distributed  among the
soldiers,   and  excites  and  renders them  almost
frantic.§    The intoxication produced by the much-
amore often  brings  on  an  increase  of strength,
inspires fearless boldness, and excites a desire of
committing  criminal  actions,  which are  then re-

  * The muchamore, the plant here referred to, is the fly amanita,
amanita muscaria, found  in Kamtschatka, and also abundantly in
the Highlands of Scotland, and  in woods  in England, in the
autumn. It is a beautiful plant, rising  like a mushroom, upon a
white stalk four to  eight inches high, bulbous at the base: the
pileus, or top, is from three to six inches broad, of an orange-
brown color, with white warty spots regularly scattered over its
surface.  It is the most splendid of the  agaricoid tribe.  "In the
Highlands  of Scotland," says Dr. Greville (Scottish Cryptogamic
Flora, vol. i., p. 54), " it is impossible not to admire it, as seen in
long perspective between the trunks  of the straight fir-trees;
and should  a sunbeam  penetrate through the dark  and  dense
foliage, and rest on  its vivid surface, an effect  is produced by
this chief of a humble race which might lower the pride of many
a patrician vegetable."  It is always deleterious, and often fatal
when eaten.  In Kamtschatka its juice, mixed with that of the
great bilberry, or the runners of the willow-herb, is drunk to cause
intoxication.  It acts most powerfully when dried, and swallowed
after mastication: it then causes delirium, and occasionally con-
vulsions.—Ed.
  t Musk is a  powerful stimulant; it raises the  pulse without
elevating the heat of the body; and increases, in a remarkable
degree, the energy of the brain and nerves.—Ed.
  X Hegira, 73 ; Ockley, Histoire des Sarrasins, tome ii., pp. 4, 5.
  $ Considerations sur la Guerre presentc  entre les Russes et les
Tares, 1769, p. 173. 
ASPIRANTS TO INITIATION.          21
garded  as imperiously  inspired by the  Spirit  of
the muchamore.   The savage inhabitant of Kamts-
chatka  and the  fierce Cossacks have recourse to
this intoxication to dissipate their fears when they
project  assassinations.*
   The  extract of hemp, mixed  with opium, has,
even in the eighteenth century, been used in the
armies  of the Hindoo  princes, by the  Ammoqui,
fanatic  warriors, whom  it makes fiercely delirious.
They dart off,  striking without  distinction  every
thing they meet before  them, until,  overwhelmed
with blows, they fall on  the bodies of their victims.t
Neither fear nor  humanity arrests their course of
crime.   Those fanatics, also, who have been named
Assassins,  were intoxicated  by  a preparation of
hemp,  called hashiche,  given  to  them by the Old

 Man of the Mountain.^
   All the historians  of the Crusades have spoken
 of the  enchanted  abode of the  Old Man of  the
 Mountain,§ who gave to his credulous  neophytes

   * Krachenninikof, Description du  Kamtschatka, part i.,  chap.
 xiv.
   t Paulin de St. Barthelemi, Voyage aux Indes Orientates, tome
 ii., pp. 426, 427.
   X  J. Hammer, Mines of the East.—Nouvelles Annates des Voy-
 ages, tome xxv., pp. 337-378.
   6  This is an  absurd translation of the title of Seydna, and
 Sheikh-al-Jebal, literally, Elder Mountain Chief, which was as-
 sumed by Hassan Sabah, a chief of a sect of Eastern Ismaihtes,
 who made himself master of Alamoot, one of the strong hill-for-
 tresses which cover the mountainous region that divides Persian
 Irak and the northernly provinces of Dilem and Taberistan.  The
 followers of Hassan were bound to the most rigid obedience to
 the precepts of Islam, or Abdallah Maimom, the projector of the
 sect. It is unnecessary here to describe the rules which were
 requisite to be practiced by the aspirants, proselytes to the faith
 of the society.  Assassination was an obligation on the Ismailite
 Fedavee, one of the  divisions of the sect; any one of whom,
 ordered by a superior to  assassinate a stranger, was obliged  to
 obey ; and, in the peformance of the order, the wretched Fedavee
 firmly believed he was promoting the cause of truth. It has been
 supposed that the name Assassins, given to the society, originated
 in this obligation ; but the appellation is derived, according to M. 
22          TYRANNY  OF  SUPERSTITION.
such a foretaste of paradise, that the hope  of one
day returning to this place of delights made  them
consent  to the commission  of every crime, brave

De Sacy, from the Oriental  term Hashisheen, corrupted  by  the
Crusaders into assassin. This term implies takers of hashiche,
a species of hemp, from which an  intoxicating drug was com-
pounded, which the Fedavee took  previously to their engaging
in their daring enterprises;  and which  procured for them  the
delicious visions of paradise, promised to all the followers of the
Sheikh-el-Jebal.   This paradise was typified on earth, according
to Marco Paulo, who traveled over the East  in the thirteenth
century, by  gardens  of the  most luxurious description, stored
with the most delicious fruit and  flagrant flowers and  shrubs,
and containing palaces inhabited  by exquisitely beautiful  and
highly accomplished damsels, clothed in the richest dresses,  and
educated to display every grace and fascination that could capti-
vate the senses.
  The chief, in discoursing of paradise to his followers, persuaded
them  that he had the power of granting admission to it; and to
prove the truth of his assertion, he  caused a potion of a soporific
kind to be administered to ten or twelve of them at a time,  and
when  they were  sound psleep, he had them conveyed to the
palaces in the garden.  On awaking from their sleep, their senses
were  struck with the beauty and splendor of every  object upon
which their eyes rested ; their ears  were ravished with  the most
harmonious voices ; and their fond glances at the lovely damsels
were  returned with the most alluring caresses; until, truly in-
toxicated with the excess of enjoyment, they believed themselves
actually in paradise.   After a time they were again  thrown  into
sleep, and carried out of the garden.  They were questioned be-
fore the whole court as to where they had been and what they
had seen; and having detailed all the pleasures they enjoyed, the
chief assured them that those who yielded implicit obedience'to
him should inherit such a paradise forever.
  The effects  of such an imposture display, most strikingly, the
lengths to which credulity and superstition will conduct mortals.
The following anecdote powerfully elucidates this remark. " An
ambassador  from  the  Sultan  Malek Schah having come to Ala-
moot to demand submission and obedience of the sheikh,  Hassan
received him in a hall in which he had assembled several of his
followers.  Making a  sign  to one youth, he said, ' Kill thyself!'
Instantly the young  man's dagger was plunged into his own
bosom. To another he said, ' Fling yourself down  from  the
wall!'  In an instant his shattered limbs were lying in the castle
ditch.  Then turning to the terrified envoy, he exclaimed—' I
have seventy thousand followers who obey me after this fashion.
This  is my answer to your  master !' "*  These victims died in

  * Marinus Snnatus, lib. iii.—Secret Societies, Library of Entertaining
Knowledge, p. 81. 
TYRANNY OF .SUPERSTITION.         23
the most cruel tortures, and  undaunted  meet cer-
tain death.  At a  much  earlier period,  Shedad-
benad, King of Arabia, desiring  to  be  worshiped
as a god, collected  in a garden, the name of which
was proverbial in the East, all the delights of para-
dise ;  and allowed them to be enjoyed by the faith-
ful whom he deigned to  admit  into it.*  In  both
cases, we think that these gardens of pleasure only
existed in  dreams,  caused among young men ha-
bituated to a  simple and  austere diet by the use
of potions  to which they were unaccustomed, and
which exalted their weak reasons, and  filled  their
heated imaginations.t   Under the name  of bendje, a
preparation  of hyosciamus  (henbane),J the  same
plant, no doubt,  as the hyosciamus  datura, served
to intoxicate them so completely, that they believed
themselves in  paradise, of which glowing descrip-
tions had been previously  given to them;  they ex-
perienced  also a violent desire  to be transported

the full conviction that  they were immediately to pass into that
sensual paradise,  of which they had received a foretaste  in the
gardens of the sheikh.
  It is out of place to  trace here the history of a people whose
chief object was evil; and who—for Providence provides retribu-
tion for crime even in this world—have ceased to live politically
for nearly six centuries.  The sect still exists in Persia,  and
scattered over great part of Asia.  They regard their imam as an
incarnate ray of the Divinity ; they hold him in the highest vene-
ration ; and they make pilgrimages from  the most distant places
to the village of Khekh, in the district of Koom, where he resides,
to obtain his  blessing.—Ed.
   * D'Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientate, art. Iram.
  t The foregoing note  has proved that the opinion of this author
is erroneous  as far as  regards the followers of Hassan Sabah.
—Ed.
   X M. J. Hammer (loc. cit.) appears to think that the bendje
was the  same thing as the hashiche; but in a fragment of an
Arabian romance, for the translation of which we are indebted to
him, it is positively 6tated that the bendje was a preparation of
henbane.—p.  380.
  I am disposed to differ from the opinion of our author respect-
ing bendje, which I have been informed is a preparation of hemp,
cannabis indica.—Ed. 
24        TYRANNY  OF SUPERSTITION.
to it, even through death ; while, in order to incite
them to some desperate act, the hashiche, or ex-
tract of hemp, was administered to them—and is
still employed in the East for the same purpose.
   The real existence of the gardens of the Old Man
of the Mountain, has, nevertheless, been acknowl-
edged by enlightened men.* In opposition to them,
however, we maybe permitted to mention the basis
upon which we had established  our opinion  to the
contrary,!  even before it acquired another degree
of probability by the assent of M. Virey.|  This is
no deviation  from our subject; the wonders em-
ployed  for operating upon  the credulity of men by
beings who pretended to be  endowed with super-
natural powers form a part of our inquiry.
   The  Old Man  of the  Mountain, whose history
is obscured by so many fables, surrounded  himself
by a troop of fanatics, ready to dare every thing at
his first signal.  It is said, that their  unbounded
devotion was produced by a narcotic, during the
effect of which  they were  transported into the
most delicious gardens, where, when they awoke,
every luxury was collected to make them  believe
that for some hours  they  tasted the pleasures of
heaven.  The  exactitude of this  recital may  be
questioned.  How many indiscretions might every
day  compromise the existence of a fictitious para-
dise %   How would it be possible to assemble and
bind to inviolable secrecy so many agents, exempted
from the fanaticism which their  artifices produced
in others, and who, not regarding silence as a duty,

  * MM.  Malthe-Brun et J. Hammer.—Mines de V Orient.—Nou-
velles Annates des Voyages, tome xxv.,  pp. 376-382.
  t Bulletin de Pharmacie, tome v., pp. 55-66 (Fevrier, 1812).
  X Eusebe Salverte, Des Rapports de la Medicine avec la Politique
(in 12mo., 1806).  We transcribe this passage, with the  correc-
tions  that have been prepared for another edition. The whole
work was read in 1804 to the Soci'ete Medicate d'Emulation de Paris. 
TYRANNY OF SUPERSTITION.       25
would, on the contrary, doubt the blind obedience
which they labored to  inspire, since, at the least
caprice  of the tyrant, they might bocome the first
victims of it 1  The slaves of both sexes, who fig-
ured before the initiated as angels and houris, could
not be supposed to prove always discreet.  What
would become of them, at last, when the progress
of years did not permit them to appear in the same
parts ]  Death alone could insure future silence ;
and would not the prospect of such a reward untie
their tongues on the first favorable occasion, or lead
them to kill their tormentor when, wandering alone
among them, he  came  to confirm the neophyte in
his false persuasion 1   How, also, would this tribe
of actors support themselves %  Could their master
every day administer to their wants without its be-
ing perceptible abroad ]  In addition, the numbei
of precautions to be taken—the provisions to be
renewed—the frequent necessity of getting rid of
these agents, from whose indiscretion  there was
eveiy thing to be feared—are all difficulties in the
way of our belief in this abominable mystery, much
less  that it could  be maintained for  even three
years.
   "Beside, it is certain that bodily  enjoyment,
with whatever ingenuity they may be  varied  or
arrested, have intervals too marked—contrasts too
sensible of void and reality—to permit the creation,
or the long endurance,  of such an illusion.   How
much more  simply is  every thing  explained, by
ascribing the illusions to physical intoxication, com-
bined with the intoxication of the  soul!  Among
credulous  men, previously prepared by the most
flattering pictures of paradise and promises of fu-
ture felicity, the narcotic potion would  easily pro-
duce the most pleasurable and desirable sensations,
and the magical continuation of them would  render 
26        TYRANNY OF  SUPERSTITION.
 them  doubly valuable.   ' To  speak plainly, they
 can only be  regarded as a vision,'.says Pasquier,*
 who, after having examined every thing related by
 cotemporary authors on the subject of the Assas-
 sins, arrives at that conclusion.  Ask  a man, in
 whom a dose of opium  has  lulled an excruciating
 pain, to display a picture of the enchanting illusion
 which he experienced, and the state of ecstasy into
 which he was  plunged  for more than twenty-four
 hours, and they will be found exactly those of the
 supernatural delights heaped  by the chief of the
 Assassins upon his future Seides.  We know with
 what avidity the Easterns, who are accustomed to
 take opium, give themselves up to  its delights, in
 spite of the ever growing infirmities which it heaps
 upon  their wretched existence.  This eagerness
 may afford some idea of the pleasures that accom-
 pany this species of intoxication, and enable us to
 comprehend that uncontrollable  desire which may
 urge an ignorant  and superstitious youth to dare
 every thing in order to possess, for eternity, such
 ineffable delights."
   The remembrance of  the  devotion of the disci-
 ples of the Old Man of the Mountain to their mas-
 ter,  is naturally united  to that  of  the constancy
 with which  they endured the most  cruel tortures.
 The intoxication of fanaticism would arm them
 with this invincible constancy: the noble pride of
 courage, the obstinacy even of a trifling point of
 honor, would often be sufficient to  inspire it.  It
 was, however, much  too important  to  their chief,
to be certain that none of them should fail him, to
allow him to rely solely on the power of the recol-
lection of the delights that they experienced  : es-
pecially when time  and distance might reasonably
  * E. Pasquier, Les Recherches de la France, liv. viii., chap, xx
(? vols, in fol.), Amsterdam, 1723, tome i., p. 798. 
TYRANNY  OF  SUPERSTITION.         27
be supposed to weaken their influence.   If he was
acquainted with the means of allaying  bodily feel-
ings, he  doubtless took care, also, to provide  for
the ministers of his vengeance the same means, in
order that they might  employ it in a critical  mo-
ment.    The promise  of  sustaining  his followers
when under the empire of pain, exalted still more
their fanaticism ;  and the  accomplishment of this
promise  became  a  new  miracle:  an  additional
proof of the certain  power  of him they regarded
as the governor of nature.   In advancing this  con-
jecture, we mu§t acknowledge  that we  can  not
support it by any historical proofs.*   But is it like-
ly that the Thaumaturgists would be unacquainted


  * The reasoning of our author is ingenious, and very plausible;
but it is not sufficient to overthrow the testimony of Marco Paulo,
Hammer, and others, respecting the existence of the  gardens of
the Ismailite chief at Alamoot.  What, we may  ask, would the
followers of the Sheikh-el-Jebal, to whom were intrusted his se-
crets, not suffer rather than divulge them, when we see them
laying down their lives in his service every time that he demand-
ed the sacrifice ?  These were not acts of obligation, but of a per-
suasion that obedience to  their chief was to gain them eternal
fehcity in paradise after death.  Beside, the pains that are  taken
by all Oriental nations, to confirm the truth of their creeds, can
not be denied; and  the secrecy  in which their impostures are
veiled and  preserved is almost incredible.  Thus, in a late com-
munication made  to the Royal  Asiatic  Society, by Sir Claude
Wade, on the geography of the Punjaub, we are  informed that,
in a small but deep lake seven coss from Soohait, named Rawal-
sir, are  seven floating islands, which are objects of  worship to
 Hindoo pilgrims.  These votaries proceed to the shores of the
lake, address the. islands, and present their offerings; upon which,
it is stated, the islands approach the shores, receive the  offerings
upon their surface, and then retire.  " As  this  tale," adds Sir
Claude, "is invariably accredited among the natives,  it  is not
improbable that artificial means are taken to cause the islands to
traverse the yielding surface."*   What the  nature of this cause
is, however, remains an inviolable  secret;  although many per-
sons must be employed in working it, and successive  changes of
workmen must be required.  This fact, therefore, gives the color-
ing of truth to all that has been  related respecting the gardens
at Alamoot.—Ed.
* Literary Gazette, No. 1534, p. 317. 
28        TYRANNY OF  SUPERSTITION.
with a secret known to all antiquity, and especially
in Palestine 1   The Rabbins* inform  us, that  a
drink of wine and strong liquors was given to the
unhappy ones condemned to death, and powders
were mixed in the liquor, in order to render  it
stronger and to deaden the senses.   The object of
this  custom was, no doubt, to reconcile with hu-
manity the intention of exciting alarm by the  sight
of executions.   In the second century of our era,
it is  related by Apuleius, that a man fortified  him-
self  against the violence  of blows by a potion con-
taining myrrh.t   If, as we think, myrrh could only
be drunk in the form of  a tincture, the effect of the
alcohol must have increased  the efficacy of the stu-
pefying drug.  We observe everywhere, that this
property  attributed to  the  myrrh  is  not  among
those for which it is employed in the  present day
as a medicine.   The name of myrrh, however,
might serve to disguise a preparation, the ingredi-
ents  of which were intended to be kept  secret.
But  in either case, the Old Man of, the Mountain
could not certainly have  been ignorant of a secret
which had for so long a time prevailed in Pales-
tine, and which he might also have borrowed  from
Egypt. The stone of Memphis [lapis memphiticus)
was  a round body, sparkling, and  about the  size
of a small pebble; it was regarded as a natural
body.   I consider it to  have been a work  of art.
It was ground into powder and laid as an ointment
on the  parts  to which  the surgeon was about to
apply the knife or the fire.|   It preserved the per-
son,  without danger, from the pains of the  opera-
tion ; if taken in a mixture of wine and water, it
deadened all feelings of suffering^
  * Tract. Sanhedr.—D. Calmet, Commentaire sur le Livre des Pro-
verbes, chap, xxi., v. 6.      t Evang. sec. Marc, cap. xv., v. 25.
  X Dioscorid., lib. v., cap. clviii.
  § Plin., Hist. Nat., lib. xxxviii,, cap. vii. 
TYRANNY OF SUPERSTITION.         29
   A similar secret  has existed in all ages in Hin-
dostan.   It  is  probably  by  such  means  that the
widows* are preserved from  shrinking from the
dread of the blazing  pile upon which  they place
themselves with the dead bodies of their husbands.
The eye-witness of one of these sacrifices that took
place  in July, 1822, saw the victim arrive in a com-
plete  state  of bodily  insensibility,  the effect, no
doubt, of the  drugs which had been administered
to her.   Her eyes were open, but she did not ap-
pear  to see;  and, in a weak voice, and as if me-
chanically, she  answered the  legal questions that
were  put to her regarding the full liberty of her
sacrifice.   When she was laid on the pile, she was
absolutely  insensible.t    The  Christians carried

   * Le P. Paulin de St. Barthelemi, Voyage aux hides Orientates,
tome i., p. 358.
   t The  Asiatic Journal, vol. xv., 1823, pp. 292, 293.  The cus-
tom of drugging the Indian widows previous to gaining their con-
sent to this monstrous concremation, is stated to be not unusual,
when their relations have any advantage to gain by their decease;
but as many of those who submit to it are of the lower order of
women, vanity, and the force of a prevailing superstition, are the
chief inducements. There can be no doubt that this, one of the
dominant passions of the sex, frequently impels them to the sac-
rifice ;  for women who commit this suicide are canonized alter
death,  and crowds of votaries frequent their shrines, to implore
their protection, and to pray for their aid  and deliverance from
evil.
   When  this self-sacrifice is by concremation, it is termed Saha-
marana;  but occasionally, although rarely, it is performed when
the husband is at a distance; it is then solitary, or Anamarana.
The name given to these immolations, by the English in India, is
Suttee, a  corruption of the word Sati, or pure, the  appellation be-
stowed not upon the-sacrifice, but upon the female after she has
been purified by the fire.  The woman is not, say the Bramins,
destroyed, but only consumed ; not annihilated, but merely changed.
The tradition of the origin of the custom relates, that the father-
in-law of Siva having omitted to invite her to a wedding, his wife
Paravati felt  so offended at this neglect, that in the paroxysm
of her rage she flung herself into the fire, and was consumed. She
thence became Sati (transcendent purity), which is also one of hei
names.
   These  shameful immolations have been attempted to be put
down by  the Indian government, but ineffectually ; and, so late as 
30          TYRANNY  OF  SUPERSTITION.
 this secret  from the East into Europe, on the re-
 turn of the  Crusaders.   It was  probably known to
 the subaltern magicians, as well as that of braving
 the action of fire, from which, I imagine, arose the
 rule of jurisprudence according to which physical


 1825, the number in one year amounted to one hundred and four.
 When once a woman  declares her intention of submitting to
 concremation with the dead body of her husband, she can not re-
 voke.  The interest of the whole community is at stake as well
 as her own character; for, if she refuse, it is a prevailing belief
 that the whole country would be visited with some awful ca-
 lamity.   Every effort is therefore employed to inspire her with
 sacred heroism, and to exalt her imagination to the highest pitch
 that fanaticism and superstition can impart; and when these are
 likely to fail, she is rendered nearly insensible by some narcotic
 beverage.  The sacrifice  is preceded by a procession, in  which
 the wretched victim appears decorated with jewels and flowers
 of the tulse, or holy ocymum plant (ocymum sanctum, Linn.) is
 borne on a rich palanquin, following a kind of triumphal car, on
 which the dead body of her husband is seated, also decorated with
 jewels and  costly vestments.   When the procession has reached
 the pile,  and the dead body has  been  laid upon it, the widow is
 bathed without removing her clothes and jewels, and then recon-
 ducted to the pile, around which she is walked three times, sup-
 ported by some of her nearest relations.  These ceremonies being
 concluded, she is cast upon the  dead  body of her husband ; and
 gee, a species of semi-fluid butter, being poured upon the dry
 wood, it  is  instantly fired, and she quickly dies of  suffocation be-
 fore the fire reaches her body.
  In examining the accounts of the composure and almost philo-
 sophical  indifference with which these women sacrifice their lives
 to the prevailing superstition, there is no necessity for believing
 that it is the sole result of the narcotics administered to them.
 Woman, in every country and in every age,  displays'more the
 character of the sincere  devotee than  man.  Convinced  of the
 truth of  the doctrine she embraces, it absorbs her whole  mind;
'her contemplation rests firmly upon it; and when an hour of trial
 arrives, she reposes upon its promises in  undisturbed tranquillity ;
 all the ties  of relationship and of country are forgotten ; every act
 of memory and consciousness is suppressed ; and under the cir-
 cumstances, such as have been described as taking place in these
 concremations, her whole mind turned upon the beatitude she is
 about to attain, the frailties of our nature are surmounted, and
 the mortal seems almost already invested with supernatural pow-
 ers.  To the operation of  this state of mind, in the opinion of the
 writer of this note,  may we attribute some, at least, of the extra-
 ordinary  displays of heroism occasionally exhibited in these self-
 immolations.—Ed. 
TYRANNY OF  SUPERSTITION.        31
insensibility, whether partial or general, was a cer-
tain sign of sorcery.  Many authors quoted by
Fromann*  speak of the unhappy sorcerers  who
have laughed or slept through the agonies of tor-
ture ; and they have not failed to add that they
were sent to sleep by the power of the devil.
   It is also said that the same advantage was en-
joyed by pretended sorcerers about the middle of
the  fifteenth century.  Nicholas Eymeric, Grand
Inquisitor of Arragon, author of the famous Direc-
toire des Inquisiteurs, loudly complained of the sor-
ceries  practiced by accused  persons, through the
aid of which,  when  put to the torture, they  ap-
peared  absolutely insensible.t   Fr.  Pegna,  who
wrote  a commentary on Eymeric's work, in 1578,
believed  also the reality and efficacy of the  sor-
ceries.l   He strengthens himself by  the evidence
of  the  inquisitor Grillandus,  and  Hippolytus de
Marsilies.  The latter, who was Professor of Juris-
prudence at Bologna in 1524, positively declares,
in his " Pratique Criminelle," that he has seen the
effect of  the  philters upon the accused persons,
who suffered  no pain, but appeared to be asleep
in the midst of the tortures.   The expressions he
makes use  of are remarkable;  they describe the
insensible man, as if plunged into a torpor more
like the effect  produced by  an  opiate, than the
proud bearing which is the result of a perseverance
superior to  every pain.
   To many instances of this temporary insensi-
bility, Wierius adds an important observation : he
saw a  woman  thus inaccessible to the power of
torture—her face was black,  and her eyes were
  * Fromann,  Tract, de Fasc, dj-c, pp. 593, 594, et 810, 811.
  t Aliqui sunt maleficiati et in qucestionibus  malefictis utuntur—
efficiuntur  enim insensibles. — Direct.  Inquisit., cum adnot. Fr.
Pegna (Romae, folio), part hi., p. 481.
  X  Direct. Inquis., cj-c, p. 483. 
32         TYRANNY OF SUPERSTITION.
 starting out as if she  had been strangled ; her ex-
 emption from suffering was due to a species  of
 apoplexy.*  A physiciant who witnessed a similar
 state of insensibility compares it to fits, epileptic or
 apoplectic.
   A  humorous writer, a  cotemporary of Francis
 Pegna and of J. Wierius, whose name inspires us
 with little confidence, but who, on this  occasion,
 speaks of what he had seen, and whose place in a
 tribunal enabled him  to know with certainty what
 occurred,| has also described, with Taboureau, the
 soporific state which  preserved the accused from
 the sufferings of torture.   According to him it was
 almost useless to put the question.   All the jailers
 were  acquainted with the stupefying recipe, and
 they did not fail to communicate it to the prisoners;
 nothing could be easier than to practice it else-
 where, if confidence was  reposed in its influence.
 The secret consisted in swallowing soap dissolved
 in water.
   Common soap does not, certainly, possess the
 virtues ascribed to  it by  Taboureau ; but does  it
 therefore follow that the principal incident, namely,
 the administration of some potion, is false 1   I con-
 sider it does not; for this author is not  the only
 person who has stated this fact.   On this occasion
 only  did the  possessors  of the secret impose  on
 mankind, less to insure to  themselves the exclusive
possession of it, than to preserve the power of em-
ploying it.   This becomes  credible, if there are
substances capable of realizing it; and how many
may we not  number that stupefy,  that  suspend,
  * J. Wierius, De Preestig., lib. iv., cap. x., p. 520 et seq.
  t Fromann, Tract, de Fasc, pp. 810, 811.
  X Et. Taboureau, Des faux sorciers et leurs  impostures (1585).
Discourse inserted in the fourth Book of the Bigarrures du Sieur
des Accords.  Et. Taboureau was  the king's counsel at the baili-
wick of Dijon. 
TYRANNY  OF SUPERSTITION.        33
and destroy nervous sensibility.  Opium, henbane,
belladonna, aconite, solanum, stramonium, have been
used to deaden pain in surgical operations ;  and if
they are not now so much prescribed, it is because
the stupor they induce endangers the  cure, and
sometimes the  life, of the patient.   Such  a fear
would not, however, prevent them from being used
by the Bramins, who conducted the Hindoo wid-
ows to the  funereal piles  of their husbands.  It
had, however, we perceive, little hold on the disci-
ples of the  Old Man of the Mountain, or  on  the
accused who were menaced with torture.  Among
the substances mentioned, we may distinguish some
that were no doubt made use of by the Eastern
Thaumaturgist; and others so common in Europe,
that they might easily have been furnished, as
Taboureau  states, to the prisoners by the jailers
when they were required.
  Such there are, and  from the number of these
substances, and the facility of procuring them, we
may be permitted to suppose that, known in all
ages, they have been,  at all times, employed to
work apparent miracles.  It is  not the moderns
alone who have witnessed the atrocious cruelties,
almost above human strength to bear, which before
the eyes of a whole nation have been eudured by
the Hindoo penitents ; the historians  of Greece
and Rome  have spoken  of them,* and national
traditions state their practice to have existed from
the commencement of religious civilization.  The
patience of man in submitting to them, most prob«
ably, has resulted from the cause we have pointed
out, namely, the  actual use of stupefying  drugs:
they repeat  it  often, and this practice,  thus pro-
longed, ends in a perpetual torpor, and  renders
these fanatics capable  of supporting tortures that
                 * Solinus, cap. lv.
     n,               c 
34         TYRANNY  OF SUPERSTITION.
 last their  lifetime.   The almost entire destruction
 of bodily feeling  can  not be  effected without in-
 juring the mind, and plunging the  soul into com-
 plete imbecility—which is in fact the ruling feature
 of nearly all these miraculous penitents.
   It is also in this state of imbecility that Diodorus
 represents  the Ethiopian savages,  whom he  de-
 scribes as being quite  insensible  to blows, wounds,
 and  the  most extraordinary tortures*   A learned
 man of the seventeenth centuryt  supposes that the
 traveler  Simmias, from whom Diodorus copied his
 narration, had taken as the general  character of a
 nation the temporary state of some individuals in-
 toxicated  by  a  potion  similar  to  the  nepenthes
 .which Homer mentions.   It is more probable that
 SimmiasJ met, on the shores of Ethiopia, penitents
 such as those  that exist at the present day in Hin-
 dostan ;  and the  state in which he saw them§ had
   * Diod. Sicul.,  lib. iii., cap, viii.
   t Pierre Petit. D. M., Dissertation sur le  Nepenthes.  8vo.
 Utrecht.
   X Simmias was a philosopher of Thebes, but neither he nor
 Diodorus is high authority: both were extremely credulous, and
 both equally ambitious of recording wonders.—En.
   § Hasselquist (Voyage dans le Levant, 1st  part, p. 257), ob-
 serves, that opium, habitually taken in excess by the dervises,
 conduces to complete stupidity.
   The torments which the  Yogis, or Indian penitents, impose
 upon themselves, are not borne by the individual becoming in-
 sensible through the  influence of stupefying drugs, but they are
 truly the  result,  either  of an  ambition  to become  worthy of
 eternal bliss, or a slavish obedience to vanity, that they may
 enjoy in this world the respect of the noble and the  great, and
 the admiration of  the unthinking multitude.  A Yogis will stand
 in a certain position for years: sometimes  with his hands above
 his head, until the arms wither, and become incapable of action -
 others keep the hands closed until the  nails pierce through their
 palms; some double themselves up like a hedgehog, and  thus
 are rolled along from  the Indus to the banks of the Ganges ■ or
suspend themselves by the heels over the  fiercest fires or sit in
the center of many tires, throwing combustibles into them to in
crease the flames.  These, and a thousand other tortures which
they brave,  are not all the result of trick, aided by stunefvinp
drugs, as our author asserts, but the effrcts of an absurd super- 
           USE  OF PERFUMES  IN  SORCERY.        35

become permanent by the continual  use  of drugs
competent to produce it.
                   CHAPTER II.

Effect of Perfumes on the Moral Nature of Man.—Action of Lini-
  ments ; the Magic Ointment frequently operated  by occasion-
  ing Dreams, which the Predisposition  to Credulity converted
  into Realities.—Such Dreams may explain the whole History
  of Sorcery.—The principal Causes which multiplied the Num-
  ber of Sorcerers were the Employment  of Mysterious  Secrets.
  —The Crimes which these pretended Mysteries served to con-
  ceal ;  and the rigorous Laws  absurdly directed against the
  Crime of Sorcery.

   The impression of the" marvelous increases upon
us  in proportion  to the distance  which seems to

stitious  credulity, that those acts are to gain for them eternal
felicity.   That many  of them are sincere is demonstrated in
their belief that even tigers will respect them—will come volun-
tarily to them—and lie down, and fondle, and lick their hands :  a
belief which sometimes costs them their lives.  Upon what other
plea can we account for  the suicides that are perpetrated at the
temple of Juggernaut, and at the  sacred spot where the Ganges
and the Jumna mingle their waters; and the disgusting abomina-
tions that nothing but a sincere belief in their efficacy could have
admitted into several of their religious ceremonies.  That many
penitents perish by tigers every year, but nevertheless that num-
bers of these penitents are impostors, there is little doubt.  Their
putting  to  death and resuscitating a human  victim, or what is
termed pahvadam, is undoubtedly a mere  counterfeit rite to im-
pose upon  the ignorant and  extort charity from the  rich ;  and
many others of their exhibitions  are intended for the same pur-
pose. This does not, however, weaken  our  argument in favor
of the extreme length to which a  desire to confirm extraordinary
doctrines will carry enthusiasts.  Without  going to Hindostan,
we may find in Europe sufficient evidence of this fact; but the
mention of one only will suffice to demonstrate the temper of the
period when such proofs could be demanded or believed. When
Antioch was taken by the Christians, in the eleventh  century,
the identity of the  lance which was  reputed to have pierced the
side of our Savior was disputed.  The monk who had recently
made the discovery, by the suggestion  of a vision,  offered to
undergo the ordeal of  fire to establish the truth of what he said.
His offer was accepted, and he passed through the terrible proof.
He died, however, within a few days, and the  fact of the sup-
posed discovery became problematical.*—Ed.

  * Berrington, Literary History of the Middle Ages, 4to., 1814, p. 265. 
36      USE  OF PERFUMES IN  SORCERY.
separate the cause from the effect.  Draughts and
drugs could not be administered without the con-
currence of the individual  on whom they were
intended to operate;  but persons might involun-
tarily become intoxicated by the perfumes shed
around  the altar and  the incense lavishly used in
magical ceremonies, even without a suspicion  of
their powers.   This fact afforded many advantages
to the Thaumaturgist, especially when  it was his
interest to produce visions and ecstasy.   The choice
and the combination of these perfumes were scru-
pulously studied.
  It may be remembered that, in order to give
children a capability of receiving  revelations  in
dreams, the use of fumigations with certain  ingre-
dients was recommended by Porphyrus.*  Proclus,
who frequently, in common  with  his philosophic
cotemporary, transmitted mere medicinal prescrip-
tions undep the form  of an  allegory, relatest that
the founders of the ancient priesthood,  after col-
lecting  various  odors, combined them according to
the process  of divine  art;  by  which  means  a
singular perfume was compounded, in  which the
energy  of the numerous odors was brought to a
climax by this union, and became necessarily weak-
ened by separation.
  In  the  hymns ascribed to Orpheus, and  which
evidently  belong to the ritual of some very an-
cient worship, a  separate  perfume is assigned
to  accompany  the invocation of  each divinity.
These  diverse rites had  not,  invariably,  an ac-
tual meaning in  their application;  but general
rules being  thus   established, they  were  more
easily taken advantage of  on  necessary  occa-
sions, the priest having the  power  of  directing

    * Proclus, De Sacrificis et Magid.            \ /£,£ 
USE OF PERFUMES IN SORCERY.       37
the perfume to be used in addressing any particular
divinity.*
   The physical and  moral action of odors has not
perhaps, in this view,  been so  much studied by
modern  philosophers  as by  the ancient Thauma-
turgists.   Herodotus, however, informs us, that the
Scythians  became intoxicated by inhaling  the va-
por arising from the seeds of a species of hemp,
thrown upon heated  stones.t    We  learn also from
modern  science, that a disposition to  anger and to
strife  is  produced  by the  mere odor  of the seeds
of henbane,  when its  strength  is  augmented by
heat.   Three examples, related in Le Dictionnaire
de Medecine\ and in L'Encyclopedic Methodique, go

  * The ancients were particularly fond of perfumes.  In Athens,
when the guests invited to a feast entered the house of their host,
their beards " were perfumed over with censers of frankincense,
as ladies have their tresses on visiting a Turkish harem.   The
hands, too, after each lavation, were scented."  It was usual, also,
" after  supper to perfume  the guests."* The influence of odors
on the organs of smelling  depends more on the condition of the
nervous tissue of that organ, than upon the nature of the odors;
and much also is due to the healthy or the diseased condition of
the system.  Odors delightful to one  person are  intolerable to
another: mignionette possessed nothing agreeable in its odor to
the celebrated Blumenbach; and the distinguished Baron Haller
declared that  no odor was so agreeable to him as that of a dis-
secting-room.  The impression made upon the olfactory nerves is
generally transitory, the sensation vanishing when the odorous
substance is withdrawn; but the sensations of some odors con-
tinue after the impression  of the odorous matter has ceased.  In
some persons odors do not operate as merely topical stimulants,
but affect the whole system: thus, in  some  ipecacuanha  causes
an asthmatic fever; in others, the odor of the African geranium,
pelargonium, causes faintings ; the odor of the rose  has  produced
epilepsy ; while  a few nervous people  either lose the power of
smelling, or have a constant consciousness of a bad odor, or of
something which is not present.  Many odors excite powerfully
the brain;  some animals, as, for example, cats, are intoxicated by
valerian ; while  other animals, and man himself, are sickened by
the odor of tobacco.—Ed.
  t Herodot., lib. iv., cap. lxxv.
  X Tome vii., art. Jusquiame._____________________

  * St.  John, Manners  and Customs of  Ancient  Greece, vol.  i., pp.
175-184. 
38     ACTION OF  LINIMENTS IN  SORCERY.

to prove this effect.  The most striking is the case
of a married cduple,  who,  although everywhere
else they lived in perfect harmony, could not, with-
out coming to blows, remain a few hours  in their
ordinary  workroom.   The  room  got credit foi
being  bewitched,  until the  cause  of these daily
quarrels, over which  the  unfortunate  pair were
seriously concerned, was discovered r, a considera-
ble quantity of seeds of henbane were found near
the stove, and with the removal  of the  substance
which emitted this unfortunate odor all tendency
to quarrel vanished.
  This class of agents was so much the more valu-
able to the Thaumaturgist, that  it not only eludes
the eye, but it  does not even affect  the olfactory
nerves in proportion to the violence of its effects.
  There are substances still more energetic than
perfumes, which affect our nature by acting on the
exterior of the body.   The extract or the juice of
belladonna,  when  applied to a  wound, produces
delirium accompanied by visions :  one drop of this
juice,  if it touch the eye, will also cause delirium,
but preceded by ambliopia, or double images.*  A
man under its influence sees every object doubled;!
and when subjected to its influence by the venge-
ance   of  the Thaumaturgist, he  would  exclaim,
like  a new Pentheus,  " that he  beheld  two suns,
and two cities of Thebes."!

  * This observation was made by Dr. Hymli.  See also Pinel,
Nosographie Philosophique (5th edition),tome hi., p. 46, et Giraudy,
" Sur le d'elire cause par  la Belladone," &C.  A thesis sustained in
1818.
  t No  extract, or expressed juice of deadly nightshade, atropa
belladonna, known at present, will  produce the effect described in
the text when the eye is touched with it; but when  it is taken
in full doses into the stomach, it causes dilatation of the pupils,
visual illusions, confusion of the  head, and delirium resembling
that of intoxication.—Ed.
  X  Virgil, A2neid, lib. iv., v. 469.  Pentheus was King of Thebes, 
ACTION OF LINIMENTS IN  SORCERY.    39
   Experiments'have decidedly proved, that several
medicaments, administered in the form of liniments,
are taken in by the absorbent system, and act upon
the habit  in  the same manner as when they are
directly introduced into the  stomach.   This prop-
erty of liniments was not unknown to the ancients.
In  the romance of Achilles Tatius,  an Egyptian
doctor, itrorder to cure Leucippus of an attack of
frenzy, applied to his head a liniment composed
of oil, in which some  particular  medicament was
dissolved ;  the patient fell into a deep sleep, shortly
after  the anointing.   What  the physician was ac-
quainted with, the Thaumaturgist could  scarcely
be ignorant of; and this secret knowledge endowed
him with the power of performing many apparent
miracles, some merciful, some marvelous and fatal
in their tendency.   It can not be  disputed that the
customary  and  frequent  anointing, which  formed
part of the ancient ceremonials, must have offered
opportunities  and given  facility  for turning this
knowledge to  advantage.  Before consulting  the
oracle  of Trophonius, the body was rubbed with
oil;* this  preparation undoubtedly  concurred  in

in Boeotia.  In his efforts to put down in his kingdom the Bac-
chanalian rites, on account of the  gross sensualities which at-
tended them, and his refusal to acknowledge the divinity of Bac-
chus, he was allured into a wood on Mount Cithaeron, with the
view of witnessing the ceremonies unnoticed, and was attacked
by the Bacchanals and murdered.  It is said that his mother was
the first who attacked him, and she  was followed by his two sis-
ters—Ino, who afterward committed suicide, and was deified by
the gods, and Antihoe.  His body was hung upon a tree, which
was afterward cut down by order of the oracle, and made into
two statues of the Dyonesian god, which were placed on Mount
Citha;ron.  The priests, no doubt, could have given a satisfactory
explanation of the whole transaction.—Ed.
  * Pausanias, lib. ix., cap. xxxix.   Pausanias  was initiated into
these mysteries.  The priests first made him drink from the we
of Oblivion, to banish his past thoughts ; and then from the well
of Recollection, that he might remember the vision he was about
to behold.  He was then shown a mysterious  representation ot 
 40     ACTION  OF LINIMENTS IN  SORCERY.

 producing the  desired vision.  Before  being  ad-
 mitted to the mysteries of the Indian sages, Apol-
 lonius and his companions were anointed with  an
 oil, the strength of which made them imagine that
 they were bathed withfre*
   The disciples of the men who established, in the
 heart of America, religious doctrines and rites, evi-
 dently borrowed  some  of them from the Asiatics.
 The priests  of Mexico, preparatory to their con-
 versing  with their  divinity, anointed their bodies
 with a fetid pomatum.   The base of it was tobacco,
 and a bruised seed called ololuchqui, the effect of
 which was to deprive man of his judgment, as that
 of the tobacco  was to benumb  his  senses.   After
 this, they felt themselves very intrepid and not less
 cruel ;t and, no  doubt, predisposed to have visions,
 since the intention of this practice  was to bring
 them into connection with the objects of their fan-
 tastical worship.
  But, quitting the temples for a while, let us trace
 the effects of this secret when divulged, and  after
 it had  fallen  into the hands of ordinary magicians.

Trophonius, and forced to worship it.  He  was next dressed in
 linen vestments, with girdles around  his body, and led into the
 sanctuary, where was the cave into which he descended by a lad-
der; at its bottom, in the side of the cave, there was an opening,
and having placed his foot in it internally, his whole body was
drawn into  it by some invisible power.  He returned through the
 same opening at which he had entered;  and being placed on the
 throne of Mnemosyne, the priests inquired what he had seen, and
finally led him back to the  sanctuary of the Good  Spirit.  As
soon as he recovered his self-command, he was obliged to write
the vision he had seen on a little tablet, which was hung up in
the temple.—Ed.
  *  Philostrat.,  De vit. Apol, lib. iii., cap. v.
  t Acosta,  Htstoire des Indes  Occidentales, liv. v., chap, xxvi.,
French translation (in 8vo., 1616), pp. 256, 257.  The Mexican
priests introduced into this ointment the ashes of the bodies of
insects that were esteemed venomous, undoubtedly to distract
the attention from the nature of the drugs that were to prove effi-
 cacious. 
        ACTION  OF  LINIMENTS IN  SORCERY.    41

   It is difficult to conceive that all is imposture in
 the imaginings of poets and writers of romance re-
 specting  the effects  of magical  ointments.   The
 ingredients of which they  were composed had, un-
 doubtedly, some efficacy.   We  have  suggested
 that sensual dreams were mingled with  the  sleep
 which  they induced;  a supposition  whose proba-
 bility rests on the fact, that those who sought their
 aid  were generally  those whose love had been dis-
 appointed or betrayed.*
   The demands of passion or curiosity for enchant-
 ments were generally answered by means of dreams
 produced by  these  magical ointments, and so vivid
 were the illusions that they could  not  fail to pass
 for  reality:  a circumstance  demonstrated  in the
 history of prosecutions for sorcery, the number of
 which almost surpasses belief.
   It was  in the night, and during sleep, that the
 sorcerers  were  transported to the  Sabbat.  In or-
 der  to obtain  this privilege, they were obliged to
 rub  themselves in the evening with pomatum,t the

  * A« these ointments seem to have operated  upon the nervous
 system nearly in the same manner as the philters of the Greeks
 and Romans, it is probable that cantharides was one of the ingre-
dients. Its active principle, canthariden, is  very soluble in oils
and fatty matters, and in this solution it is readily absorbed and
carried into the system.  It is this  principle that causes stianguary
after  the application of a  blister.  The ancient  love-philters were
administered in the form of potions, which often acted so violently
as to produce dangerous delirium.  The madness of Caligula was
attributed to one which was given to him by his wife Caesarina.
Juvenal* speaks of the Messalian philter as one of the most pow-
erful.—Ed.
  t The confessions made by the  sorcerers,  at  the Inquisition of
 Spain, in 1610, speak of  the necessity, in  order to be present at
 the Sabbat, to rub the palms of the hands, the soles of the feet,
 &c, with the water of a frightened or irritated  toad (Llorente,
 Histoire de VInquisition, chap, xxxvii., art. 2, tome hi., p. 431, et
 suivantes): a puerile receipt, only intended  to conceal the com-
position of the real ointment, even from the initiated.
* Juv., vi., p. 610. 
42     ACTION  OF LINIMENTS  IN  SORCERY.

composition of which was unknown to them, but
its effects were precisely  such as we have men-
tioned.
  A woman  accused of sorcery was  brought be-
fore a magistrate of Florence, a man whose knowl-
edge was greatly in advance of his age and coun-
try.  She declared herself to be a sorceress, and
asserted  that she would be present at the Sabbat
that very night, if allowed to  return  to her house
and make use of the magic ointment.   The judge
assented.  After being rubbed with fetid drugs, the
pretended sorceress lay down  and immediately fell
asleep ; she was tied to the bed, while  blows, prick-
ing,  and scorching failed to  break her slumber.
Roused  at length,  with  much trouble, she related
the next day that she went to  the Sabbat, and she
detailed the painful sensations which she had really
experienced  in her sleep, and to  which the judge
limited her punishment.*
  From  three  anecdotes precisely similar, which
we might  quote from Porta and  Fromann,t we
shall only extract  a  physiological remark.   Two
of the reputed  sorcerers sent to sleep  by the rhagic
ointment had given out that they should go to the
Sabbat, and return from it flying with wings.  Both
believed that this really happened, and were greatly
astonished when assured of the contrary.  One in
his sleep even  performed some  movements, and
struck out as though he were on the wing.   It is
well known  that, from the blood flowing toward
the brain  during sleep,  it  is  not  uncommon to
dream of flying and rising into the  air.f

  * Paolo  Minucci, a Florentine jurisconsult, who died in the
sixteenth century,  has transmitted this interesting fact, in his
commentary on the Malmantile Racquistato, cant, iv., ott. 76.
  t J. B. Porta, Magia Natur., lib. ii., cap. xxvi.—Fromann, Tract.
de Fascin.,  pp. 562, 568, 569.
  X When sleep  is not very profound, the senses, in a certain de- 
        ACTION  OF LINIMENTS IN  SORCERY.     43


   While they acknowledge that they used a magi-
cal ointment in order to be present at  the Sabbat,
these  ignorant creatures  could give no recipe for
making it; but medicine will readily furnish one.
Porta  and Cardanus* have  mentioned  two:  the
solanum somniferum  forms the  base of one, while
henbane  and  opium predominate  in  the  other.
The learned Gassendi endeavored  to discover and

gree, are excitable, and the conception of ideas by the mind does
not entirely cease: consequently dreams occur.  If a light is sud-
denly brought into a room  where a person is in this kind of sleep,
he will  either dream of being under the equator, or in a tropical
landscape; or of wandering in the fields in a clear summer's day ;
or of fire.   If a door is slammed, but not so loud as to awake the
sleeper, he will dream of thunder; and if his palm be gently tickled,
his dream will be one of ecstatic pleasure.   If some particular idea
completely occupies the mind during the waking state, it will re-
cur in  dreams during sleep ; hence  the minds of these unfortu-
nate people mentioned in the text, being strongly impressed with
the idea of being present at the Sabbat, the dreams would appa-
rently  realize  that event.   If a person in sleep folds his arms
closely over his breast, he is likely to dream of being  held down
by force, and the images of the persons employed in holding him
down will be also present to his  mind.  The predominant emo-
tions of the mind  influence  greatly the  character  of dreams.
When the-influence is depressing, the dreams are generally terri-
ble or distressing; when the exhilarating occupy it, the  dreams
are delightful and joyous.  In dreams, circumstances may present
to the mind forebodings ; and it is not impossible that these may
really come to pass, without any thing wonderful in the occur-
rence;  yet it  appears wonderful, although, when the circum-
stances are analyzed, it will be seen to be merely the result of
some leading thought fixed upon the mind, and cherished during
the hours of waking.  In sleep, a certain degree of voluntary mo-
tion may be exerted, and the person may talk, and appear to hear
and understand those who speak to him in  return:  such a state
constitutes somnambulism.  In such a condition,  the functions of
the  brain are always more or less disturbed.  The oily frictions
said to have been employed by the sorcerers must have had nar-
cotic properties ;  but,  independent of these, whatever  gently
stimulates  the skin operates sympathetically on the sensorium,
and favors sleep and dreaming.—Ed.
   * J.  Wierius, De Prcestig., lib. ii., cap.  xxxvi., p. 4.—J. B. Porta,
Magia Natur., lib. ii.—Cardan., De Subtilitate, lib. xvm.  Wierius
says that the ointment mentioned by Cardanus consisted of the
fat of boys, mixed with the juice of parsley, aconue, solanum,
pentaphylum, and soot.—Ed. 
44    ACTION OF LINIMENTS  IN SORCERY.
to imitate  this  secret, in  order  to undeceive  the
miserable beings who imagined themselves to be
sorcerers.  He  anointed  some peasants, whom be
had  fully persuaded that they should attend  the
Sabbat, with an ointment containing opium.   After
a long  sleep, they awoke, satisfied that  the magic
process had  produced its effect;  and they gave a
detailed account of all they had seen at the Sabbat,
and  the pleasures they had enjoyed ;  in  the partic-
ulars of which, and the mention of voluptuous sen-
sations, we may trace the action of opium.*
   In 1545, a pomatum  composed of opiates  was
found in the house of a sorcerer.  Andre Laguna,
physician to  Pope Julius III., made  use  of it to
anoint  a woman laboring under  frenzy and loss of
rest.  She slept thirty-six hours consecutively ;  and
when they succeeded  in awaking her, she com-


  * The most absurd stories were told and believed respecting
this assembly of demons and sorcerers.  Among others, we are
told that a husband having suspected his wife of being a sorceress,
and desirous to know whether she attended the Sabbat, and how
she transported herself there,  watched  her, and, one evening,
found her occupied in anointing her body.  She then took the
form of a bird, and flew away ; but, in the morning, he found her
in bed at his  side.  He questioned her respecting her absence;
but she would make no confession until she was severely beaten,
when she acknowledged that she had been at the Sabbat.  He
pardoned her, on the condition that she would convey him thither,
anc she  assented to his wish.  On arriving at the  place, he was
placed at table with the assembled  magicians and demons; but
finding the food very insipid, he asked for salt, which was not
brought.   Perceiving, however, a salt-cellar near him, he ex-
claimed,—" God be praised, the salt is come at last!"  In an in-
stant, the whole assemblage and the repast vanished, and he found
himself in the midst of barren mountains, more than thirty leagues
From his  house.   On returning, he related the whole affair to the
inquisitors.who  immediately ordered the arrest of his wife, and
many of her accomplices; all of whom, accordingly, were found
guilty, and unmercifully condemned  to the stake.
  In  such a period, it was unnecessary to poison or to murder a
wife  who had lost her husband's affection, or incurred his suspi-
cion ; the law was willing and ready to perform the office of exe-
cutioner for him.—Ed. 
       ACTION  OF LINIMENTS IN SORCERY.    45

plained of being taken from a most extraordinary
situation.*   We 'may, with the  judicious and  un-
fortunate Llorente, compare this illusion to those
experienced by the women devoted to the worship
of the mother of the gods, when they heard con-
tinually the sound of flutes and  of tamborines, saw
the joyous dances of the fauns and satyrs, and tasted
inexpressible pleasures : similar  medicaments were
the cause among them of a similar kind of intoxi-
cation.
   To this  cause we  may, likewise, refer the suc-
cess of the magicians in their amours, such  as those
which Lucian and Apuleius  have rendered so fa-
mous.  This gives new grounds for the probability
that the same secret, with slight  variations,  was
obtained by the wretched sorcerers of the West
from the inferior magicians, who made a merchan-
dise of love-philters in Greece and in Italy.
   In all  ages the number of sorceresses has  sur-
passed that of sorcerers; which is accounted for
by women possessing a warmer imagination and a
more sensitive  organization  than men.    In  the
same way we may explain why, in  the fables so
often repeated, whei'e  the demons or Magi were
magically  united to  mortals, the greater  number
of instances  are referable to nightmare.  .They
were real dreams, heightened  by a  disposition to
hysteria; and  this  was  the only reality they  pos-
sessed.
   In short, we do not scruple to say that,  in order
to  explain the  principal facts registered in the
bloody archives of civil  and religious ti'ibunals,
and in the voluminous records of demonology; in
order to explain the  confessions of the multitude
of credulous or imbecile persons of both sexes who
  * A. Laguna, Commentaire sur Dioscoride, lib. lxxvi., cap. iv.,
cite par Llorente, Histoire de I'Inquisition, tome iii., p. 428. 
46        PROSECUTIONS FOR SORCERY.

firmly  believed  themselves to be  sorcerers, and
were convinced that they had attended the Sabbat,
it is only necessary to connect, with the use of the
magical ointment, the deep impression on the im-
agination  produced  by previous descriptions re-
garding the Sabbat, with the ceremonies that were
witnessed there, and the joys in which those who
joined such abominations were to participate.
  These presumed assemblies, indeed,  and their
guilty purposes, had been notorious from the com-
mencement of the fifth century, and awakened  at
an early period the increasing severity of the cler-
gy and the magistrates.  They are  described as  of
frequent occurrence  and  long duration; yet all
this time  the sorcerers were never once detected
at any of these meetings.   It was not that fear pre-
vented it; the same records and trials mention cer-
tain proceedings by  which either the legal  agents
or ministers of religion, far from having any thing
to fear from the spirits of darkness, obtained an
ascendency over them, and had power  to  appre-
hend  the  miserable  creatures, in spite of the evil
spirit by whom  they were  misled.   But in  reality
these assemblies had no existence, otherwise they
must  have  survived  the  wrecks  of  Polytheism.
Solitary initiations were substituted for them, and
these were soon reduced to a mere confiding of
secrets; all that remained then was  a  mutilated
tradition of ceremonies borrowed from various pa-
gan mysteries, and a description of the joys prom-
ised to the initiated.   Conformably to  the declara-
tions of the  sorcerers  themselves,  we can not fail
to perceive that they  believed  the ointment with
which they rubbed their bodies to be magical; and
the facts quoted prove that its effect was 60 pow-
erful as to leave them  no more in  doubt as to the
reality of  the fanciful  impressions  it  occasioned, 
PROSECUTIONS  FOR SORCERY.       47
than of those sensations received by them in their
waking hours.   Thus they had the full persuasion
of having  partaken of rich  feasts, while they ac-
knowledged before the judges that at these ban-
quets neither  hunger nor thirst were appeased ;*
the impression  of reality was so great, that  they
could not believe they had merely dreamed of eat-
ing and drinking. With their dreams, however, as is
usually the case, were mingled various reminiscen-
ces.  On  one  hand, memoiy presented to them a
confused  succession of absurd scenes, which they
had been  led to expect;  and, on the other, in the
midst of magical ceremonies they saw introduced,
as actors, persons of their own acquaintance, whom
they actually denounced, swearing  they had  seen
them at the Sabbat; yet this homicidal oath was
no  perjury!   They made it  with the same convic-
tion that led  them to confessions and revelations,
and which devoted them  to  frightful punishments.
Fromann relatest that the confessions of sorcerers
condemned to be burnt at Ingolstadt were publicly
read ;  they confessed to having cut  off the lives of
several persons by their witchcraft:  these persons
lived, were present at the trial, thus refuting the
absurd confession; and,  nevertheless, the judges
continued to  institute suits  against sorcery.  In
1750, at Wurtzburg, a nun was accused of this
crime,  and carried before  a  tribunal, where she
firmly maintained  that she  was a  sorceress: like
the accused at Ingolstadt, she named the victims
to her sorceries; and although these persons were
then alive, yet  the  unfortunate creature perished
at the stake.!
  * Fromann, Tract, de Fasc, p. 613.
  f Ibid, p. 850.
  X Voltaire, Prix de la Justice et de VHumanite, art. x.
  In 1515 not less than five hundred persons were tried at Ge-
neva, on charges of witchcraft,  and executed ; and in Scotland, 
48         PROSECUTIONS  FOR  SORCERY.


   The opinion which  these revelations tend to es-
tablish is not new ; J. Wierius had already honor-
ed himself by establishing it.   A Spanish  theolo-
gian* addressed  a treatise  to  the  Inquisition, in
which, representing the opinion of many of his co-
temporaries, he maintained  that  the greater num-
ber of the crimes  imputed  to  the sorcerers have
existed only in dreams; and that for the  produc-
tion of these dreams it was only necessary to anoint
the body with drugs, and to establish a firm faith
in the  individual  that  he should really be trans-
ported to the Sabbat.\

in 1599, scarcely a year after the publication of the "Demon-
ologie" of King James,  not less than  six hundred  human
beings were destroyed at once for this  imaginary crime.*  The
sufferers in England,  also, were very numerous.  The statute
of  James, which adjudged  those convicted  of witchcraft  to
suffer  death, was not repealed until the year 1736, the  ninth of
George II.
   In every country, it may be asked,  who  were  the assumed
witches ?  We may reply, in the words of  Reginald Scott, in his
" Discoverie of Witchcraft,"t  they were "  women which be com-
monly old, lame, bleare-eied, pale,  fowle, and full  of wrinkles;
poore, sullen, superstitious, and papists; or such as know  no
religion; in whose drousie  minds the divell  hath gotten a fine
sear; so as, what mischafe, mischance, calamine, or slaughter is
brought to passe, they are easilie persuaded the same is doone
by themselves, imprinting in their minds an earnest  and constant
imagination thereof.   They  are lean and  deformed,  shewing
melancholie in their  faces, to the  horror of all that see them.
They  are doting, scolds, mad, divelish, and not much  differing
from them that are thought to be possessed with spirits; so firm
and stedfast in  their opinions, as  whosoever shall oolie have
respect to the  constarocie of  their words  uttered, would easilie
believe they were true indeed."  No comment could  throw any
additional  light upon the cruel nature of these persecutions, and
the description of their miserable victims.—Ed.
   * Llorente, Histoire de VInquisition, tome iii., pp. 454, 455.
   t It has been, with some degree of probability, supposed, that
the idea of the Sabbat arose from the secrecy with which the
meetings of the Waldenses were compelled to be held, and the
accusations of indulging in unhallowed rites which were brought
against them.   At a very early period, these persecuted people

       * Nashe's Lenten Stuff. 1599.—Shakspeare, vol. ii., p. 477.
       t See Book i., chap, iii., p. 7. 
            PROSECUTIONS  FOR SORCERY.         49


   We do not say that particular causes, in subor-
dination  to  this general  one, may not  have had a
very sensible influence  in producing the  accusa-
tions of witchcraft among a very ignorant  popula-
tion ;  for example, the  possession  of superior sci-
ence has brought  upon  a man the  reputation  of
being  a  sorcerer.   The  opportunity  afforded for
observation was  the  source  of the  accusation  of
sorcery against shepherds.   In  their frequent iso-

had separated  and  kept themselves distinct from the Church of
Rome.  In 1332, Pope John XXII. issued a bull against them,
and another was sent forth, in 1487, by Innocent VIII., enjoining
the nuncio, Alberto Capitaneis, " to extirpate the pernicious sect
of malignant men  called  the poor people of Lyon, or the Wal-
denses, who have long endeavored in Piedmont, and other neigh.
boring parts, to ensnare the sheep belonging unto God, under a
feigned  picture of holiness."  Many persecutions followed ; but
the Waldenses defended their opinions with the most determined
resolution,  and even with the  sword.   In some  of the defeats
which  they suffered,  both women  and children were put to
death ; and the prisoners were, in several instances, burned alive.
These excesses drove the wretched Waldenses,  thus suffering
for conscience' sake, to take refuge in the  fastnesses  of the
mountains, a step  which brought upon them the accusations
already noticed, and originated  the supposition that the Sabbat,
which the  wretches suspected  of witchcraft were stated to  at-
tend, was a real meeting.  The  Waldenses were also sometimes
called Scobases, from the belief that, like the witches, they pro-
ceeded through the air to their meetings, riding upon broomsticks.
Credulity regarded  the Sabbat as real; for Reginald" Scott informs
us, that  it was  generally believed that the witches met together
"at certaine assemblies, at the time prefixed, and doo not onlie
see the  divell  in visible forme, but confer and talke familiarlie.
with him;" and he adds that, on the introduction of a. novice,
the arch-demon, " chargeth hir to procure men, women, and chil-
dren also, as she can, to enter into this societie.....At these
magical assemblies, the witches never fail to  danse, and whiles
they sing and  danse  everie one hath a broome in hir  hand, and
holdeth  it  up  aloft."*  Such was the extraordinary  length to
which credulity extended respecting this  imaginary assembly;
and one of the chief features of the monstrous and gross super-
stition which existed, at the period alluded to, was the melan-
choly fact that  it was the creed of all ranks, from the monarch to
the beggar.  Happily, since the light of education  has penetrated
into the cottage, it remains merely as a matter of fanciful tra-
dition.—Ed.

           * Discovcrie of Witchcraft, book i., chap. iii.
     II.                   D 
50         PROSECUTIONS  FOR SORCERY.

lations from society, necessity has  forced  these
men to  be the physicians  and surgeons of their
flocks ;   and,  favored by chance  and  guided by
analogy, they were sometimes enabled to perform
cures on their own race.  The sick man was heal-
ed ;  and the question was put, whence did the un-
instructed individual derive so marvelous a faculty
if not from magic 1   Several shepherds, it is well
known, also became, in  a short time, so intimate
with the individual physiognomy of their sheep, as
readily to distinguish any  one of his  own  flock
mingled with the flock of another shepherd.*   The
man who  could thus select his own from a thou-
sand animals, apparently similar, could not easily
avoid  being deemed a  sorcerer; particularly  if
vanity or interest should lead him to favor the error
which gains him the reputation of superior power
and knowledge.   What must be the consequence,
then, if the center  whence light ought to emanate ;
if the  authority, which rules the  destiny of every
citizen,  is governed  by  the  common opinion]
Even in our own  day, the  French legislation has
treated  shepherds as accused, or, at least, as sus-
pected of sorcery ; for we find that simple menaces
from them are  punished by tortures, reserved, in
other cases, for assaults and  murders.  Does not this
arise from the supposition, that there is a power of
evil in  their  mere words ?  This law, enacted in
1751,t although fallen into disuse, has not yet been
formally abrogated. •
  *  M. Desgranges, Memoire sur les Usages d'un Canton de la
Beauce.—Memoires de la Societe des Anliquaires de France, tome i.,
pp. 242, 243.
  +  A similar law forbids all shepherds to menace, ill treat, or do
any  wrong to the farmers or laborers whom they serve, or who
are  served  by them, as well  as  their families, shepherds, or
domestics, under penalty, for the said  shepherds, of five years
at the galleys for simple menaces, and for ill treatment nine
years.—Piiambuledu Conseil-d'Etat du Roi,  dul5 Septembre, 1751. 
           PROSECUTIONS FOR SORCERY.         51

   The severity  exercised  toward sorcerers,  al-
though altogether absurd in principle, yet was not
always unjust in its application, since sorcery served
frequently as the mask or instrument for the per-
petration  of criminal  actions.   Thus  the  use  of
drugs, by which the fish in a preserve  are  render-
ed so stupefied that they can  be taken by the hand,
although considered now a delinquency, provided
against and punished by law, was formerly regard-
ed as the effect of sorcery.  The tricks of sharpers,
with whose delinquencies our small courts are daily
filled, and which  consist of selling the imaginary
aid of supernatural power at a high rate, were acts
of sorcery.  Sorcery, indeed, was a cover for many
atrocities, and  crimes, sometimes arising from the
mere desire to impose ;  sometimes from transports
of cruelty or refinements of revenge, and the wish
to transfer their load  of guilt to those whom they
initiated.*
   But it  can not be denied, that poison  alone has
too often constituted the real efficacy  of sorcery :
this  is a fact of which  the ancients were not igno-
rant, a proof of which exists in the passage in the
  * " Commodus......sacra Mithriaca homicidio vero polluit;
cum illic aliquid, ad speciem timoris, vel  dici, vel fingi  soleat."—
(^£1. Lamprid. in Commod. Anton.)  This phrase is obscure ;  and
shows us the extreme reserve of ancient writers on all that con-
cerned  the initiations.  We may,  nevertheless, deduce from it,
that the novice in the mysteries of Mythra believed himself obliged
to obey the command of the initiating to kill a man.  These mys-
teries, which penetrated into Rome, and afterward into Gaul, to-
ward the commencement of our era, belonged, in Asia, to the re-
motest antiquity, since Zoroaster was thus initiated before setting
out on his religious mission.  Now this prophet was much earlier
than Ninus ; the religion which he founded was general and pow-
erful in the Empire of Assyria, in the time of Ninus and Semira-
mis.  The  trial which the priests  of Mythra, in  order to assure
themselves, made use of to determine the resolution and docility
of an aspirant, is still practiced by one of the superior lodges of
Freemasons.  Similar trials necessarily  passed into the schools
of magic from the ancient temples ; and that which Was only used
as a pretense in general, might easily on occasion become reality. 
 52         PROSECUTIONS FOR SORCERY.

 second eclogue of Theocritus* which we have just
 quoted.  It is a curious fact, confirmed by judicial
 trials in modern  times,t that the victim persisting
 in  ascribing his  sufferings to supernatural agency
 has thus aided in shielding the  real  crime  of the
 guilty from the investigation of the law.
   In such a case,  had the magistrates been enlight-
 ened as well as severe, they would have  acquired
 great claims to public gratitude, by giving some
 attention to the real nature of the crime as well as
 to the punishment of it.  They might, by unveiling
 and  giving publicity to pretended magical  opera-
 tions, have  exposed the impotency of the  magi-
 cians, when prevented by circumstances from hav-
 ing recourse to their detestable  practices  : and by
 such  revelations, many  disordered  imaginations
 might eventually  have been cured.
   But far  from doing so, the judges,  for a long
 period,  reasoned  like the inquisitors who, when
 obliged, by formal  depositions,  to admit  that the
 secret of the sorcerers consisted  in the composition
 of  poisons, punished nevertheless the  imaginary
 rather than the real crime.!   Legislators had no
 clearer discernment than the populace :  they issued

  * See chap. ix.
  t  In 1689, some shepherds of Brien destroyed  the cattle  of
 their neighbors, by administering to them drugs on which they
 had thrown holy water, and over which they recited magical in-
 cantations.  Prosecuted as sorcerers, they were condemned  as
 poisoners.  It  was discovered that the basis ^)f these  drugs was
 arsenic.
  It is curious to observe the similarity of customs in very distant
 countries.  In Shetland,  the religious charmer imbued water
 with magical powers for a very opposite purpose, namely, to pre-
 serve from mischance; to combat an evil  eye or an evil  tongue.
 The charmer muttered some words over  water, in imitation  of
 Catholic priests consecrating holy  water, and the  fluid was
named " forespoken water."  Boats were  sprinkled with it; and
diseased limbs washed with it, for the purpose of telling out p'ains.
—En.
  X  Llorente, Histoire de VInquisition, tome iii., pp. 440, 441. 
PROSECUTIONS  FOR  SORCERY.         53
terrible  decrees  against  sorcerers,  and  even by
these means  doubled, nay, tenfold increased their
number.   To doubt, in this case, the effect of per-
secution, were  to betray great  ignorance  of man-
kind.  Opening a vast field for all the calumny and
tale-bearing  that might be dictated by  folly, by
fear, by  hatred, or vengeance, in preparing instru-
ments of torture and erecting stakes in every mar-
ket-place, they multiplied absurd  or false  accusa-
tions and still more absurd confessions.*   In giving

  * No portion of the history of witchcraft is more extraordinary
than the confessions  occasionally made  by the wretched beings
who were brought to trial as sorcerers.  Although many of them
were  extorted under torture, and  afterward revoked during mo-
ments of mental and  bodily resuscitation, yet some of those re-
corded were voluntaryt What condition of mind, it may be asked,
could lead to the latter, if we can believe that the accused could
ever fancy that they were  really actors in such supernatural trans-
actions ?  In reply, we may venture to suggest, that vanity, one
of the most powerful agents in the female character, in raising
an idea of importance at being thought possessors of the extraor-
dinary powers which they assumed, must have had a considerable
share in producing them.   As a specimen of these confessions, we
may mention  that of Agnes Thompson, who was implicated in
the supposed detected conspiracy of two hundred witches with
Dr. Fian, " Register to the Devil," at their head, to bewitch and
drown King James on his return from Denmark, in 1590.  Agnes
confessed that she and the other witches, her  comrades, "went
altogether by sea, each one in her riddle  or sieve, with flagons of
wine, making merry and drinking by the way, to the kirk of North
Berwick,  in Lothian, where, when they had  landed, they took
hands and danced, singing all with one voice—
           " Commer goe ye before, Commer goe ye ;
            Gif ye will not go before, Commer let me:"
and that Giles Duncane did go before  them, playing  said reel on
a Jew's trump ;  and that  the devil had met them at the kirk."
  The silly monarch, who  was present at their confession, ex-
pressed some doubts as to the last part  of it; but, taking Agnes
aside, he affirmed that she "declared unto him the very words
which had passed between  him and his queen on the first night
of their marriage, with their answers to each other; whereat the
king  wondered  greatly, and swore by the living God, that he be-
lieved all the devils in hell could not have discovered the same.*
—Ed.

  * Newes from Scotland, reprinted in the Gent. Mag., vol. xlix., p. 449,
and quoted in Drake's Shakspeare, vol. ii., p. 476. 
54        PROSECUTIONS FOR  SORCERY.

importance  to  these foolish terrors,  by bringing
the sacred character of the law to bear upon them,
they rendered this general apprehension incurable.
The multitude no longer doubted the guilt of men
who were so rigorously prosecuted ;  enlightened
individuals  swelled  the ranks of  the multitude,
either from  the influence  of the  general panic, or
lest they should themselves become suspected of
the  crimes  whose  existence  they  denied.   How
can we otherwise account  for the lengthened and
deplorable  annals of sorcery, whose daily records
tell of acts perfectly impossible, but which the ac-
cused confessed, the witnesses affirmed, the doctors
established, and the judges visited with punishment
and  death'!  It was, for  instance,  supposed, that
the physical insensibility  of the whole,  or  some
part of the body, was a sure sign of a compact with
the devil.  In France, in 1589, fourteen pretended
sorcerers, who were declared incapable of feeling,
were, for this cause, condemned  to death, on the
testimony of the  surgeons  who formed part of the
legal commission.  On  an appeal from these un-
fortunate beings, another examination was ordered
by the Parliament, at that time assembled at Tours.
The sentence was stayed by the sensible men who
conducted the  second inquiry, and who reported
that the accused were imbecile or  deranged  (per-
haps in consequence  of the misery they had en-
dured), but  in other respects physically possessing
a keenly sensitive nature.* For once, truth was
triumphant,  and  the  lives of the  poor  wretches
were saved.  But this was  a singular instance.
  The course of the seventeenth century a^ain saw
a great number of prosecutions for sorcery;  till at
length the progress of knowledge—the great benefit
of civilization—drew the film from the eyes of the
       * Chirurgie de Pigray, lib.  viii., chap,  x., p. 445. 
PERSECUTIONS  FOR SORCERY.        55
Bupreme authorities.   The Act of the Parliament
of France, of 1682, decrees that sorcerers shall be
no longer  prosecuted, except as deceivers,  blas-
phemers, and poisoners—that is  to say, for  their
real crimes; and from that time their number has
diminished every day.*
   This discussion may appear superfluous to those
impatient spirits who believe  it but loss  of time to
refute to-day the  error of yesterday;  forgetting
that the development of the sources of error form
an essential part of the history of the human mind.
Beside, although the  better instructed throughout
Europe  have ceased to believe in witchcraft, is this
progress so very  remote; has the light already
shone on so vast a circle  that this subject merits
only to be consigned to oblivion 1   Scarcely a hun-
dred years have elapsed since a book appeared in
Paris, recommending the rigor of the  laws, and
the severity of the tribunals against sorcerers, and
against those who were  skeptical as to  the exist-
ence of witchcraft  and magic; yet this book has
received the  approbation  of  the  judges of litera-
ture .t
   We have already  related  the  punishment of a
pretended witch, who was burned at Wurtzburg, in
1750.  At the same period, in an enlightened coun-
try, the rage of popular credulity survived the rigor
of the magistrates, who had ceased to prosecute for
a chimerical crime.   " Scarcely half-a-century has
elapsed," writes a traveler, an enthusiastic admirer
of the English, " since witches have been drowned
in England.   In  the  year 1751, two old  women,
suspected  to be witches, were  arrested, and, in

  * Dulaure, Hisloire de Paris, tome v., pp. 36, 37.
  t  Traite sur la Magie, par Daugis (in 12mo., Paris, 1732), ex-
tracted, with an eulogium on it, in the Journal de Trevoux, Sep-
tember, 1732, pp. 1534-1544. 
56         PERSECUTIONS FOR  SORCERY.
the course  of some  experiments  made  on  these
unfortunate  creatures by the populace, they were
plunged three several times into  a pond, and were
drowned; this occurred near Tring, a few miles
frdm  London."*   Notwithstanding the vicinity of
the metropolis, it does  not appear  that any steps
were  taken  to punish the actors in  these two mur-
derous assaults,  to  which  the  traveler gives the
gentle name of experiments/!*

  *  Voyage d'un Francois en Angleterre (2 vols. 8vo., Paris, 1816,
tome i., p. 400).  ,
  t It  is curious to trace the influence of the belief of witchcraft
in Englapd and Scotland,  at different periods.  It had attracted
the attention of government  in the reign of Henry VIII., in the
thirty-third year of which a statute was enacted which adjudged
all witchcraft and sorcery to be punished as felony, without bene-
fit of clergy.  This statute did not regard these crimes as impos
tures, but as real, supernatural, demoniacal gifts, and consequently
punishable.  In the subsequent reign, Elizabeth,  the queen, suf-
fered " under excessive anguish by pains in her  teeth,"* which
deprived her of rest, a circumstance which was attributed to the
sorcery of  a Mrs. Dyer, who was accused  of conjuration and
witchcraft on that account; indeed, the belief had infatuated all
ranks,  and extended even to the clergy.  Bishop Jewel, in a ser-
mon preached before the queen, in 1558, made use  of the following
expressions : " It may please your grace to understand that witches
and  sorcerers, within these few last years, are marvelously in-
creased within your grace's realm.  Your grace's subjects pine
away, even unto the death ; their color fadeth, their flesh rotteth,
their speech is benumbed, their senses  are  bereft:  I  pray God
they never practice further upon the subject."t  Reginald Scott,
also, in his excellent work, entitled " The Discoveries of Witch-
craft,"  says, " I have heard, to my greefe, some of the ministerie
affirme, that they have had in their parish, at one  instant, xvii or
xviii witches; meaning such as could work miracles supernatur-
allie."t Were we not accurately informed of the  deep  root, and
consequently firm hold, which the idea of the existence of witch-
craft had taken of the public mind at this period, the neglect of
Scott's work, and that of Johannis Wierius, De Prcestigiis Dasmo-
num, would greatly astonish us.  Both of these valuable produc-
tions were intended to free the world from the infatuation which
had seized upon it; to prove the falsehood of the accusations, and
even of the confessions ; and to shield the poor, the ignorant! and
the friendless aged from falling victims  to the arm  of murder,

  * Styrpe's Annals, vol. iv., p. 7.             f ibid., vol. i., p. 8.
  X  Discoverie of Witchcraft, chap, i., p. 4. 
PERSECUTIONS FOR  SORCERY.         57
   After  such  an  example, it may be  understood
how, in 1760, in  one of the  inland  provinces  of
Sweden,* it required the authority and the courage
of the  wife  of a  great  personage to save  twelve
families,  under  an  accusation  of witchcraft, from
the fury of the populace.
   In 1774, in G-ermany, where philosophy  is  so
ardently cultivated, numerous disciples and follow-
ers of Gassner and Schrcepfer adopted their doc-
trines respecting  miracles, exorcisms,  magic, and


under the perverted name of justice, uplifted by terror and  the
darkest superstition.  Scott informs us, that the whole parish of
St. Osus, in Essex, consisting  of " seventeene or eighteene, were
condemned at once."  On the  accession of James to the English
throne, the superstition of that weak and absurd monarch, which
had been previously displayed in his " Demonologie," published
at Edinburgh in 1597, brought forth a new statute against witches,
which contains the following clause:—" Any that shall use, prac-
tice, or exercise any invocation or conjuration of an evill or wick-
ed spirit, or consult, covenant  with, entertain, or employ, feed or
rewarde, any evill or wicked spirit, or to or for any intent or pur-
pose ; or take up any dead man, woman or child, out of his, her,
or their grave, or  any other place where the dead body resteth,
or the skin, bone, or other part  of any dead person, to be employed
or used in any manner of witchcraft, sorcery, charme, or enchant-
ment, whereby any person  shall be  killed, destroyed, wasted,
consumed, pined, or bound in his or her body, or any part thereof:
such offenders, duly  and  lawfully convicted and attainted, shall
suffer death."*  After such edicts as these, issuing from the high-
est authorities in the kingdom, can we wonder  at the extension
of the credulity of the people respecting supernatural agency; or
at their faith in the power of those who professed to do " a deed
without a name;"  and who, as the silly monarch and royal author,
to whom we have  referred, sayeth, " gave their hand to the devil,
and promised to observe and  keepe all  the devil's  command-
ments, "t The early Christians were not only dupes to these de-
ceptions, but they  preferred their assistance by means of prayers
and benedictions to obviate the influence of the demon; and thus
contributed to rivet the chains  that already enslaved the human
mind in the darkest superstitions.}—Ed.
  * En Dalecarlie.—Barbier, Dictionnaire Historique, p. 1195.

  * This statute was not repealed  till the 9th of George II., 1736.
  t Discoverie of  Witchcraft, book iii., chap, i., p. 40.
  X The act of ducking supposed witches in England has been practiced
more than once within the present century. 
58        PERSECUTIONS  FOR  SORCERY.
theurgy.*  In 1785, in the canton  of Lucerne, J.
Miiller, the  celebrated historian, and one  of his
friends, while peaceably seated under a tree  and
reading Tacitus aloud, were assailed by a troop of
peasants, who had been persuaded by some monks
that the strangers were sorcerers.  They narrowly
escaped being massacred.t   At the commencement
of the century several sharpers were condemned,
in France, for traversing the country and persuad-
ing the peasants that spells had been cast both on
their cattle and  on themselves; and, not satisfied
with  exacting payment for taking off the pretended
spells, they raised violent enmities, and occasioned
even murderous encounters,  by pointing out the
authors of these pretended spells.
   It was still a matter of serious argument, in the
schools of Rome, in the year 1810, as to whether
sorcerers were  mad or possessed.!   They went
further in Paris, for, in 1817, works§ were there
published  in which the  existence  of magic  was
formally maintained ; and  in which the zeal of the
learned  and virtuous, but mistaken men who for-
merly had caused  sorcerers to be burned, was ap-
plauded.
   Let the upholders of such  doctrines  applaud
themselves;  the doctrines are  still  dominant in
those distant countries where colonization has oft-
ener introduced the vices than the advanced knowl-

  * Tiedmann, Qu&stione, cfc, pp. 114,115.
  t C.  V. de Bonstetten, Pensies  sur divers objets de bien public,
pp. 230-232.
.  X Guinan Laoureins, Tableau deRome vers la fin de 1814, p. 228.
  % Les Precurseurs de I'Anti-Christ.—Les Superstitions et Presti-
ges des Philosophes.  See Le Journal de Paris, 28 Decembre, 1817.
The maladies to which  our author alludes are the consequence
of malaria, arising from  decomposing animal and vegetable mat-
ters.  If such accusations as he mentions occur in the French
West-Indian Islands, they are happily unknown in the English.__
En. 
          PERSECUTIONS FOR  SORCERY.        59

edge  of Europe.  The elevated and arid soil of
the American islands, is,  in  summer,  a prey to
maladies which attack the horses and flocks, and
do not  even spare men.   It can not be doubted
that they arise from the noxious properties of the
stagnant water,  which they are obliged  to make
use of;  as a proof of which the habitations, near a
running stream, invariably escape the  scourge.
Far from recognizing this fact, the planters persist
in ascribing their losses to sorcery, practiced by
their  slaves; and,  consequently, the unlucky in-
dividuals on whom chance fixes the suspicion are
condemned to perish by torture.*
   But,  to find examples of such horrible extrava-
gance, it is unnecessary to cross the ocean.  In the
year  1617, in a country village of East Flanders, a
father murdered his  daughter,  who was only ten
years old, "because," he asserted, "she was a sor-
ceress."  For a similar motive he intended the
same fate for his wife and  sister.t   It was pleaded
in excuse that he was insane.  What awful insanity
was that which  converted  the husband and father
into an assassin!   How fearful the credulity that
led to  such a delirium!   Can we qualify the cul-
pability of  those who awaken, or who  dare to en-
courage it 1
   In 1826, the town of Spire was much scandalized
by a circumstance that was more deplorable  from
the  character given  to it by the position of  those
with whom it originated, and from the moral con-
sequences which might have ensued.   The bishop
of that town died at the age of eighty-two years,
and had bequeathed twenty thousand florins  to its
cathedral.  He was not buried in a chapel of his
church, as  his  predecessors had been ;  nor would
        * I got this fact from an eye-witness.
        t Le Journal de Paris, Jeudi, 3 Avril, 1817, p. 3. 
60        PERSECUTIONS FOR  SORCERY.

the clergy take part in his obsequies, because they
accused the venerable prelate of sorcery.*
  How can  one,  after this, be  surprised at the
ignorant credulity of the multitude, with such an
example from their spiritual advisers ]
  In the peninsula of Hela, near Dantzic, a woman
was accused by a charlatan of having cast a spell
over a sick person.  She was seized, and tortured
several times in the course  of two days ; twice they
tried to drown her;  they ended by murdering her
with a knife, because she refused to acknowledge
herself to be a witch, and because she declared
herself incapable of curing the sick person.t
  In  France,  also, justly  proud of its  enlighten-
ment,  of its  civilization, and  the gentleness of its
manners, this error has been  fruitful.  A country-
woman of the neighborhood  of Dax having fallen
ill,  the friends who were with her were persuaded
by a quack that her illness was the result of a spell,
thrown upon  her by  one of her neighbors.  The
peasants seized on  the accused individual, and,
after violently beating her, thrust her into the flames
to  compel her to dissolve the spell;  there they
held her in  spite of her cries,  her screams, and
assertions of innocence, and at last drove her from
the house only when she was on the point of ex-
piring.J
  This crime, which was committed eleven years
ago, has lately been  repeated in a village in the
department of Cher.   The  victim, who was ac-
cused  of bewitching  the cattle, will probably die,
owing to the atrocious treatment she has met with.§
It is true that justice will  pursue her murderers,

          * Le Constitutional du 15 Aout,  1826.
          t Le National du 28 Aout, 1836.
          X Le Constitutional du 26 Juillet, 1826.
          t) Le National du 6 Novembre,  1836. 
          PERSECUTIONS FOR  SORCERY.        61

and punish them ;  but of what use is the condem-
nation of a few grossly ignorant peasants, while
the source of the evil remains unremoved 1  Has
the time not yet passed for maintaining the opinion
that it is well for  the people to remain in igno-
rance, and to believe  whatever is told them with-
out examination ]   In the schools  open  to  the
lower classes, can  no one venture to expostulate,
or to forewarn  and forearm them against the dan-
gers of a blind credulity %   Even in the vicinity of
the capital, the country districts are  infested with
books on witchcraft.  I speak of what I have my-
self witnessed.  One, among others recently printed,
particularly attracted  my observation, from the  ty-
pographical character, the whiteness of the paper,
the state of preservation, and the general neatness
of the volume, so  uncommon  in the rough hands
of a herdsman.   With various absurdities, and ex-
tracts from  conjuring books, less innocent recipes
were  interspersed: for example, one for the com-
position of the waters of Death, a violent poison,
described as being capable of transmuting all metals
into gold ; another for procuring early abortion ;
and a third for a more active medicine, should the
mother have felt the infant move : so true it is, as
we have  already observed, that lessons  of crime
have been almost always mixed up with the absurd
fancies of sorcery!
   Is this  error, then,  to be left to root itself out 1
Is it  not  rather the duty of the higher classes to
strive  against the  principles that lead to it, until
the progress of knowledge shall afford a guard to
men of simple and limited understanding 1   Should
they not endeavor to save those who wildly believe
themselves to be endowed with supernatural power
from  the consequences of  this belief,  and  release
the credulous who,  through fear of this power, are 
62      INFLUENCE  OF THE IMAGINATION.

tormented by anxieties equally formidable in their
issue, and ridiculous in their origin 1  Or, is this a
mere speculative question  of philosophy ?   The
age  is  not long past since peaceable individuals
were dragged to punishment by a multitude agi-
tated by that excessive terror which is so much the
more difficult to cure because it has no real foun-
dation ;  an age  in  which  a single  word, a vague
rumor, were sufficient to constitute the same person
at once an accuser, a judge, and an executioner.
Do  not  these superstitious terrors, which convert
man into a ferocious animal, place a powerful en-
gine in the hands of those whose interest it  is to
excite him, whose aim is the subversion  of order
and  of government 1  Should the opinions I have
proffered affix upon me the charge  of profaneness
from some fanatical hypocrites, I  can only answer,
I am obeying my conscience in endeavoring to ex-
pose the shameful absurdity of a belief as contrary
to the best interests of society, as  to all which true
piety teaches of the power, the  wisdom, and the
goodness of God.
                CHAPTER III.
Influence of the Imagination, seconded by physical Accessories,
  in producing an habitual  Belief in marvelous Narrations, by
  Music, by the Habit of exalting the Moral Faculties, by un-
  founded Terror, and by Presentiments.—Sympathetic Emotions
  increase  the Effects of the Imagination.—Cures produced by
  the Imagination.—Flights  of the Imagination effected by Dis-
  eases, Fastings, Watchings,  and  Mortifications.—Moral and
  physical  Remedies successfully opposed to these Flights of the
  Imagination.

  To the physical  causes which involved pretend-
ed sorcerers in  deplorable  errors,  was added an
auxiliary which alone  is sufficient  to produce the
evil—namely, Imagination. 
INFLUENCE  OF  THE IMAGINATION.     63
   Such is its power, that some men have ascribed
to its wanderings the origin of all magical illusions;
but  this is  going too far.  Imagination combines
the impressions it has received ;  it does not create.*
In the phantoms  of sleep or the  reveries of waking
hours, it  presents nothing which has  not  either
been  seen, or felt, or heard.   Terror, melancholy,
uneasiness, or preoccupation of mind, easily produ-
ces  that intermediate  state  between waking and
sleeping, in which dreams become actual visions.
Thus, proscribed by the triumvirs, Cassius Par-
mensis fell asleep, a prey to cares too well justified
by his position.   A man  of  an  alarming  form  ap-
peared to him, and told him he  was his evil genius.
Accustomed to believe in the existence of super-
natural beings, Cassius had no doubt of the  reality
of the apparition ;  and by superstitious minds such

  * This definition of our author, although critically correct, yet
does not embody the idea generally  entertained of imagination,
which  may be truly said to create, inasmuch as it selects quali-
ties and circumstances from a great  variety of different objects,
and, by recombining and disposing them differently, forms a new
creation peculiarly its own.  It is true that its influence is chiefly
confined to objects of sight; and we must admit  that "we can
not, indeed," as Addison remarks, " have a single image in the
fancy that did not make its first entrance through the sight."
Were we, therefore, capable of analyzing every illusion, we should
most probably be able to trace, at least, many of its components,
although perhaps not the whole, to objects which had previously
made a lively impression upon our sight. It admits of intellect-
ual combinations and the association of abstract  ideas, without
which none of those conversations and reasonings that are carried
on in dreams would occur.  This view of imagination, however,
does not weaken the  position of our author ; and there can be no
doubt that, in a mind  not under the control which education be-
stows,  dreams and the most extravagant illusions acquire a pow-
erful influence in regulating its affections and exciting its pas-
sions.  Much depends on the physical condition and health of the
individual at the time; and to the state of the nervous system
may be ascribed the pleasurable or distressing nature of illusions,
whether the effect of  simple revery or of dreaming: the influence
which  they exert on  our conduct, or apparently on our destiny,
depends much on the degree of superstitious credulity which
governs the individual.—Ed. 
64      INFLUENCE  OF THE IMAGINATION.

a vision is regarded as the certain warning of that
violent death which an outlaw can scarcely escape.
  The same explanation may be applied to the
vision which appeared to Brutus, without intimi-
dating him, on the  eve of the  battle of Philippi;
and still more forcibly to the dream of the Emper-
or Julian.*
   The night preceding his death, a genius seem-
ed to retire from him with  an air of consternation.
He recognized  in  the  specter the  genius of the
empire, whose image might be seen  in every thing
around him:  reproduced  upon  the coin; rever-
enced by the soldiers upon the center of his stand-
ards ; and  doubtless  also placed in  his tent.  Un-
easy at the famine which  afflicted his troops; cer-
tain that, even in the bosom of his army, a religion
opposed to his own faith raised up numerous ene-
mies, and perhaps assassins ; on the eve of a deci-
sive  battle; is it surprising that the enthusiastic
disciple of the theurgian philosophy, whose doc-
trine assigned so important an office to the genii,
should have seen  such  a vision in a  perplexing
dream 1  Julian believed that  he actually saw the
genius of the empire sad,  and ready to abandon
him.
  Let us take another example.  An aged woman
was  mourning for  a brother whom she had just
lost:  suddenly she  thought she heard  his voice,
which, by a blamable deception, was counterfeited
near her.   Seized with fear, she  declared that the
spirit of her brother had appeared  to her radiant
with light.   She would not have seen such a vision
if her memory had  not, from her childhood, been
filled with stories of ghosts and apparitions.
  These stories  may be traced  to the most ancient
times, and then they were not counterfeited.   Let
             * Ammian. Marcell., hb. xxv. 
INFLUENCE  OF THE IMAGINATION.      65
us remember that in the sanctuaries, in the time of
Orpheus, they invoked the dead.   Even  in ancient
Judea these phantasmagorical apparitions abound-
ed, the  first accounts of which were  then  neither
founded on dreams, nor  upon the wandering of the
imagination, nor  upon the desire of deceiving; the
individuals did  actually see  what  they  asserted
they had seen,  and which, as they were constantly
stimulated  by  such narrations, or  the recollection
of them, and overcome by sorrow yet full of  curi-
osity, they both feared and desired to behold.
   In the mountains of Scotland, and in some coun-
tries of Germany, the people still believe in the re-
ality of apparitions, which are  said to  be warnings
of an approaching death.*   One sees, distinct  from

  * Phantasmagoria, or  Collection of Stories, dj-c, translated from
the German  (2 vols. 12mo., Paris, 1812), vol.  ii., pp. 126-142.
These apparitions  are  denominated " Wrraiths," or " Taisch,"
which means simply visions;  and the persons  beholding them
are called seers.   They are generally prophetic of evil, but not
always; as births,  marriages, and many other events, are said to
be foretold by these beholders of the shadows " of coming events."
In the Highlands of Scotland, at one period, they were generally
and firmly believed.  Although many seers might be in the same
place or apartment, yet all of them did not see the same  vision,
unless they touched each other, when it became common. The
gift was also inherent: it could not be taught;  but Mr. Aubrey
says it was taught  in the isle of Skye.
  Every Highlander  believes that he has an attendant genius or
spirit, which is always present with him from the  cradle  to the
grave. This spirit is a counterpart of himself, in form, in dress,
and in every other respect; but, although thus peculiarly his at-
tendant, yet the spirit may be separated from him for a time, and
may perform  acts, when distant from him, which his principal
shall execute at some future time.  Thus, if the person is likely
to die, or to perform  some act  that may endanger life, his  wraith
may appear to his distant friends, and thus communicate the sad
news, or  anticipate the event. In a few  words,  the Highland
wraith is the simulacrum or imago of the ancient Romans.  The
visions may be of the specter alone, who may be seen either by
the individual himself, or by  his friends,  or  by strangers; but,
when the attendant genius appears to his principal, his back only
is seen : on other  occasions the vision may consist of a number
of persons or things; for example, the whole ceremony of a fu-
neral or a marriage may be displayed.
      II.                  E 
66      INFLUENCE  OF THE IMAGINATION.


one's self, as it were, another self, a figure in  every
respect  resembling  one's own  in  form,  features,
gesticulations, and  attire.   To produce a  similar

  The inhabitants of the Western Islands and of St. Kilda were
especially liable to be affected by these impressions.   The appa-
ritions were generally exact resemblances of the individuals, in
person,  in features, and in  clothing.   They attacked the indi-
viduals  some months before they  sickened of the disease of
which they  died.  A man on a sick bed was visited by a lady,
the wife of  the clergyman of  St. Kilda, and was asked by her
if at any time he had seen any resemblance of himself; he replied
in the affirmative, and told  her that, to make further trial, as he
was going out  of his house of a morning,  he put on straw-rope
garters, instead of those he formerly used; and having  gone to
the fields, his other self appeared  in  straw garters.  The con-
clusion of the story is, that the sick man died of that ailment;
and the lady no longer questioned the truth  of such presages.—
(Sir W. Scott, A  Legend of Montrose, chap, xvii., note Wraiths.)
  In such cases, it is evident that the illusion was truly the re-
sult of imagination, operating under the influence of derangement
of the nerves, the body being  already in a state of incipient dis-
ease.   The  uneasy  sensations of  approaching disease  would
naturally awaken in a mind educated in the belief of such appa-
ritions, the idea of some impending evil, and imagination would
readily operate in completing the illusion.
  It is also probable that, as the wraiths or  apparitions of them-
selves, which are seen by these islanders, always  appear in the
early morning, and in mountainous districts subject to fogs, they
may be the result of an optical deception, such as occurs at the
Brocken, one of the Hertz  or Harz Mountains, and occasionally
in Cumberland.   St. Kilda is the most northern of the Hebrides,
and consists of an unequal mountainous ridge, the highest point
of which, Benochan, rises thirteen hundred  and eighty feet above
the level of the sea; and, as in the Harz,  the southwest wind,
which prevails, brings with it fogs.   As many of our readers may
not be aware of  the nature of the  Specter of the Brocken, we
shall abridge the lucid  account of it, from Gmelin,* given by Sir
David Brewster.—(Letters on Natural Magic.)  We may remark
that this specter seems to  have been observed at a very early
period,  as the blocks of granite on the summit of the Brocken
are called the sorcerer's chair and altar ; a spring of pure water,
the magic fountain ; and the  anemone, on its margin, the sor-
cerer's flower—names which are presumed  to have originated in
the rites of the great Saxon idol, Vortho, who was secretly wor-
shiped in the Brocken. This mountain was visited by Mr. Hane,
on the 23d of May, 1797.   " The sun rose  at four o'clock, am.,
through  a serene  atmosphere, which afterward  became clouded
with  vapors brought by a west wind.   A quarter  past four, Mr.

    * Gottingen, Journal der  Wissenschaften, 1798, vol. i., part iii! 
         INFLUENCE  OF  THE IMAGINATION.      67


miracle is not beyond the resources of art.   It will
be necessary,  in  the first place, to place a concave
mirror, or segment of a large-sized  sphere, at the
back  of a deep  closet; and  to dispose a lamp at
the top of the cabinet, in  such a manner  that its
light  may not pass straight through, but, on the
contrary,  fall with all its brilliancy upon the  spot
where it will be  necessary to place yourself, in or-
der to obtain the best possible effect from the mir-
ror.   To  this  spot conduct, without his knowledge,
an uneducated man, one  given to revery and the
teiTors of mysticism;  contrive that the folding-
doors  of  the  closet shall  suddenly  open, and pre-

Hane, looking toward the southwest, observed at a great distance
a human figure of monstrous  size. His hat having been nearly
carried away by a gust of wind, he suddenly raised his hand to
his head; the colossal figure  did the same.   He next bent his
body; the spectral figure repeated the action, and then vanished.
It soon, however, returned in another spot, and mimicked all his
gestures as before. He then called the landlord of the inn, when,
after a short time, two  colossal  figures appeared over the spot
where  the  single figure had previously appeared.  Retaining
their position, these two spectral figures were joined by a third ;
and all three mimicked the movements of the two spectators.
These  specters appeared  standing in the  air."  Similar  aerial
figures have been several times observed, among the hills sur-
rounding the lakes in Cumberland.
  These spectral illusions, so admirably calculated to impress the
credulous with their supernatural origin, "are merely shadows
of the  observer, projected on dense vapor or thin, fleecy clouds,
which  have the power of reflecting much light."  They are most
frequently seen at sunrise, when the sun throws its rays horizon-
tally, when  the shadow of the  observer is thrown neither upward
nor downward.  Sometimes, '' owing to the light reflected from
the vapors or clouds  becoming fainter farther  from  the shadow,
the head of the observer appears surrounded with a halo;*  which
affords another reason for strengthening the belief in the reality
of the  specter.  The St. Kilda specter, with its straw garters, is
thus easily explained."  We refer our readers to Brewster's little
volume, to  which we are indebted for the  above explanation
of the specter of the Brocken.
  Time and superior education,  however, will gradually expel
such superstitions:  they  have ceased to prevail  even at St.
Kilda—Ed.
* Brewster, 1. c, pp. 153, 154. 
68      INFLUENCE OF THE  IMAGINATION.
sent to him the deceptive glass.  He will see his
own image come forth from the depth of the dark-
ness, and advance toward him radiant with light ;*
and in such a shape  that he will think it possible
to take hold of it, but in advancing for that purpose
it will disappear.   He  can not explain  this  vision
naturally ;  he does not attempt it;  he has seen it,
actually seen it; he  can not forget it.  The recol-
lection of  it pursues him, besets  him, and soon,
perhaps, his  imagination becomes so excited that
the phenomenon is spontaneously reproduced with-
out the aid of the  exterior cause.t   The disorder
of  the mind is communicated to the nerves.  The
credulous  man languishes,  wastes away, and at
last dies.  The records  of his unhappy end sur-
vive him.  Invalids, or people with  a tendency to
disease, hearing the legend repeated, meditate upon
it: their reveries are impregnated by it; and they
end, at  last,  by seeing  the vision which  they have
heard  related  from  their youth; and  being per-
suaded that it is the forerunner of death, they die
of their own conviction .$


  * " I  approached the closet; the two doors opened  without
the least noise ; the light which I held in my hand was suddenly
extinguished; and, as if before a mirror, I saw my own image
advance from the closet; the light which it spread illuminating a
large portion  of the apartment."—Fantasmagoriana, tome ii., pp.
137, 138.
  t This explanation is perfectly correct in reference to spectral
illusions within a house or a temple; but those of the second
sight seen in the morning, and in the open air, can only be ex-
plained as in  the foregoing note.—Ed.
  X No better explanation can be given of the fulfillment of the
prediction of these seers:  death, when predicted, and the predic-
tion when believed will take place.  Such creeds assimilate every
event to themselves;  even the seer himself is the dupe of his
credulity, a circumstance less wonderful than the confessions
of witchcraft, or of the insane German werewolf, Peter Stump,
who murdered sixteen  persons, from an idea that  he was  one
of the sorcerers termed werewolves, who, by means of an ointment
and girdle, were believe 1 to  become  real wolves; tearing to 
INFLUENCE  OF THE IMAGINATION.     6i/
  If such is still human credulity, can we suppose
that, in less enlightened times, the Thaumaturgists,
endowed  with so many means of acting upon the
imagination, would have allowed so powerful ar«
instrument for  extending the empire of the mar-
velous to have remained idle ]*  Supported  by
some real, but extraordinary facts, the recital of
prodigies and apparent  miracles everywhere gov-
erned  credulity;  or rather it formed, as in the
present day, almost all the instruction allotted to
the vulgar, and prepared their eyes beforehand for
seeing every thing, their ears for  hearing every
thing, and their minds for believing every thing.
  Thus prepared, thus excited by some  powerful
cause, where will the influence of imagination stop 1
By turns it  is terrible and  seducing,  but  always
ready to confound us with unforeseen phenomena,
and intoxicate  us by fantastic marvels; to suspend
or excite the action of our  senses to  the  highest
possible  degree; to withdraw the  play of our or-
gans from the empire of our will, and the regular
course of nature ; to impress upon them emotions
and an unknown strength, or to render them rigid
and immovable; to  excite  the mind  to folly, or
even to  frenzy;  at  one time creating objects far
above the tameness of  humanity,  and at another
raising  terrors more  dangerous  than the  perils
which they represent:  such are the flights, such
the freaks  of  the imagination ;  and ruled, in its
turn, by the disorder fallen upon our physical func-
tions, it  originates fresh errors, new  fears,  more
powerful deliriums  and torments, until  remedies
purely material, by curing the body, restore to the
pieces and  devouring men, women, and children.  This wretched
maniac was inhumanly tortured with red-hot pincers, and broken
on the wheel.—Ed.
  *  See vol. i., chap, xiii., upon the subject of the  optical illu-
sions produced by  the ancient Thaumaturgists. 
70     INFLUENCE  OF THE IMAGINATION.

mind that calm which the diseased condition of the
nervous system had taken from it.
  What  pretended miracles would not a skillful
Thaumaturgist work with a power susceptible of
such various  application,  and endowed with so
irresistible an  influence 1   Let us not  speak of
contracted minds only, or of men as ignorant and
weak as  the unfortunate beings whose miseries we
have just retraced; let the strongest-minded man
suppose  himself^ unconsciously, exposed  to every
cause which can act upon his imagination:  will
he, we may inquire, dare to affirm that these in-
fluences  will not operate upon him;  that his moral
strength  will triumph, and that, there shall be no
perturbation in  his  heart,  no confusion in his
thoughts 1
  The ancients were  not ignorant of the advanr
tages which, under various relations, could be taken
of the influence of the imagination.  This fascina-
ting and powerful agent explains an immense num-
ber of the wonders described in  their histories.
Our path, however, is traced out, namely, to ren-
der these marvels credible,  by opposing to  them
analogous facts observed in modern times, facts in
which imposture has not been more suspected than
the intervention of a supernatural power.
  No less calm  than  persevering in  her mystic
reveries, the celebrated Mada»me  de  Guyon de-
clared to Bossuet, her accuser and judge, and also
related in her life,* that she had received  from
God such an  abundance  of grace that  her  body
could not bear it; and that it was necessary that
she should be  unlaced and placed upon  her bed,
in order that  some  other person should  receive
from her the superabundance of the grace which
  *  Vie de Mme.  de Guynn, ecrite par elle-meme, tome ii,, chap.
xiii.-xxii.;  tome iii., chap. i.                      (< 
        INFLUENCE OF  THE IMAGINATION.     71

filled her.  This communication, she asserted, was
effected in silence, and often upon the absent; and
could  alone  relieve her feeling of excess.   The
Duke de Chevreuse, a man of serious and austere
manners, also affirmed to Bossuet that he had felt
this  communication of grace  when seated near
Madame de Guyon; and he ingenuously asked the
prelate if he did not experience a similar sensa-
tion.*   Entitled at once to ridicule, and equally to
compassion, these two  persons  were not very un-
like  the prophets  and  pythonesses,  who  are de-
scribed to us as  being so subjugated by the god
whose presence filled their whole  being, as to be
forced to utter the oracles, which he himself placed
in their mouths, to be announced to the world.
   Let the excitement increase, and  man will fall
into  a  state of slavery capable of making  him not
only believe in assumed miracles, but in his power
of working them,  because it withdraws  him as
much  from the  empire of reason as from that of
physical impressions.   This  ecstasy has attracted
the attention of physiologists, and provoked some
learned researches, the results of which will prob-
ably be confirmed by ulterior observations.
   To examine it in this light would  carry us too
far from  our subject ; we must, therefore, limit
ourselves to those facts immediately connected with
it.   We are  assured that  the  Hindoos can fall at
pleasure into ecstasy, a state  to which the Kams-
chatdales, the Jakoutes, and  natives of North and
South America  are very prone.  It has been ob-
served, that  since  the  persecutions  exercised by
Europeans  in the formerly  happy  countries of
Tahiti and the Sandwich Islands, the imagination
of the followers  of the ancient religion has been
  * Burigny, Vie de Bossuet  (12mo.,  Paris,  1761), pp. 274, 275,
280. 
72     INFLUENCE OF  THE IMAGINATION.

much excited*   This ecstasy, or trance, is in some
degree a benefit to an  ignorant  and  superstitious
people; it gives them  instantaneously the power
of forgetting their  miseries, beneath the weight of
which they drag on a languishing existence.   We
may, in this point  of view, compare it to intoxica-
tion, to the heavy torpor  produced by stupefying
drugs,  which have  been  sometimes  used  by un-
happy beings to enable them to  bear the agonies
of torture.t  Volney attributed the extraordinary
courage  exhibited in  the midst of most frightful
torments by the natives  of Northern America,  to
the  effects of a state bordering on ecstasy .$
   Ecstasy has, above all,  the advantage of supply-
ing  to the believer, all that the coldness of the tes-
timony has left defective in the descriptions of ce-
lestial  happiness.    Man  being,  by  reason of his
weak  nature, susceptible  of prolonged  pain  and
short enjoyments,  can much more  easily imagine
the  torments of the infernal regions than the joys
of heaven.   This  ecstasy does  not describe these
pleasures,  nor  prove  their  future  existence;  it
causes them to  be actually tasted.   That the an-

  * Ferdinand Denis, Tableau des Sciences Occultes, pp. 201-205.
  t See chap, i., vol. ii.
  X Ojluvres completes de  Volney, tome vii.,  pp. 443-450.  The
Editor is of opinion, that this  degree of insensibility  to corporeal
suffering depends on directing  the  mind powerfully to  some
object, or train  of recollection,  capable of abstracting it wholly
from the sensations produced upon the nervous  system by extra-
neous impressions.  It is well known that directing  the mind to
the seat of disease will augment both the diseased action going
on in the part, and also increase to a degree of acute suffering
any pain previously felt in the part.  Thus, independent  of the
counter-irritation produced by a blister, much  of its beneficial
influence arises from the attention being directed to a new seat
of pain.  On this principle, Protestant martyrs,  by concentrating
their thoughts on the eternal triumphs they are about to enjoy
for their constancy in their faith, have felt little or nothing under
the tortures of the Inquisition, or the consuming flames of the
stake.—Ed. 
        INFLUENCE OF  THE  IMAGINATION.     73

cients  should have studied the cause and known
the power of this ecstatic fervor is  hardly to be
doubted ;* and if it was necessary to lead some ar-
dent imaginations  by secondary agents, the Thau-
maturgists had at their control the pomp  of cere-
monies, the splendor of illusions, the charm of pa-
geants, and the seductions of melody.   Music alone
was sufficient to plunge  many young and tender
souls  into the most  delicious illusions.   It  was
from that source that Chabanont twice in his youth
experienced feelings similar to the descriptions of
the ecstasies of the saints.   " Twice,"  said he,
" when listening to the notes of the organ or  to
sacred music, have I thought myself transported
into heaven;  and this vision had something so real
in it, and I was  so carried out of myself while it
lasted, that the actual presence of the objects could
not have had upon me a stronger effect."  Had
this young man, in  less  enlightened times, been
placed  under the  discipline of  Thaumaturgists,
who were desirous of cultivating this inclination to
revery, the  momentary ecstasy would have be-
come an actual durable vision, which he would no
more have doubted than his own existence, and
the truth  of which  he would have  attested with all
the obstinacy of a  convinced man, and  all the en-
thusiasm  of a martyr.
   We have already spoken of the magical influence
of harmonious sounds.^   We can also recall to re-
membrance how  Alexander and Erick le Bon§ were
  * Tertullian, De Ecstasi.
  t Chabanon, Tableau de quelques Circonstances de ma Vie,  dj-c—
CEuvres posthumes, pp. 10, Ik     X Refer to chap. vii„ vol. i.
  § Saxo-Grammat.,  Hist. Dan., lib. xii., pp. 204, 205.  Erick le
Bon, or St. Erick, was a Swedish nobleman of the name of Ind-
wardun, connected by alliance With the royal families of Sweden
and Denmark.  He was elected to the throne of Denmark in
1155. He marched against Finland, which he subdued, solely to
convert the inhabitants to the Christian faith ; and left  the Bishop 
74     INFLUENCE OF  THE  IMAGINATION.
excited to a deadly anger by warlike songs.   The
feeling  experienced by these two heroes is still
produced upon soldiers when marching to battle
to the sound of warlike instruments.
  Alone,  without exterior  aid, without  physical
impressions,  the  imagination can warm itself to a
degree  of fury, to the  pitch of delirium.
   To be convinced of this fact, it will be sufficient
to attempt upon ourselves a  similar experiment;
and in disposing ourselves either for or against any
object  occupying our thoughts, we  shall  be sur-
prised at the degree  of anger or tender feeling to
which this voluntary  illusion would soon lead us.
Let us ask  ourselves whether it is not necessary
for the  dramatic author to identify himself with the
impassioned character he personifies, in order to
portray the real expression of his feelings.  Where
such  is not  the  case, eloquence and poetry offer
him but  insufficient  resources;  we perceive,  at
once, that it is he, and not his hero, that speaks.
The actor, in his turn, can not succeed if he does
not actually become  the character  he  represents,
as far at least as the theatrical regulations  permit
him.   The costume, the  attendance, the presence,
and  language  of the  personages  whom  he  is  to
struggle against  or defend, second him  in his illu-
sion ; he is moved, before he dreams of having ex-
cited our emotions ; his cries come from his heart;
his tears are often not feigned.  What then would
be the  effect, if  a personal  interest, actually deep
and  present, were to  be attached to the passions
and  sentiments  he  expressed?  He would then
actually be what he assumes, and with more truth,
of Upsal in the country to found churches, while he himself framed
a code of laws  for them.   He was killed by  a party of Danes,
who had unexpectedly landed on the coast, under Prince Magnus,
in 1161.  The fact mentioned in the text merely demonstrates the
highly excitable condition of his nervous system.—En. 
       INFLUENCE  OF THE IMAGINATION.     75

perhaps,  or at least more energy, than the person-
age whose transports he reanimates.  Let  us  go
further, and freeing the impassioned being from the
restraint  imposed by public observation, place him
in the situation in  which I have several  times ob-
served a  young woman placed, who was endowed
with a powerful organization and a very excitable
and lively imagination.  It would have been more
than imprudent to have confided to her  the char-
acter of  a heroine,  chanting the song of war, and
precipitating herself armed upon the enemies of
her country.   This single  thought,  a weapon  of
which she might possess herself, some words, some
verses that she might recite, would suddenly intox-
icate  her with  fury strangely contrasting with her
gentle and amiable disposition.  The most loved
being would not long have been  safe  from her
blows.   This  sudden  and  formidable excitement
inspires the belief that what has been related of the
Scandinavian heroes is perfectly credible.  " They
were seized, from time to time, with a fit of frenzy.
They foamed  with rage, made no  distinction of
persons,  but struck at random, with their swords,
friends, enemies, trees, stones,  animate and inani-
mate objects;  they swallowed  burning coals, and
threw themselves into the fire.   When the  fit was
at an end, they suffered long from extreme exhaus-
tion."*  If, as  the author I have just quoted seems
to think, this was the effect of an intoxicating bev-
erage, the Sagas, which contain so many examples
of the fact, would  sometimes have  alluded to the
causes of it.   I have no doubt that these furious
movements  proceeded from the  habitual state of
the imagination rendering it liable at times to an
excessive excitement.  The peculiar sentiments of
  * Depping, History of the Expeditions  of the Normans, and their
Settlement in France in the tenth century, vol. i., p. 46. 
76      INFLUENCE  OF THE IMAGINATION.

these warriors, who knew no happiness but that of
seeing the blood of their  enemies  or their owi
blood flow, and whose paradise was open only t<
heroes dying in battle, were quite sufficient to ex
cite this transient frenzy: we are nearly as mucl
astonished that they were not continually a prej
to it.*
  Will not an excess of terror sometimes product
the same delirium as an excess of courage 1  Whj
not, if reason is equally disordered by both ]  The
Samoyedes,  says  a traveler, are exceedingly sus-
ceptible of fear.t   If they are unexpectedly touch-
ed, or if their minds are struck by some unforeseen
terrifying object, they lose the use of their reason,
and are seized with  a maniacal fury.  They arm
themselves with a  knife, a stone, a club, or some
other weapon, and  throw themselves upon the
person who has occasioned their surprise or fright;
and, if unable to  satisfy their rage,  they howl, and
roll upon the ground like an enraged  animal. We
must here observe, that the original cause of these
peculiarities  is the fear the Samoyedes entertain
of sorcerers ; and the unhappy beings, tormented
by the delirium which is the result of it, are con-
sequently looked upon as  sorcerers.   What a fer-
tile mine for the exploits of a worker in  miracles !
   More generally fear places the weak man com-
pletely in the power of him who inspires him with
the passion.   If,  as many observers have thought,
fear is the real operating principle  in all that has
been related of serpents and other animals charm-
ing the feeble bird they intend to make their prey,
  * The same degree  of wild enthusiastic fervor was lately wit-
nessed by a British officer, who was traveling in Algeria, at the
festival of a sect termed Arouates.  The ceremonies consisted in
 the most frantic exhibition of actions almost preternatural, but
 evidently the result of a highly excited imagination.—Ed.
  t Wagner, Memoirs  of Russia, <fc, p. 207. 
        INFLUENCE OF THE IMAGINATION.    77.

the look of a strong, threatening man ought to ex-
ercise a similar influence over weak minds ;  nor
can they,  in  fact, withstand it.  Their  enchained
faculties leave them powerless,  senseless,  under
the influence of the charm.  In  the legends of
every country there is nothing more common than
the inevitable power which the fascinating glance
of a magician has exercised.  This power  is not
entirely chimerical; although mean or common in
its  origin, yet it  has an unbounded ascendency
over the timid imagination.
   And  does not, we may inquire, man himself con-
spire to aid such an ascendency, when,  at the very
moment that he is attempting to fortify himself by
plausible  reasonings, he spontaneously gives him-
self up to deadly terror 1  Without any exterior
circumstance to cause his folly, a weak mind (often
so on this point only) is filled with one  fixed idea;
for example, that such or such an age will inevita-
bly lead to the  end of life!   Such a disease must
terminate fatally !   How many of these vain pre-
sentiments  have  rendered  inevitable  the  event
 which seemed to justify them.   They operate con-
tinually  and destructively  upon the   weakened
 nerves, which would have recovered their  natural
 vigor if .they had not been  influenced  by these
 mournful apprehensions.
   If fear, instead of spontaneously rising in a soul
 where reason can  still  struggle  against it, should
 be the result of a formidable power, the limits of
 which we dare not assign, its effects will be no less
 sure and terrible than those of steel  and  poison.
 To prove this assertion, a recent  example  can be
 joined to the testimony of all the facts offered  to
 us in ancient history.  There exists in the Sand-
 wich Isles a religious community pretending to a
 power, obtained from heaven by the  prayers ad- 
78      INFLUENCE  OF  THE  IMAGINATION.


dressed to it, of destroying every enemy they wish
to  overcome.  If any one incurs  its  hatred, they
announce to him that imprecations against him will
be commenced;  and  not unfrequently this  declar-
ation is sufficient to cause the  unfortunate individ-
ual exposed to their anathema to die  of  fright, or

to  commit suicide.*
   The  influence that  sympathy  and a propensity
to  imitationt exercise  upon  the organs, is also felt

   * Lisianski,  Voyage round the World in 1803-1806.—Bibliotheque
 Universale, annee 1816.—Litterature, tome iii., pp. 162, 163.
   t A thousand instances might be brought forward to demon-
strate the influence of imitation.  One of the most remarkable
was the  dancing mania which prevailed  all over Europe in the
fourteenth century, and which actually grew into a real epidemic.
It is only requisite to relate two or three instances of more recent
date in this kingdom.  At a cotton manufactory, at Holden Bridge,
in Lancashire, a girl, on the 15th of  February, 1787, put a mouse
into the bosom of another girl, who was thereby thrown into con-
vulsions, which lasted for twenty-four hours. On the following
day, six girls, who had witnessed these convulsions, were affected
in a similar manner, and on the 17th, six more.   The alarm be-
came so great, that the whole work was stopped, under the idea
that some particular disease had been introduced in a bag of cot-
ton opened in  the house.  On the 18th three more, and on the
19th eleven more girls were seized.  Three of the whole number,
namely, twenty-four, lived  two miles from the factory, and three
were  at another factory at Clitheroe, about five miles off, but who
were  strongly impressed with the idea of  the plague, as the con-
vulsions  were  termed, being caught from the cotton.  Dr. Sin-
clair relieved all the cases by electrifying the affected girls.  The
convulsions were so strong as to require four or five persons to
hold the  patients, and to prevent them from tearing their hair and
dashing their heads on the  floor or on the walls.*
   Upward of a century ago, a woman in Shetland, laboring under
epilepsy, was "attacked with paroxysms of the disease in the
church ;  the result was, that many adult females and some chil-
dren  became affected in a  similar manner; and  the  disease has
continued to occur very frequently, ever since, during divine ser-
vice.  When Dr. Hibbert visited the island of Unst, and was at-
tending the kirk of Baliasta, a female  shriek was heard ; but the
person was carried out  by the desire of the clergyman, who also
requested any woman who felt that she might be similarly affect-
ed to  leave the church.   Dr. Hibbert says, " On leaving the kirk,
», p. 268, quoted in Hecker's Epidemics,
41. 
       INFLIENCE OF THE IMAGINATION.      79

upon the imagination like the contagious effects of
laughter, yawning, tears, depression, and enthusi-
asm.   A widow who was affected with an hysteri-
cal melancholy, committed actions so strange that
she was supposed  to be possessed with a demon.
It was not long before some young girls about her
were similarly  attacked.   They  were cured as
soon as they were taken from her;  and the widow
herself, under the treatment of an able physician,
recovered her reason with her health.*  How many
stories of demons could be reduced to as few words.
We should  be wrong if we supposed there was
nothing but deception in the history of the convul-
sions of St. Medard.f and  those  of other people
who fell at once under  the influence of the evil
spirit.   The greatest number of these  men were,
on the contrary, honest  in intention, but necessi-
tated to this imitation from their  excitable organ-
ization, weak minds, and heated imaginations.
The poets have probably not exaggerated in their
descriptions of the fury with which the Bacchants
were seized when celebrating their orgies.   The
greater part of these Bacchants were more morally
than physically intoxicated.  They only  imitated
involuntarily the  transports of some priestesses;
but whether the  latter kept within the bounds of
and  played  an  arranged part, or whether, placed
under the influence of the imagination, excited by
spirituous liquors, songs, instruments of music, and
the cries, and the mystic disorders that surrounded
I saw several females writhing and tossing about their arms, on
the green grass."*—Ed.
  * Fromann, De Fascinations,  <SfC, p. 55.
  t St. Medard was a native of Salency, in Picardy.  He was
descended of a noble family, and flourished in the fifth and sixth
centuries.  He was inaugurated Bishop of Noyon in 530, and died
in 561, not at a very advanced age.—Ed.
* Description of the Shetland Islands, 4to., p. 401. 
INFLUENCE  OF  THE  IMAGINATION.
  them, they were themselves the first to feel that all
  which  their example inspired in  others may be
  questioned.
    The imagination is not always hurtful, for how
  many unhoped-for, sudden,  and  prodigious cures
  have been effected by it.   Our medical books are
  filled  with  facts  of this  nature,  which among an
  unenlightened people would easily pass for mira-
  cles.  It requires also some effort of reason to see
  nothing but what is natural in these sudden effects
  of the influence of imagination.   Man is so accus-
  tomed to look for the marvelous wherever the cause
  does not strike upon  him as forcibly and closelv as
 the effect.*                                      J

 . Z Ln-^e  fourteenth century a disease appeared in Europe
 Sl5 4? v?d  hTe  affl,lcted wJth ifc t0 leaP and da^e.  l"was
 «? oT v-V      S danc\from a firm-rooted belief that the shrine
 of St. Vitus  possessed the  power of curing it; and, solelv from
  he influence of this belief on the mind, many were cured *  The
 legend whence this belief arose/taught that St. Vitus, before he
 ben this neck to the sword, at his martyrdom, prayed that the
 emnize the  day of his  commemoration,  and fast on its eve-
 whereupon  a voice from heaven was  heard saying, " Vitus thv
 prayer is accepted."                       3  fc'       '  >
   The cures effected by the royal touch,  and the money (716
 see Excerpta Historica,  p. 87, &c.) given to each person touched'
 were due solely to the influence of confidence operating as a po^
 erful tonic on the animal system, laboring  under the relaxation
 on which scrofula chiefly depends; the anticipation alLof benefi"
 caused an increase of nervous energy equivalent to that effected
 by physical  excitants.   The celebrated Flamstea, theaSo
 mer  when a lad of nineteen, went into Ireland tc.be touchedbva
 celebra ed empiric, named  Greatracks, who cured his patients
 "hfwaVev? wK^fthC Str°,ke °f h^ hand" Flamste'ad say J
 not benefited  (B^lTr^ TAT'  altho,1^n he himself ™»
   penentea  (Bailey  s Lfe and Observations of Flamstead \  Hp
 awaited, but did not anticipate the result       ^^msteaa.)  rle


a i™ "ie most>h"b°™°'£'«i™ w"t?."."3™ 
INFLUENCE  OF  THE  IMAGINATION.      81
   Animal magnetism, in  which  all  the  real phe-
nomena  are  produced by an excited imagination,
was first cried up by charlatans as a physical agent;

himself:—" The virtuosi have been daily with me since I writ to
your honor last, and have given me large and full testimonials,
and  God has been pleased to do wonderful things in their sight,
so that they are my hearty and good friends, and have stopped
the mouth of the court, where  the sober party are now most  of
them believers, and my champions.  The king's doctors, this day
(for  the confirmation of their majesty's belief), sent  three out  of
the  hospital to me, who came on crutches; but, blessed be God !
they all went home well, to the admiration of all  people, as  well
as the doctors.  Sir Heneage Finch says that I have made the
greatest faction and distraction between clergy and  laymen  that
any  one has  these thousand years."  Such was his boast; there
is retribution in this world as well as in the next; the reputa-
tion of Greatracks soon afterward declined as suddenly as it had
risen.
  But we need not go to the seventeenth century for  examples  of
the power of imagination as a curative agent.  In the early part
of the present century, a Miss Fancourt was cured of a spine com-
plaint, in answer to the prayers of a Mr. Greaves.  She had been
ill eight years, and during the last two years had been confined to
her sofa.  She was apparently cured ; she again walked; and the
only question was, how was the cure effected 1  Dr. Jervis, a very
sensible physician, remarks, " that her disease had probably been
some time previously subdued,  and only wanted an extraordinary
stimulus to enable her to make  use of her legs. Both my friends,
Mr.  Travers  and the late Mr.  Parkinson, concurred in thinking
that  there had been nothing in the illness or the recovery but what
might be accounted for by natural causes."   Mr. Travers,  in a
letter on the subject, says—" Credulity, the foible of a weakened,
though vivacious intellect, is the pioneer of an unqualified and
overweening confidence ;  and thus prepared, the patient is in the
most hopeful state for the credit,  as well as the craft, of the pre-
tender."  On the same principle are to be explained the cures
performed by the metallic tractors, mustard-seed, brandy and  salt,
the prayers of Prince  Hohenlohe, the embrocations of St. John
Long, the miracle performed by mesmerism on my  talented friend
Miss Martineau, and a thousand cases in which hysteria played
a notable part, and which only required full confidence in the pre-
scriber to effect a complete cure.
  The means employed as the remedial agents in these cases are
very  varied; but  they were  all  fully confided in by the patients;
and in that confidence lies the secret of their success.  Music,  as
in the dancing mania, has often  performed wonders.  Democritus
affirms that diseases are capable of being cured by  the sound of a
flute, when properly played.  Asclepiades  employed the trumpet
to cure  sciatica;  its continued sound, he affirmed,  makes the
      II.                   F 
82      INFLUENCE OF THE  IMAGINATION.


and has become in the hands  of fanatics and im-
postors one branch of modern theuigy.*
   When  the  imagination  of an invalid  has been
much  struck  by details  of the  efficacy  of some
remedy which is naturally inefficacious, it may in
such  a case  become  truly  salutary.   Thus, " an
invalid may be relieved by magical ceremonies, if
he be convinced beforehand that they will effect
his cure."!  Ilave not these words of an ancient
physician  been  verified in the happy applications
of animal magnetism, Perkinism, the sympathetic
powder, and jugglings of the same kind, that both
in  ancient  and  modern times  have been seen by
turns to triumph or fall into contempt ]$

fibers of the nerves to palpitate, and the pain vanishes.  Even
the great Bacon believed in the power of charming away warts.
—Ed.
  * The magnetic sleep, and the miraculous effects it produces,
were predicted by the enthusiast Swedenborg, in the year 1763,
when he said, " Man may be raised to the celestial light even in
this world, if the  bodily senses could be entombed in a lethargic
slumber," &c. (Of Angelic  Wisdom, p. 357.)   This  conclusion
belongs to the partisans of Swedenborg; but  they hastened to
add, that we must not implicitly believe all that the somniloquists
or somnambulists have stated, that all is not good that is revealed:
they depend upon that verse of St. John's 1st Epistle, chap, iv.,
v. 1, " Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits, whether they
are of God."  They recommend, above  all, no dependence upon
those  somnambulists who  would dispute  with  Swedenborg his
office  of messenger of God, or who would speak against his doc-
trine.   (Daillant  Latouche, Abrege  des Ouvrages de Swedenborg,
pp. 55, 58.
  t De Incantatione libellus (inter libros Galeno ascriptos)," Quando
mens humana rem amat aliquam," &c.
  X It  would  be  well  if they always  fell into contempt; but
wherever ignorance and superstition enslave the mind, there ere- *"
dulity erects her temple.  At so late a  period as 1837, the Hon-
orable Robert Curzon, jun„ traveling in the East, arrived at Ka-
gadi, and had a conference with the bishop.  In the midst of it, a
tall figure, with a heavy chain tied to his legs, entered the apart-
ment,  waving a brazen censer in his hand, with which he made
an attack upon the party, and was with some difficulty secured
and carried off.  "He was the son of the bishop, and, being a ma-
niac, had been chained down before the altar of St. George__a sover-
eign remedy in these cases ;  only he pulled up the staples of his 
            INFLUENCE OF  THE IMAGINATION.      83

      The imagination, although having so powerful
    an effect upon our bodily organs, is in its turn sub-
    jected to their deranging influence when disease
    has disturbed the harmony of their functions.
      Four  hundred years  before the Christian  era,
    Carthage was a prey to  one  of those endemics
    which the ancients denominated plagues: agitated
    by a  frantic transport,  the effect of the  disease,
    the greater part of the inhabitants flew to arms to
    repulse an  imaginary enemy,  who  they believed
    had penetrated into the  city.*
       The shipwrecked mariners of the Medusa, when
    exhausted by fatigue, hunger, and affliction upon
    the raft  to  which they had been  so cruelly aban-
    doned, experienced ecstatic illusions, the charm of
    which contrasted frightfully with their desperate
    situation.f   In these two instances, the moral dis-
    order may have been augmented by sympathy and
    the propensity to imitation.  But more recent and
    individual instances are not wanting.  The mother
    of the regent, the Duke of Orleans,  relates,  in her
    correspondence, an anecdote of a lady of her ac-
    quaintance, which seems the height  of absurdity,
    yet has nothing improbable in it if we look upon it
    as a vision produced, during the lying-in of a wom-
    chain, and came away with the censer, before his cure was com-
    pleted."*  Is it wonderful, indeed, that the deceptions of the As-
    clepiades should have succeeded, when we observe  charlatan-
    ism flourishing and patronized by the aristocracy, and  even by
    the educated and learned, in our own times ? In the temples, du-
    ring the influence of the Asclepiades in Greece, the patients slept
**   on goat-skins; and when they were supposed to  be asleep, but
    known to be kept awake by the novelty of their situation, a priest,
    dressed as JSsculapius, accompanied by young girls, trained to
    represent the daughters of the god, entered and delivered a solemn
    medical opinion, which the result confirmed in proportion to the
    credulity and intellectual imbecility of the hearers.—Ed.
      * Diodod. Sic, lib. xv., cap. ix.
      t Relation du naufrage de la M'eduse, 1st edit., pp. 72,73._______
* Quarterly Review, vol. lxxvii., p. 53. 
84      INFLUENCE  OF  THE  IMAGINATION.

an, by the delirium  accompanying the milk-fever.*
A young man, victim to bad habits, had fallen into a
marasmus ;t he was tormented with phantoms, and
complained that he heard the sentence of his eter-
nal condemnation perpetually sounding in his ears.
General Thiebault,  a man equally distinguished by
his mind and military talents, during the weakened
state which followed an inflammatory disease, was
attacked by visions, the more strange from the fact
of his enjoying undiminished reason, and that none
of his senses were  altered.   The fantastic objects,
nevertheless,which annoyed him, and which he knew
did not exist, struck so forcibly upon his sight, that it
was as easy for him  to enumerate and describe them
as the real objects by  which he  was surrounded.J
   We  shall be little  astonished  to see how the
Thaumaturgists, in  every country, debilitated the
corporeal organs in order to rule  the imagination
more surely.   Mortifications  and fasts were  an
essential part of the ancient initiation, to which it
was absolutely necessary to submit before receiving
the  answer of  several  oracles, and  above all,  of
those which were revealed  only in dreams.§

  * Memoires sur la Cour de Louis XIV., cfc, edit. 1823, pp. 74,75.
  t The patient was under the care of Dr. Marc in 1843.
  X M. le  Lieutenant-General Thiebault has permitted  me to re-
late his case.  Let us observe that similar hallucinations have
been experienced by very important persons.  The learned Gle-
ditsch, three hours after noon, clearly  saw in a corner of  the
Academy-hall, at Berlin, Maupertuis, who had died at Basle some
time before.  He attributed this vision to a momentary derange-
ment of his organs; but in speaking of it, he affirmed that  the   *
vision was as perfect as if Maupertuis had been placed living be-
fore him.—(D. Thiebault, Recollections of a Residence  at Berlin,
vol. v., p. 21, 5th ed.)  "The maternal grandfather of Bonnet,
when in perfect health,  independent of all exterior impressions,
saw the figures of men, birds, and boats produced, moving, grow-
ing, decreasing, and disappearing.  His reason could  not have
been affected, as he was quite aware it was an illusion."—(La-
place, Essai Philosophique sur les Probabilites, pp. 224-226.)
  $ Before consulting the oracle of Amphiaraus. at Oropas, in 
INFLUENCE  OF  THE IMAGINATION.      85
   We can not be ignorant how the disposition for,
and liability to  see, phantoms, is increased by an
irritation of the visual organs, caused by long vigils
or by a steady contemplation of any luminous body,
particularly  when  the mind is  disordered  or  the
body weakened.   The principal trial to which the
Sannyasi  (meditative Hindoos)  are  subjected, is
that of looking fixedly at the sun.   It is not long
before  they have visions, see sparks of fire, flaming
globes,  meteors; the end  of which is, not  unfre-
quently, that they lose their sight, and even their

reason.*
   To these powerful  auxiliaries, the strength  of
which  is  increased by solitude  and  darkness, is
added  an intoxication produced by the sacred food
and drinks; and thus, already a prey to beliefs, to
fears, and to superstitious hopes, and given up to
so many  causes  of excitement, how  would it  be
possible for any man, even the  greatest master of
his reason,  to  defend his imagination  from  the
power  of such  superstitions'?   And without  the

 Bceotia, the votaries fasted a whole day, and received the answer
 in a dream—Philostrat., Vit. Apollon., lib. ii.,  cap. iv.
   * Dubois, Mceurs et Institutions des Peuples de Vlnde, tome 11.,
 pp. 271-274.  The Sannyasi are  Bramins of  a very strict order,
 who have renounced the society of wives and children, altogether
 forsaken the world, and adopted the vow of mendicity, to subsist
 solely upon alms.  The duty of a member of  this sect is to seek
 solitude; to subdue every passion ; to shun the slightest approach
 to pleasure, or any earthly enjoyments; and to concentrate his
 whole mind in meditation upon holy things,  and, among others,
 the constant perusal of the Veda. The penances to which he  is
 to subject himself are numerous, and truly ridiculous.  Thus—he
 is to slide backward and forward on the ground ; to stand a whole
 day on tiptoe;  to continue a whole day in motion, rising and sit-
 ting alternately; to expose himself to hot fires in  the warmest
 weather ; to look fixedly for hours upon the sun ; and to feed en-
 tirely on roots and fruits.  Such are the rules imposed on a San-
 nyasi ; and  such the idea of human perfection, which Superstition
 has impressed on the minds of her Hindoo votaries.  Under such
 discipline, in addition to that mentioned in the text, it is not sur-
 prising that visions should be seen and believed.—Ed. 
86     INFLUENCE  OF THE IMAGINATION.

assistance of other  artifices, would not the  union
of these means be sufficient to make a superstitious
man, shut up in a cavern without an opening, such
as has received the  name of the Purgatory of St.
Patrick, believe that he was in an immense place,
surrounded by all  those  apparitions  which the
monks of Ireland had beforehand promised to his
terrified imagination ]*
   Instructed by observation of the intimate con-
nection between every part of our being, the an-
cients well knew that  the  imagination  could pro-
duce diseases apparently supernatural, which often
defied the art, and  always the precautions of the
physician ;  and that also, on the  contrary, it could
effectually struggle  against a really diseased  state
of the organs, with a success equal to that effected
by physical remedies.   They armed the imagina-
tion  against physical evils,  and forced it to be pro-
ductive of as much  benefit as  it sometimes was of
evil.
   During the dog-days in Egypt, an epidemic dis-
ease, which is  attributed  to  the influence of the
atmosphere, prevails.   As a remedy  for  it, the
priests were accustomed, after solemn ceremonies
and  sacrifices,  to light numerous wood-piles with
fire  taken from an  altar dedicated to  an ancient
deified sage.t    This proceeding was no doubt use-
ful, as it increased the circulation  of the air, and
tended to  purify it; but fire  taken from the do-
mestic hearth would have been as efficacious. In
this instance, therefore, they addressed themselves
also  to the imagination.   These religious mum-
meries, and the sacred fire, tended to increase the

  * Gerard Boate, Natural History of Ireland, pp. 137-141, of the
French translation.—Twiss,  Travels in Ireland, pp.  128, 129.
  t JElian, Var. Hist, (quoted by Suidas), verb, ivavetv—'Ia#ev
'lepoypapparelc. 
        INFLUENCE OF THE IMAGINATION.     87

persuasion  among the people, that a protecting
god would come to their relief.  The Roman peo-
ple were  cut  off in numbers by a pestilential dis-
ease, which would not yield to any known remedy :
the pontiffs, therefore, ordered, in the name of
Heaven, a celebration of the public games  and
festivals.*   This remedy, which appears so strange
to us, was, nevertheless, found  so  efficacious, that
it was resorted to more than once.   Let us suppose
that the endemic diseaset  was of the nature of
those pestiferous fevers, which often resulted in
Italy, from the crowding together of a numerous
population in confined dwellings ; or from priva-
tions and  fatigue ; and also from variations of the
temperature, to  which the citizens were  exposed
during their military expeditions.   Under such cir-
cumstances, a general terror would be spread;  it
would freeze every soul, and thereby add doubly
to the deadly power of the scourge.  Were not
the games which kept the population in  the open
air, and agreeably occupied the mind ; the festivals,
or numerous sacrifices of animals, presenting means
of substituting a more substantial  and wholesome
food, to that provided by habitual parsimony;  and
the ceremonies  which reassured the imagination,
and promised that the gods would throw a com-
passionate glance on their  obedient worshipers,
sufficient  to  combat  the  progress, and accelerate
the disappearance, of the malignant contagion 1  To
prostrate  the people before  the   altar, believing
that they owed to the gods their miraculous deliv-
erance, was a course frequently resorted to;  and
when cures were effected, it was indeed a miracle

  * Valer. Maxim., lib. ii., cap. ii., § iv., a.u.c. 389.
  t Endemic diseases are those that originate in some circum-
stance connected with the locality in which they appear:  they
are not contagious.—Ed. 
88     INFLUENCE  OF THE IMAGINATION.

in the sense of  the ancients;  an immediate,  but
assuredly not a supernatural benefit from the gods.
   We could recall to remembrance, without trou-
ble,  innumerable examples of physical remedies
employed to cure supernatural diseases, as far, at
least, as we should continue to translate into modern
meaning the ancient expressions.  As every bene-
fit was ascribed to the benevolence of the gods, so
were all  evils supp~osed  to emanate from their
vengeance, or from  the malevolence of  evil genh\
What ought we to recognize in the evils  attributed
to this latter cause 1   Nervous infirmities, epilepsy,
hysteria, the symptoms of which were developed,
or at least increased, if not originated, by a disor-
dered imagination.   Hellebore cured the daugh-
ters  of Proteus of a madness with which the anger
of the gods had afflicted them.  When the Sa-
moyedes are by terror thrown into a paroxysm of
frenzy which they regard  as the effect of enchant-
ment, and as the characteristic  sign of sorcery,
they are cured by having  the hair of the reindeer
burned under their  nostrils.*   The Hebrew exor-
cists ejected demons from the human body  by the
smell of the smoke of the burning  baaras-plant.
iElian described  this plant under the name cyno-
pastes; and Josephus attributed to it the  power
of expelling demons and of curing epilepsy.t  The
mode of treating these maladies did not differ great-
ly from that now employed.  Like the  Hebrews,
the Thaumaturgists of antiquity, the Samoyedes,
and  those Magi who, two  centuries ago, dared  to
oppose  medical  art  by  their pretended magical
  * Wagner, Recollections  of Russia, p. 207.
  t jElian, De Nat. Animal, lib. xiv., cap. xxvii.  One of the sea
algae, which the same author compares to the cynospastos (ibid.,
cap. xxiv.), contained a very strong poison.  It was  perhaps this
last quality which induced the  Thaumaturgists to reserve to
themselves the exclusive possession of it. 
     MEDICINE  A PART OF OCCULT SCIENCE.  89

fascinations* we also  use fumigations and ammo-
niacal odors when fighting against diseases  of the
nature of  epilepsy, hysterics,  hypochondriacism,
and those mournful results of a disordered  imagi-
nation under which  reason  is prostrated.    The
apparent miracle would disappear, if we were to
recall to mind that it was the custom of the ancients
to personify the principles of good and evil.
                CHAPTER IV.
Medicine formed a Part of the Occult Science: it was not long
  exercised by the Priests ; Diseases were supposed to be sent
  by Malevolent Genii, or the irritated Gods; the Cures were
  considered Miracles, or Works of Magic—Credulity and the
  Spirit of Mystery attributed marvelous Properties to Inan-
  imate Substances; and Charlatanism assisted this Species of
  Deception.—Counterfeit Cures.—Extraordinary Abstinences.—
  Nutritious Substances taken in an almost imperceptible Form.
  —Apparent Resurrections.
  Carried away by our subject, we have already
entered the province of science in which promises
will  always  have  the  greatest  power  over the
imagination, namely, the science of the physician.
  Medical science is, although it may be thwarted
by unforeseen anomalies, founded upon much posi-
tive  knowledge.   It has not, however, been able
to overcome the diseases of the intellect in a man-
ner equal to its influence over those of the body ;
neither has it  placed us upon  our guard against
those  numerous  secrets used by the  Thaumatur-
gist  to disarrange the play of  our organs, to de-
ceive our senses, and to terrify our imaginations.
  Although  originating in the temples, and reveal-
ed as an emanation from the Divine Intelligence,

  * See the indication of this medicine in Fromann, De Fascina-
ttone, pp. 955-958. 
 90   MEDICINE A PART  OF OCCULT  SCIENCE.


 yet medicine  did not infringe upon the province
 of other  sacred  sciences.   In  treating of it, we
 need not  diverge from the  empire of the  wonder-
 workers ;  for, everywhere, cures were long esteem-
 ed  miracles,  and  physicians  were  regarded  as
 priests  or as magicians.*
   Physicians, under some circumstances, were even
 looked  upon  as gods.  In Armenia,!  under  the
 name of Thicks or Haralez, the gods were said to
 revive those heroes who died in battle, by sucking
 their wounds.   Angitia,| the sister of Circe, estab-
 lished herself in Italy only in order that she might
 merit altars there, by applying her salutary science
 to the diseases that desolated  that country.  For-
 merly in Greece, and even after the siege  of Troy,
 the sons  of the gods  and the heroes alone under-
 stood the  secrets of medicine  and  surgery ;§ and
 even to a late  period ^Esculapius, the son of Apollo,
 was there worshiped  as  a deity.||

   * In the earliest periods of society the character of priest and
 physician is always combined in the same person.  The Payes of
 Brazil are priests, exorcists, and physicians ;  they cure diseases
 by sucking the affected part, and spitting into a pit, to return to
 the earth  the evil principle, which, they assert, is the cause of
 disease.   The Hebrew priests, according to the Mosaical account
 of the Jews, were also physicians ; the Asclepiades, the priests of
 ^Esculapius,  were the first physicians  of the Greeks; and the
 Druids those of the northern nations.
  t Cirbied,  Memoires sur VArminie.—Memoires de la  Sociite des
 Antiquaires de France, tome ii., p. 304.
  X Solin., cap. viii.
  () yElian, De Nat. Animal, lib. ii., cap. x-viii.
  II The original seat of the worship of ^Esculapius was at Epi-
daurus, where he had a splendid temple, adorned with  a gold and
ivory statue  of the god, who was represented  sitting, one hand
holding a  staff, the other resting on the head of a serpent, the
emblem of sagacity and longevity ; and a dog crouched  at his feet.
This temple  was frequented by  harmless serpents, in the form of*
which the god was supposed to  manifest himself.  He had, also,
temples at Rhodes, Cindos, Cos, and one on  the banks  of the
Tiber.  According to Homer, his sons, Machaon and Podalirius,
treated wounds and  external diseases only; and it is probable
that tbejr  father practiced in the same manner, as he is said to 
     MEDICINE  A  PART  OF OCCULT SCIENCE.  91

  In Egypt theurgy divided among thirty-six genii,
inhabitants of the air, the care of the different parts
of the human  body;  and the priests  practiced a
separate  invocation for  each genius,  which they'
used in order to obtain from  them the cure of the
particular member confided to their care.*  It was
from Egypt also that the formularies which taught
the use of herbs in medicine  originally came; and
these formularies  were  magical.t   The magicians
of the islands  of  Sena cured invalids by others
deemed  incurable.^   The  Scandinavian  virgins
were instructed, at the same time, in magic, medi-
cine, and the  treatment of wounds.§  Diodorus,
who has  often  attempted to  extricate history from
its  medley  of fables, looks  upon the science  of
Medea and Circe as natural, as a profound study
of all remedies and poisons ; and he relates that
the former cured the son of Alcemenes of a furious
madness.11
   For a long time after the age of Hercules and
the  heroic times,  invalids in Greece  sought relief
from their sufferings from the descendants of JEscu-
lapius in the temples of that  god, which an enlight-
ened policy had raised on elevated spots  and salu-
brious vicinities.^  Those men who pretended  in

have invented the probe, and the  bandaging of wounds.  His
priests, the Asclepiades, practiced,  however, incantations; and
cured diseases by leading their patients to believe that the god
himself delivered  his  prescriptions in dreams  and  visions;  for
which impostures they were roughly satirized by Aristophanes in
his play of Plutus.  It  is probable that the preparations, consisting
of abstinence, tranquillity, and bathing, requisite for obtaining this
divine intercourse, and, above  all, the confidence reposed in the
Asclepiades, were often productive of benefit.—Ed.
  * Origen, Contr. Cels., lib. viii.
  t Galen, De Simpl. Medicam. Facult., lib. vi., proem.
  X Pomponius Mela,  lib. iii., cap. vi.
  6 C. V. de Bonstetten, La Scandinavie et les Alpes, p. ii.
  \\ Diod. Sic, lib. iv., cap. ii. et xvi.
  f Plutarch, Quaist. Roman., § cliv, 
92   MEDICINE  A  PART  OF  OCCULT  SCIENCE.


right of their birth to hold the gift of curing, finally
learned the art of it, by preserving in the temples
the  history of  those  diseases, the cure  of which
had been sought from  them.*   They then  added
to their number  disciples,  whose discretion  was
secured by the trial  of a  severe initiation.   By
degrees, the progress of philosophy raised the mys-
terious veil  behind which  they would have still
concealed the science.   Hippocrates at last placed
medicine on a real foundation, and taught its pre-
cepts  in his immortal  works.  Its doctrines, till
then imprisoned in the archives of the Asclepiades,
were given entire  to  swell the  patrimony of per-
fectible civilization.  From this moment the priests
ought to have  renounced their  pretensions to the
healing art ;t but they were careful to prevent the
science from being  entirely divested of its heavenly


  * The temple of Cos was rich in votive offerings, which gener-
ally represented the parts of the body healed, and an account of
the method of cure adopted.   From these  singular clinical rec-
ords, Hippocrates is reported to have constructed his treatise on
Dietetics. It is a curious fact, that many similar votive offerings
of legs, arms, noses, &c, are hung  up in the cathedral of Aix-la-
Chapelle, and some other continental churches,  as records of
cures performed by the holy relics in those sacred edifices.  The
crutches of the Countess Droste Vischering, also, are hung up in
the cathedral of Treves,  in memory of the sudden and miraculous
cure of a contraction of the knee-joint, which had long withstood
all medical skill, by the mere sight of the  seamless coat of our
Savior, before which  she prostrated  herself, and was instanta-
neously cured.   But although the crutches attest the cure, and
the countess walked from the church to her carriage, merely
leaning on the arm of her grandmother, yet, like most other mi-
raculous cures,  it  was  only a temporary  alleviation;  and her
walking was an effort of sudden excitement, the result of muscu-
lar energy, produced by the confidence of obtaining relief from the
miraculous power  of the holy coat.  She became once more a
cripple.  These facts  display the melancholy truth, that many
pagan  customs were engrafted on Christianity, and are still em-
ployed by the Church of Rome to delude the ignorant and super-
stitious, in order to support her powers.—Ed.
  f Coray, Prolegomines  of the French translation of Hippocrates'
treatise on air, water, and places. 
      MEDICINE  A  PART  OF  OCCULT SCIENCE.   93


and magical origin.   The  greater number of the
thermal waters, more frequently used then than in
the present day, remained consecrated to the gods,
to Apollo, to iEsculapius, and, above  all, to Her-
cules,  who was  surnamed Iatricos,  or  the  able
physician.*

   Those philosophers who never left  the temples
incurred accusations of dealing in magic, when by
natural means  they  cured their  fellow-beings of
the evils which desolated their abodes :  this hap-

  * The sacred character  of healing springs is a relic of classi-
cal and Druidical superstition that still remains.  In Fosbrooke's
British Monarchism (477) we learn that, " on a spot, called Nell's
Point, is a fine well, to which great numbers of women resort on
Holy Thursday, and, having washed their eyes in the spring, they
drop a pin into it.  Once a-year, at St. Mardrin's well, also, lame
persons went, on Corpus Christi evening, to lay some small offer-
ing on the altar, there to lie on the ground all night, drink of the
water there, and on the next morning to take a good draught more
of it, and carry away some of the water each in a bottle at their
departure.*  At Muswell  Hill was formerly a chapel, called our
Lady of Muswell, from a well there, near which was her image ;
this well was continually resorted to by way of pilgrimage. +  At
Walsingham a fine green road was made for the pilgrims, and
there was a holy well and  cross adjacent, at which pilgrims used
to kneel while drinking the water.J  It is remarkable that the
Anglo-Saxon  laws  had proscribed this  as idolatrous.^  Such
springs were consecrated upon the discovery of the cures effected
by them.H  In fact," Fosbrooke properly adds, " these consecrated
wells  merely imply a knowledge of the  properties  of mineral
waters, but, through ignorance, a religious appropriation of these
properties to supernatural  causes."
  I may add to this record, that Holywell, in the county of Flint,
derives its name from the Holy Well of St. Winifred, over which
a chapel was erected by the Stanley family, in the reign of Henry
VII.   The well was formerly in high repute as a medicinal spring.
Pennant  says that, in his time, Lancashire pilgrims were to be
seen in deep devotion, standing in the water  up to the chin for
hours, sending up  prayers, and making a  prescribed  number of
turnings; and this excess  of piety was carried so far, as in sev-
eral instances to cost the devotees their lives.—Ed.

         * Antiq. Repertory, vol. ii., p. 79.
         f Simpson, Agreeable Historians, vol. ii., p. 622.
         X Beauties of England (old edit.), vol. ii., p. 118.
         § Brompton and Script, 123.
          || Decern., Scriptures, 2417, 
94   MEDICINE  A PART  OF OCCULT SCIENCE.

pened to Empedocles.   An endemic disease raged
in Selinuntia; Empedocles saw that it arose from
the hurtful vapors exhaled from  the stagnant wa-
ters  of a sluggish river;  and to remedy the evil
he changed the course of two brooks,  and by con-
ducting them into the bed of the river, he increased
the current of the waters ; after which, as the river
ceased to be stagnant, it ceased to exhale the pes-
tilential  miasma;  and, consequently, the plague
disappeared.*
  If, in  the  second century of our era, the Em-
peror Adrian succeeded in relieving himself for a
time from an  aqueous congestion which swelled
his body,t it was said to have  been effected by
some magic art.  Tatian, a sincere defender of
Christianity, who lived about the same time, does
not  deny the  wonderful cures effected by the
priests of the temples of the Polytheists; he only
attempts to explain them by  supposing that the
pagan gods were actual demons, and  that they in-
troduced disease into the body of a healthy man,
announcing to  him,  in a dream, that he should be
cured if he implored  their assistance; and then,
by terminating the evil  which they themselves had
produced, they  obtained the glory of having worked
a miracle.|
  These opinions were not  peculiar to a civilized
people.  Less  enlightened nations  have believed
that  diseases were signs  of the vengeance  or the
malevolence of beings superior to humanity;  con-
sequently, priests and magicians were everywhere
selected  as physicians.  Among the Nadoessis and
Chippeways  the three  titles of  priest, physician,
and  sorcerer, were  inseparable, and  they  are so

         * Diogen. Laert. in Empedocl.
         t Xiphilin in Adrian.
         X Tatian, Assyr. Oral, ad Grmcos, p. 157. 
     MEDICINE A PART OF OCCULT SCIENCE.   95

still  among the  Osages.*   The  priest-magicians
were the only  physicians  of Mexico.t    In the
heart of the Galibis nations,  the Payes are  priests,
physicians, and  magicians ;  and they form a cor-
poration,  the  admission  into which can only  be
obtained by submitting to a very painful initiation-!
  Christianity could  not, in  Asia  and Europe, en-
tirely destroy  the prejudices which had prevailed
under the reign of Polytheism.   They reappeared
with renovated  strength in the  dark ages; when,
in spite of the antipathy which the Jews inspired
in the Christians, the Israelites  were almost the
only surgeons to princes and kings :  and  the  re-
markable cures they effected seemed the results
of some mysterious  influence.   This opinion was
strengthened by the credulous concealment  of their
prescriptions, which were probably borrowed from
the Arabians  ;  and  they evidently were  not un-
willing that their Christian adversaries should deem
them possessed  of supernatural  secrets.  It was
not long before  some of the indiscreet supporters
of Christianity brought forward miraculous  cures
to oppose to the influence of the  Jews.  Like  the
ancient temples, many of the Christian churches
displayed within their walls holy springs, the waters
of which were reputed  to  possess great  healing
virtues.   The belief of the Christians in their heal-
ing powers partly originated from a sincere  confi-
dence in their adopted faith, and partly from failure
of any other resource.  It may,  however,  have
been a legacy  of Paganism, hastily  accepted  by
men, who would rather  sanctify an error than  al-
low  confidence to  exist  in  a proscribed religion.

  * Carver, Travels in North America, p. 290.
  t Joseph Acosta,  Natural History of the Indies, book v., chap.
xxvi.
  X Noel, Dictionnaire de la Fable, art. Payes. 
96  MEDICINE A  PART OF OCCULT SCIENCE.

Whatever might be the reason, when these healing
springs were resorted  to, the sick could derive no
benefit from them  unless  they submitted  to the
regulations  of the  priests.   The  diseases some-
times  yielded to  the regimen, to  time, and to the
calm that hope and a pious confidence, aided by
the  imagination,  produced;  sometimes, however,
they resisted their influence, but the failures were
attributed to the sins and the want of faith in the
patient:  hence the  miraculous  virtue which was
proved by  cures in some cases was not, therefore,
nullified by the failures in others.
   The institutions were conformable to the opinion
that all cures were effected by the direct interposi-
tion of  the  divinity ;  and they long survived it.
The Christian physicians who, in conjunction with
the Arabians and  the Israelites began to spring up,
formed part of the  clergy, long after the  idea of
any thing supernatural in  their  art had exploded.
" The professors  of medicine," says Et. Pasquier,
" were formerly all clerks ;  and it was  not till the
year 1542  that the  legate in France gave  them
permission to  marry."*    Toward the  same  time
  * Et. Pasquier, Recherches de la France, liv. iii., chap. xxix.—
Until this period, the  four instructing faculties of  the university
were condemned to celibacy.  In 1552,  the doctors in law ob-
tained, like the physicians, the permission to marry. But it was
long after the first dignities in  this faculty were accorded to the
canons  and priests.   In  many of the Protestant cantons of
Switzerland, in the present day, it is necessary, before being
promoted to the chair of the  public establishments, to give proof
of theological talent.  The  pretext for this  arrangement was,
that  these  establishments had been  endowed  at the expense
of the ancient religious foundations.  This motive would not,
however, have been decisive without the established  prejudice
that the instructing body should belong to the church and the
sacerdotal corporation.*
  Richard Fitz-Nigel, who died Bishop of London, a.d. 1198, had
been apothecary to Henry II.   The celebrated Roger  Bacon,
who flourished in the  thirteenth century, although a monk, yet
* Tiedmann, De Quastionc, frc, p. 122. 
MEDICINE  A PART OF OCCULT  SCIENCE.   97
Paracelsus, who, during  his travels in Africa and
the East had  acquired secrets which secured him
great superiority over his  competitors,  renewed
the example  which  had  beeu given by  Raymond
Lully and other adepts,  and presented himself as
instructed and inspired by a divinity.*   Had his
life been prolonged  and his conduct less light, who
would have dared to say that there might not have
been found a public credulous enough to have rec-

ognized his assumptions It
   The habit  of associating a supernatural power to
the  natural  action  of remedies, particularly those


practiced medicine.  Nicolas de Farnham, a physician to Henry
III., was created Bishop  of Durham; and many other doctors
of medicine were at various times elevated to ecclesiastical dig-
nities.—Ed.
  * Tiedmann, De Quasstione, c\c, p. 113.
  t The birth-place of Paracelsus is not accurately known, but
it is supposed to have been Einsiedeln, in the canton of Schwyz.
He was bom hi 1493.  He was the son of a physician, who in-
structed him in alchemy and astrology, as well as medicine.  He
displayed early an ardent desire for knowledge ; not such, how-
ever,  as is derived from books, but such as he could pickup
wherever it could be procured, without being very difficult of ac-
quirement, or without much nicety being shown as to the source
whence it came.  For this purpose he traveled over the greater
part of Europe, and also into Africa and Asia.  He was chosen
professor of medicine at Basil in 1526 ;  and at his first lecture he
publicly burned  the works of Celsus and Avicenna, asserting that
thev were useless lumber. He was a man of the most irreligious
character and immoral habits, a glutton and a drunkard; and in
falsehood, vanity, and arrogance, unequaled.  He pretended  to
possess the philosopher's stone, asserted  that he imprisoned a
demon  in the pummel of his  sword, and that he had discovered
the elixir of life.  His medical writings  are specimens of credu-
lity and imposture.  He was a believer in magic, and boasted
 of having conversed with Avicenna, in the vestibule  of the in-
 fernal regions.  He had, however, the  merit of introducing into
 medicine the use of mercurials, and several metallic  remedies,
 and  greatly improved pharmaceutical chemistry.  He left Basil
 in  less than a year  after  his  appointment; and, after  having
 undergone  many  hardships and vicissitudes, he  died in great
 poverty  at Salzburg, in the Tyrol, in 1541, iu the forty-eighth
 year  of his age, giving the lie  to the impudent boast of his pos-
 sessing the elixir of life and the philosopher's stone.—Lp.
      II.                   o 
98   MEDICINE A PART OF  OCCULT SCIENCE.

which were kept secret, has been preserved  to the
present day.   The best  physicians have proved
that the only effectual remedy against the bite  of
a rabid animal is cauterization of the wound with
a red-hot iron : and this remedy has been employ-
ed  for  many  centuries in Tuscany,  and also in
some provinces of France.   But in the former
place, the iron which they heat is one of the nails
of the true cross ;* and in the French provinces it
is the key of St. Hubert,t which is, however, only
useful in the hands of those persons who can trace
the illustriousness  of their genealogy to this noble
saint.  It is thus a kind of heir-loom or  hereditary
possession, similar to that assumed by  the  Psylli
and the  Marses, and the descendants of ^scula-
pius.
   We  must  again repeat  what  we have so often
before stated, that it was  originally rather a feeling
of pious gratitude than a spirit of deception, which
united the idea of an inspiration and the gift of the
divinity to the  recipes and salutary operations of
medical  science.   Upon the banks  of the river
Anigrus  was  a grotto dedicated to  the nymphs.
There resorted persons afflicted with  herpes, who,
after prayers and  a previous friction,  swam across
the river, and  by the favor  of the  nymphs were
cured.   Pausanias,! who relates this apparent mir-
acle, adds that the waters  of the Anigrus exhaled
a fetid odor;  that is to say,  they were charged
with sulphureted  hydrogen gas, and were, there-
  * Lullin-Chateauvieux. Lettres ecrites d'ltalie, tome i, p. 129.
  t Particularly in the village of La Saussotte, near Villeneuve,
department of the Aube.  At the abbey of St. Hubert, in the
diocese of Liege, the intercession  of the saint is alone sufficient
to effect the cure, provided it is seconded by some religious cere-
monies, and a diet which will reassure the imagination.—Voyage
 Litter aire  de D. Martenne et de D. Durand,  part second, Paris,
 1724,  pp. 145-147.
  X Pausanias, Eliac, lib. i., cap. v. 
     MEDICINE  A PART OF OCCULT SCIENCE.   99

fore, antiherpetic.  Our physicians succeed in cur-
ing it by  means of the same agent, without  the
ceremonies, and without speaking of miracles.
  But the  ancient teachers and  the rulers  of the
people were often obliged to speak of and sanction
salutary precepts, through the illusion of the mar-
velous, whether  necessary to overcome, as  in  Es-
thonia and Livonia, the apathy  of men stupefied
by  slavery and  misery, by commanding them, in
the name  of the gods, to combat the  epizootics,
which in their ignorance they deemed the effect of
sorcery, by fumigating their stables  with asafcet-
ida ;*  or whether, in  the  midst of a  society rich
and abandoned  to pleasure, they attributed to  a
particular  stone the property of preserving the pu-
rity of the voice, provided the singer, who would
profit by its salutary virtue, lived in chastity.t
  The pride and interest attached to exclusive pos-
session  involved the  concealment  of the  secrets
which were valuable enough to  be preserved  un-
der a supernatural veil-!   Juno recovered her vir-
ginity every year by  bathing in the  fountain of
Canathos,% and  it is said  that the  women of the
Argolides  bathed there with the same hope.  It is
certain, however, that the  Argians, in relating the
prodigy, mention that, in order to be relied upon,
some occult ceremonies practiced  in the worship
of  Juno|| were requisite.  According  to tradition,

  * Debray,  Sur les PrSjuges et les Id'ees Superstitieuses des  Livo-
niens, Lettoniens, et Esthoniens.—Nouvelles Annates des Voyages,
tome xviii., p. 3.                      t Solin., cap. xl.
  X  This is very natural, at a period when the whole of the art
of curing  disease  was supposed to depend on the possession of
such secrets.  The sick, on this account, were carried  on biers,
and exposed on the highways, for the inspection of the passers-
by,  and to obtain from them prescriptions.—Ed.
  § A fountain of Nauplia.—Ed.
  ||  Pausanias, Corinthiac, cap. xxxviii.—Noel, Dictionnaire de la
Fable, art. Canathos. 
100 MEDICINE  A PART  OF OCCULT SCIENCE.

the goddess, immediately after her nuptials, bathed
in an Assyrian fountain, the waters of which imme-
diately contracted a very  delightful  odor*  Does
not this  last  trait denote  that  both  in  Syria and
Greece the property which'had caused the myrtle
to be dedicated to the  goddess of love, and used
by women to repair the exhaustion of child bearing,
was known 1\
   But we are informed, that the priest administer-
ed the  beneficial effects with mysterious ceremo-
nies only, offering them as a miracle resulting from
these ceremonies.
   The books of the ancients are inexhaustible on
the healing and magical properties of plants.   The
greater  number have, no  doubt, originated in the
love  of the  marvelous; and many have  obtained
reputation from no greater reason than an inaccu-
rate translation of the name of the plant.  We must
nevertheless  observe, that modern writers have not
been more  reasonable  upon this subject than the
ancients.  The herb  scorzonera, for instance, de-
rived its name from the exterior  color of its stalk,
scorzo nero.   It is quite evident that this name has
been taken from scurzo, the Spanish for viper; and
the scorzonera, from that circumstance, is regarded
as a powerful antidote for the bite of the viper.!

  * ./Elian, De Nat. Animal, lib. xii., cap. xxx.  The Greeks pre-
tended to  recognize Juno (Hera)  in the goddess of Assyria, the
celestial virgin spouse of the sun, who, at the period when (jem-
ini make the equinox of the spring, was every year found a vir-
gin by her husband, when the summer solstice  led him again to
her.
  t Rabelais (livre i., chap, xliv.) puts for this reason abundance
of myrtle-water  in the baths  of the ladies of the abbey of The-
leme.  For myrtle-water, in the first editions,  published  during
the life of the author, the reimpressions  have erroneously substi-
tuted water of myrrh.
  X Dictionnaire de Furetiere, art.  Scorsonere.  Plants were valu-
able as remedies only when collected  under the influence of cer-
tain planets ; they were also  required to be collected on certain 
      MEDICINE  A PART OF OCCULT SCIENCE.   101

  Charlatanism, in short, in  order to conceal from
view the action  of natural agents, in medicines as
in other branches of the occult sciences, attributed
a magical efficacy to points of an insignificant na-
ture.   An adept, quoted by Fromann,* pointed out
a remedy for consumption and  the sweating sick-
ness, which was  in itself simple  enough, but  was
not to  be prepared with common  fire.  A saw was
to be manufactured from an  apple-tree struck by
lightning, and was to be  used to  saw the wood of
the threshold of a door through  which many people
had passed, until the  continued friction of the in-
strument  upon  the wood had  produced a flame.t
The extravagance of the proceeding inspired  a
pious confidence in those who resorted to the rem-
edy, and the difficulty  of executing it well secured,
beforehand, in case of failure,  the infallibility of
the medicine.    This instance is  one of the strongest
that can be cited, but  it recalls  millions of others.
  To  cure dislocations, and  displacements of the
thigh-bone, Cato! prescribes  the application of
splinters, so disposed as to replace and support the
injured member  in its natural  position.   He  then
points out some words which are  to be used during
the operation.   These unintelligible words were
possibly nothing more than the same  direction ex-
pressed in another language:  expressions  upon
which, though  no longer understood, the magical
efficacy of bandaging  was supposed to depend.
   The sacred words  may, in a similar case,  have
been  a prayer  by which the  use of any natural
remedy was accompanied, and to which the suc-
days.  This su perstition, indeed, was upheld until the seventeenth
century ; and directions were given for collecting the plants, in
the Herbals of Turner, Culpepper, and Lovel— Ed.
  * Fromann, Tract, de Fascinatione, pp. 953-964.
  t Ibid., pp. 363, 364.
  X Cato, De Re Rusticd, cap. clx. 
102   MEDICINE A PART OF OCCULT SCIENCE.


cess was thought  to  be due.   Men who pretended
to be  endowed with secret powers taught that it
was possible to stop a hemorrhage from  the nose
by repeating an Ave  or a Pater, provided that, at
the same time, the nostrils  were compressed with
the  fingers,* and linen steeped in cold water  ap-
plied  to the head.   More frequently the pretended
miracle originated in the care which the  Thauma-
turgists took to make an inert substance the mask
of an  efficacious medicine.
   The Kicahans, subjects of the Burmese, and who
appear to have been  driven by them to the moun-
tains  of Assam, go out after every storm in search
of aerolites,  and if they find any, transmit them to
their  priest,  who preserves them  as remedies sent
by heaven for the cure of every disease.!
   The miraculous powers of the bezoars,! experi-
enced and celebrated in Asia, for some time found

  * Fromann, Tract, de Fascinatione (4to., 1675), lib. i., cap. xxix.
  t Nouvelles Annates des Voyages, 2d series, vol.  iii., p. 229. The
Parthian Magi carefully seek a stone which is only to be found in
places struck by thunder.  They doubtless attribute great virtues
to it.—Plin., Hist. Nat., lib.  xxxvii., cap. ix.
  X The bezoar is a concretion found in the intestines of the stag,
and sometimes  of the goat.  It was formerly supposed to have
the power, not only of curing diseases, but also of driving out poi-
sons, whence the name, from the Persian words Pdd-zahr, " ex-
pelling  poison ;" pad meaning to remove or cure, and zahr poison.
The Hindoos and Persians have still great confidence in its cura-
tive powers, especially that one which is formed in the stomach
of the caprea acyagros, the wild goat of Persia, which is sold for
its weight in gold. The bezoar was, at one time, in as high esti-
mation  in Europe as in the East; and its value as a remedy  was
enhanced by the marvelous  manner in which it was supposed to
be produced.  " When the hart is sick," says Garner, " and hath
eaten many serpents for his recoverie, he is brought unto so great
a heate, that he  hasteth to the water, and there covereth his body
unto the very ears and eyes, at which distilleth many teares from
which the stone (the bezoar) is gendered."  Bezoars consist al-
most entirely of phosphate of lime ; and, as curative agents, afford
an addition to the many thousand proofs of the influence of mind
over the body, and how truly efficacious  imagination may prove
in removing disease,—Ed. 
MEDICINE A PART OF OCCULT SCIENCE.   103
credence  in  Europe;  yet these bezoars  have no
more effect than the aerolites upon the nervous sys-
tem, and  could only be used like the latter to dis-
guise the  use of more  active substances.
  A Greek  inscription,* which we believe must
have been anciently placed in the temple of Ms-
culapius  at  Rome, and  which perpetuates  four
cures effected by that god, presents us with four
examples of the different ways in which credulity
lends itself  to  the marvelous.  There is nothing
surprising in stopping a haemoptyses,  spitting  of
blood, by the use of sweet kernels and honey,t nor
even in the oracle  that ordered it.   But when the
god, in order to cure  a pain in the side, prescribed
a topical application, the  principal ingredient  of
which was  to be  the cinders collected  from  his
altar, it is easy to conjecture  that his  priests min-
gled some drug  with those cinders.  If a salve, in
which the  Blood  of  a white cock  was  added to
honey, produced beneficial results, we may be per-
mitted to think that the color of the bird was only
of use  to veil in mystery the composition  of  the
remedy.  A blind  man, after some genuflections,
placed the hand that had been extended  upon  the
altar over  his eyes,  and suddenly recovered  his
sight.  He had  never lost it; and he probably  ex-
 ecuted this juggling at some critical moment, when
 it was of importance  to  revive the declining repu-
 tation of ^Esculapius and his temple.
    We could compile whole volumes  with similar
 impostures.  Worn by the sufferings of an incura-

   * J. Gruter, Corp. Inscript., folio, Amstelodami, 1707, p. 71,
   t  Under the term sweet  kernels is meant the bitter almond, or
 the kernels of the peach, both of which, when they are moistened,
 evolve hydrocyanic  acid, which, operating as a powerful sedative,
 would arrest the flow of blood. The honey, which is an excitant,
 was a bad  addition.—Ed. 
104  MEDICINE A PART OF OCCULT SCIENCE.

ble disease,  Adrian  invoked  death, and  it  was
feared he would have recourse to suicide: a wom-
an  appeared, who declared that she had received
in  a  dream  an order  to  assure the emperor he
should soon  be cured.  Not having obeyed  this
order at first, she lost her sight; but, being warned
by  a  second  dream, she fulfilled her mission,  and
her eyes immediately reopened  to the light.*   But
although Adrian died some months afterward, the
witnesses of this trick  were not the less disposed
to believe in every other assumed miracle set be-
fore them.
   The greatest of all prodigies to reasonable minds
is,  in my opinion, the belief in assumed miracles by
the very men who have unmasked and unveiled the
falsehood of such miracles.  And, by a remarkable
singularity, the superstitious man and the philoso-
pher  may each, in his own way, profit by a prodigy
often repeated.  The one sees in it a proof of the
truth of  his assertions,  and the effects of the  gifts
of heaven, which display themselves in overcoming
human reason ; the other, finding this contradiction
everywhere, maintains that it proves nothing, since,
if it was applied to one real belief, it would allow
a hundred false ones to triumph : and that its  only
principle is, therefore,  the facility with which the
human race ever abandon themselves to those  who
attempt to deceive them.
   Credulity is, in fact, the disease of every age and
of every  country.  The haunts of those mendicants
who deceive the public  by obtaining their sympathy
for the most deplorable deceptive infirmities, were
formerly called in Paris  Cours  des  Miracles, be-
cause, on entering those quarters of the  city, these
wretches deposited  the costumes of the different
parts they  acted.  At once the blind saw, and the
             * .(Elian, Spartian. in Adrian. 
      MEDICINE A PART OF OCCULT SCIENCE.  105

cripple recovered the use of his limbs.  Nearly a
dozen of these " courts" exist in the French capi-
tal ;  and it is lamentable to  add, that their inhabi-
tants are sometimes employed by the priests and
monks  to give  an authority to their  relics,  by
vouching for the  miraculous cures  which these
pretended invalids receive from their touch.*  The
name Cours des Miracles] having become popular,
proves that no one was ignorant of the impostures
which were every day enacted there, and yet, dai-
ly, these  sharpers find dupes; and with a  perfect
knowledge of this habitual deception, supernatural
cures are still believed.
  Obstinate  and ingenious  in  deceiving  herself,
Credulity is found intrenched behind well attested
wonders, that have not been denied by experience.
This is very  well! but let science take from these
marvels what belongs to itself, it will quickly  aid
the honest man in detecting that which  appertains
to imposture.
  It is not by opposing to the boasts of the char-
latan an immense number of proofs of his errors,
however  credible, but it is  by demonstrating that
these marvels may have occurred in  the order of
nature, that we  can cherish any hope of curing
mankind of an infatuation which has already cost
him very dear.
   When we hear accounts of those miraculous fasts,
which men of superior intellect have endured  for
days and for weeks, we are tempted  to  class them
  * When Louis XI. was ill, he sent for the holy man of Calabria,
and fell upon his knees before him, begging that his life might be
prolonged.  The holy vial was sent to him. and St. Peter's  vest
from  Rome; but, alas! both confidence and faith were of no avail
in this case. "The monarch," says Comines, "could command
the beggar's knee, but not the health of it."—Ed.
  t Sauval, Antiquiles de Paris, tome i., pp. 510-515, quoted by
Dulaure, Physical, Civil, and Moral History of Paris.  (1821, vol,
iv., pp. 589-596.) 
106  MEDICINE A PART OF OCCULT SCIENCE.

with the Oriental tales,* in which similar inconceiv-
able abstinences figure.   But  as these narrations
are so numerous, can we attribute them wholly to
a desire to deceive, and  affirm that they are alto-
gether without foundation ?
  Let us first of all remark that certain substances
possess, or have attributed to them,  the property
of  suspending the sensations  of  hunger and of
thirst.   Such, for instance,  as the leaves  of the
tobacco plant, and the leaves  of the cocoa (a Pe-
ruvian plant).   People have gone  so  far  as to say
that, if either of these plants be held  in the mouth
by  a man who has worked all day without  eating,
they will prevent him from suffering from hunger.!
  Matthiolus! attributes  to  the Scythians the use
of  an  herb agreeable  to the taste, and  so effica-
cious in supplying the place of nourishment, that its
effects  had sometimes prolonged life  for  twelve
whole days.   Another herb  sustained in a similar
manner the  strength of those indefatigable cava-
liers' horses.   This  apparent  miracle may  have
been the  result of a desire to deceive,  and  may
have  been effected by reducing substances   emi-
nently nutritious to a  very small  bulk.§   To the
use of  such an art we may explain what was said

  *  Les Mille et un Nuits, nuits 137 et 138.
  t  J. Acosta, Natural History of the Indies, c\c, book iv., chap.
xxii. Opium has the same power of allaying the sensation of
hunger.  The Turkish courier, who performs long and fatiguing
journeys without rest, on horseback, provides himself with a small
bag  of opium lozenges, Mash-Allah;  and, when  greatly fatigued,
he alights, opens his bag, takes a lozenge himself, and having also
given two to his horse, remounts, and proceeds with as much
alacrity as when he set out; both horse and man  are refreshed,
and  the sensation of hunger is subdued.—Ed.
  X  Matthiolus, Commentar. in Dioscorid.—Epistol. Nuncupator.
  (j  This opinion of our author is not very tenable; and, although
the  period is much exaggerated, yet, it is not inconsistent with
experience, that  the sensation of hunger may be destroyed and
life  sustained, by some description of herbs.—Ed. 
       MEDICINE  A PART OF OCCULT SCIENCE.   107


of Abaris, that he had never been seen to eat or to
drink ;* an art also which was successfully prac-
ticed by Epimenides,  the cotemporary of Solon,t
is well  known in the present day, and has  very
recently been brought to perfection by a learned
man.!   It is nearly fifty  years  since the  plan of
giving nourishment of this  kind  to mariners  was
attempted in  France : its small  bulk would  have
enabled a much greater quantity than of any other
provision to have been embarked at a time; it was,
however, abandoned; for although the men thus fed
did not suffer from hunger, yet  they were found
less capable of sustaining fatigue.
   This would  not be  any  inconvenience to the

  * Iamblich.,  Vit.  Pythag., $ 27.   Abaris was a Scythian, the
eon of Seuthes ; he  flourished during the Trojan war, and is sup-
posed to have  written some treatises in Greek.  Many absurd
fables are related concerning him; among others,  that he  re-
ceived a flying arrow from Apollo, which gave oracles, and
transported him through the air wherever he pleased; that he
returned  to the hyperborean countries from Athens without eat-
ing, and  that he  made the Trojan Palladium with the bones of
Pelops.—Ed.
  + Plutarch, Sympos.
  X M. Gimbernat,  Revue   Encyclopedique, tome xxxv^, p. 235.
More  absurd stories are related of Epimenides than of Abaris.
He was said to have entered into a cave, where he fell asleep,
and slept for fifty-seven years; so that, when he awoke, he found
every thing altered ; and he scarcely knew where he was : a de-
gree of ignorance which is surprising, as he is also reported to
have been able to dismiss his soul from his body, and  recall it at
pleasure.  During its absence, he  affirmed that it had familiar
intercourse with the gods, and obtained the gift of prophecy.  In
plain  language, he  was  a  man of genius, a poet, and a learned
man, capable of great abstraction ; and, for the sake of justifying
his pretensions of intercourse with the gods,  he lived in great
retirement, and chiefly upon herbs.  So high was his reputation
for sanctity, that, during a plague in Attica, 596 b.c, the Athe-
nians  sent  for him to perform a lustration, by which the gods
were  appeased, and the plague ceased.  He  was a native of
Crete; and the Cretans  paid him divine  honors after his death.
Notwithstanding his celebrity, however, he can only be regarded
in the light of an impostor, living in an age of  almost incredible
credulity; therefore every thing related of him must be received
with doubt.—Ed. 
108   MEDICINE A PART OF OCCULT SCIENCE.

Thaumaturgists.  A holy man, who lives without
any, or very little excitement, commonly  remains
motionless in his cell, receiving the respect and ad-
oration of those who seek him there ; and if, after a
long period of trial, he should  be found  sinking
from weakness,  this  circumstance   would  only
increase the faith in the reality of his miraculous
abstinence.
   This difficulty, beside, could not have existed in
earlier times.   According to Edrisi,* the Berber
tribes of the neighborhood of Roun prepared, with
honey, and roasted and bruised corn, so nourishing
a paste, that a handful eaten in the morning enabled
them to march until evening without experiencing
hunger.  The Caledonians and  the Meates,t who
formed  the greatest  part  of  the population of
Great Britain, understood, says Xiphilin, a method
of preparing their food in a way so capable of sus-
taining their strength, that having taken a quantity
equal to the size of a bean, they felt neither hunger
nor thirst.   The Scythians, doubtless, possessed the
art of a  process similar to this, and even extended
it to the food of their horses; but the miraculous
herbs  mentioned  by Matthiolus were merely in-
tended to delude others as to the secret of their real
nature.  But this secret could  not have  been un-
known, at least to the learned portion, among peo-
ple much more  civilized than the Caledonians and
Scythians ; its existence,  therefore, renders  such
narrations  credible,  and  divests  them  of  their
miraculous covering.
  Far above the miracle of making man  indepen-
  * Geographic d'Edrisi,' translated by M.Am.  Jaubert,  vol. i.,
p. 205.
 t Xiphilin in Sever., Anno 208.  In a story which appears to
be of Oriental origin, the secret of composing pills, or an  opiate
endued with the same virtue, is  attributed to Avicenna and
another learned man.  (The Thousand and One Nights.) 
      MEDICINE A PART OF OCCULT SCIENCE.  109

dent of the most pressing wants of nature, is that
of restoring to him the life that he has lost.
  It is agreed  that there is nothing so difficult to
determine as the certain and irrefragable signs  of
death ;  and the special study of these signs, and a
complete experience of what is doubtful and posi-
tive in them, alone furnish the means of distinguish-
ing  between  a real and an  apparent death.   To
restore to life a being who is threatened to be de-
prived  of it by  a too  hasty burial would, in the
present day, be a benefit;  formerly it was a mira-
cle.
   The laws and customs of an enlightened people
will always prescribe laws for  ascertaining that
life  is  actually  extinct.  From  time immemorial
the Hindoos have employed fire, the most certain,
perhaps,  of all proofs, for, even if it does not rouse
the  sensibility, there is a visible difference  in  the
action of burning when exercised on an inanimate
body, and that on one in which life  still exists*
It is not until after a portion of cow-dung has been
burned  in the hollow over the stomach of  the
corpse, that the  funereal pile, which is to  consume
it, is lighted.  According  to appearances, a simi-
lar  custom formerly existed  in  Italy and Greece.
Tertulliant  ridicules  those spectacles in which
Mercury is represented as  examining corpses, and
convincing himself by a red-hot iron that the ex-
terior marks of death were not deceptive.  This
custom must then  have been at one time in  full
force, but had fallen  into  disuse, and existed only

  * Fodere, Dictionnaire des Sciences Medicates, art. Signes de la
Mort.
  t Tertullian, Apologetic, cap. xv.  Ccelius Rhodiginus (Led.
Antiq., lib. iv., cap. xxxi.) reads,  as we do, cauterio  in the text
of Tertullian, and not cantherio.  This last version, adopted by
some modern writers, does not seem to me to offer any reason-
able sense. 
110   MEDICINE A PART OF OCCULT SCIENCE.


in mythological remembrances.   Democritus had,
at an early period, asserted that there did not exist
any certain signs of real death.*  Plinyt maintain-
ed the  same  opinion, and  even  remarked  that
women were more  exposed  than  men  to the dan-
gers of an  apparent death.   He cited  numerous
instances of apparent cleaths,  and  among others,
one mentioned by  Heraclides, of  a woman who
revived after having passed for dead during seven
days.!  Neither did he forget  the sagacity of As-
clepiades, who, seeing a funeral procession pass by,
exclaimed that the  man who was being  carried to
the pile was not dead.§   To conclude, might  not
humanity have  adopted  this  means of safety, to

   *  A. Cornel., Cels., lib. ii., cap. vi.
   t Plin., Hist. Nat., lib. vii., cap. Iii.              X Ibid.
   t)  A. Cornel., CeZs., loc. cit. Heraclides wrote a treatise entitled,
 The Disease in which the Respiration is suspended.  Asclepiades
was a learned physician, and  was the  founder  of a sect in
medicine.  There  can be no difference of opinion with respect
to the correctness of the observations of these distinguished men.
Numerous cases of apparent deaths have been recorded as having
occurred in modern times.  The mention of a few will suffice to
demonstrate the difficulty of determining the fact that death has
actually triumphed over mortality; unless the signs be  of that
unequivocal nature that they can not be mistaken—namely, the
extinction of animal heat, that rigidity  of the body in which the
direction of the limb, when changed, remains, and commencing
decomposition.  Francis Civile, a Norman gentleman, who lived
in the time of Charles IX., twice apparently died, and was twice
in the act of being buried, when he spontaneously revived at the
moment in which the coffin was deposited in the grave.  In the
seventeenth century, a Lady Russell apparently died, and was
about to be buried ; but, as the bell was tolling for her funeral,
she  sat up in  the coffin, and exclaimed,  " It is time to go to
church!"  Diemerbroesk ( Treatise on the Plague, book iv.) men-
tions the case of a peasant, who displayed no signs of life for
three days; but, on being carried to the grave, revived, and lived
many years afterward.  So recently as  the year 1836, a respect-
able citizen of Brussels fell into a profound lethargy on a Sunday
morning.  His friends, conceiving that he was dead, determined
to bury him ; and on Monday he was placed  on  a  bier, with all
the usual accompaniments of the dead, previous to interment, in
Catholic countries.  His body was placed in the  coffin;  and,
when the undertaker's men were about to screw down the lid, 
      MEDICINE A PART OF OCCULT SCIENCE.   Ill

which the  instinct of  tyranny instigated Nicoc-
lates* to make use of, in order to prevent the in-
habitants of Cyrene from feigning death, and by
thus leaving the  town, to withdraw from  his  cru-
elty ?
   Would it be absurd to suppose that the Thau-
maturgists  were  so well  acquainted with  the dis-
tinction between  apparent and real death as to take
advantage of it, and to boast the power of so brill-
iant a miracle as a resurrection : and consequently
they exerted themselves to lead to the disuse of the
salutary practice attributed by tradition to the god
Mercury.
   It is at least certain that many Theurgists boast-
ed of being  endowed with the power of recalling
the dead to  life.    Diogenes Laertius  relates  that
Empedocles resuscitated a woman,t that is to sa$
" that he  dissipated  the  lethargy of a woman at-
tacked by uterine suffocation."!
   The biographer of Apollonius of Tyana more
cautiously  expresses himself, relatively to a young
girl who owed her life to the care of this  philoso-
pher.   He says, that she had seemed to die ; while
he confesses that the  rain which fell upon her,

the supposed corpse sat up, rubbed his eyes, and called for his
coffee and a newspaper*  From these, and many instances of a
similar description, it is evident that a temporary quiescent con-
dition of the vital principle must not be confounded with real
death.  The immobility of the body, even its cadaverous aspect,
the coldness of the surface, the absence of respiration and pulsa-
tion, and the somewhat sunken state of the eye, are not un-
equivocal evidences  that life is wholly extinct.  The only un-
 equivocal signs are those mentioned above; and, happily, in this
 country, interment does not take place until some evidence of
 putrefaction display themselves.—Ed.
   * Plutarch, Mulier, Fort. Fact., $ X.
   t Diogen. Laert., lib. viii., cap. Ivii. et lxix.
   X Diderot,  Opinions des Anciens Philosophes,  art. Pythagore-
  Pythagoriciens.________________
* Morning Herald, 21st July, 1836. 
112   MEDICINE A  PART OF OCCULT SCIENCE.


when she was in the act of being carried with her
face  exposed  to the pile, might have commenced
exciting her senses.   Apollonius had at least, like
Asclepiades, the merit of distinguishing at a glance
between real  and apparent death.*
   An observer of the seventeenth  centuryt relates
that  a servant, finding, on returning from a voyage,
his master dead, tenderly and frequently embraced
the inanimate body.   Thinking that he discovered
some signs of life  in it, he breathed his breath into
it with so  much perseverance as  restored respira-
tion,  and  reanimated  the  apparently  dead  man.
This was not regarded as a miracle ;| and, happily

   * Philogtrat., Vit. Apollon.  Tyan.,  lib. iv., cap. xvi.  Apollo-
nius began by asking  the name of  the young girl, doubtless in
order  to  address her.  He knew that of all articulated sounds
which strike upon our ear, our own name is that which we
most  easily recognize,  and which most quickly excites our at-
tention.
   t Petr. Borellus, Hist, et Observ. Medic.  Centur., iii., observ.
lviii.,  quoted by Fromann, Tractat. de Fascinatione, pp. 483, 484.
   X This mode of restoring the respiratory function m suspended
animation is often  successfully  resorted to in  the present day;
and as a medical  man has often to determine the question of real
or apparent death,  it is consolatory to know, that he possesses
the means of deciding with sufficient accuracy to authorize the
adoption of the measures which experience has proved to be the
most  likely  to restore animation when it is merely suspended.
When death has  actually taken place, it is surely unnecessary to
say, that any human attempt to  restore life would not only dis-
play the  most outrageous arrogance, but prove indubitably in-
effective.  We believe  most sincerely  in  the real miracle of
raising Lazarus from the grave by our Savior, as firmly, indeed,
as in  the resurrection  of our Savior himself;  and, although we
are ready to admit that the Almighty, for some special purpose,
as in  the case of the Apostles and the early promulgators of
Christianity, might even now endow  a mortal with such a super-
natural gift, yet,  all experience is against such an event.  Many
impostors, however, have presumptuously asserted their posses-
sion of this power; and, even at so recent a period as that of
the French prophets, it was assumed by these insane enthusiasts,
who, not  contented with the reputation of many cures performed
upon  nervous and imaginative individuals, by  means of prayer,
destroyed their reputation by indiscreetly staking it on the resur-
rection of Dr. Eames :  a striking proof how readily the intellect
may become the slave of fanaticism.—Ed. 
INFLUENCE OF  POISONS.         113
for the faithful servant, it was no longer the custom
to attribute such an occurrence to magic*
                 CHAPTER V.
Poisonous Substances.—Poisons, the Effect of which can he
  graduated.—Miraculous Deaths.—Poisons employed in Ordeals.
  —Diseases asserted to be caused by Divine Vengeance.—Dis-
  eases foretold.
  Fear is more permanent, as well as more  ex-
acting,  than  gratitude.   It was easy for Thauma-
turgists  to inspire  the  former, in employing  the
agency of poisonous substances on organized bod-
ies.   Nature  has produced these substances prin-
cipally  in  those parts  of our globe which  were
first inhabited;  and  the art of  increasing  their
number and their power is  not less ancient than
civilization.   What could  have  appeared  more
magical, what more miraculous, we may inquire,
in the eyes of ignorant men, at least in  apparent
connection with its cause, than poisoning by prussic
acid,  by morphia, or by certain  preparations of
arsenic,  had they  been known  in ancient times 1
The author of the  crime would have appeared in
all  eyes as  a being  endowed  with supernatural
power;  even perhaps as a god, who  could  sport
with  the life of weak  mortals, and who  with  a
breath could  cause them to vanish from the face
of the earth.
   The  ancient  use, however,  of this  formidable
knowledge at one  time proved a blessing.  The
  * The subject of the powerful influence of mind over the body
is of so much importance, especially at the present time? when
the public is so  open to the  promises held forth by every pre-
tender to the healing art, who blazons forth, in advertisements,
the marvelous cures effected by his nostrums, that the Editor
has added an essay upon that subject  to the Appendix. (See
note C.)—Ed.
     11.                 H 
114         INFLUENCE  OF POISONS.
 territory of Sycion was desolated by the ravages of
 wolves.   The oracle, which was consulted, pointed
 out to the inhabitants the trunk  of a tree, the bark
 of which it enjoined them  to mix with the morsels
 of flesh  which they threw  to  the  wolves.  These
 animals  were  destroyed by the poison.  But the
 inhabitants could not recognize the tree, of which
 they had  only seen the trunk.  The priests re-
 served this part  of the secret to  themselves.
   If in Greece, more than two thousand years a°-o,
 a man had fallen a victim to the influence of poison,
 or from  an excess of intemperance, the incident in
 itself would  not be interesting.  But,  when  the
 short sojournment  of that man on earth had cost
 more deaths and more  evils to  humanity than the
 greatest  scourges of nature;   and,  nevertheless,
 when the illusion of conquests  and the  fallacy of
 vulgar opinions, had converted  that  monster pol-
 luted with innumerable crimes and  vices into a
 model for heroes; when, in a word, that man was
 Alexander, the  son of Philip,  the  problem  be-
 comes historical,  and excites  curiosity.  Its  solu-
 tion  interests us, from its  connection with scien-
 tific ideas, the existence of which  it enables  us to
 reveal.
   ^Elian, Pompeus Trogas, and Quintus Curtius
 attribute the death of Alexander to poison.*   The
 two latter add, that the poison was sent from Mace-
 donia to  Babylon, and was  water from a spring at
 the foot  of Mount  Nonacris,  in Arcadia.   This
 water was so cold and so bitter  that it occasioned
death to  both men and  animals; it broke or cor-
roded all vases,  except those which were made
from  the hoof of an ass, or a mule, or a horse, or
from  the horn which the Scythian  assest have on
  * Pausanias, Corinthiac, cap. ix
  t We are told by Aristotle, that, in  his time, there were no 
INFLUENCE  OF POISONS.         115
their forehead.  One of these horns had been of-
fered as a present to Alexander : he had  dedicated
it to Apollo, in the  temple of Delphi, with an in-
scription, relating its wonderful property.*  In this
recital we may perceive some dubious or obscure
expressions; and remark  that substances are fre-
quently qualified as being  hot or cold, independent
of their temperature.  Instead  of the  horn  of a
fabulous animal, a vessel might have been substi-
tuted which, like many vessels  that were used by
the ancients, was in the  shape of a horn, and per-
haps, also,  displayed the  color  of one, with  its
polish and its semi-transparency ; but which, being
brought from Scythia, or Upper Asia,t might have
been made of thick glass, or of porcelain sufficiently
well baked, and calculated to resist the action  of
corrosive  liquids.   Without entering into such  an
inquiry, the narrators have detailed  only the mar-
velous part of the recital, and have made of it a
ridiculous story.
  I suppose, without entering into any explana-
tion,  that the  wonderful  springs of which they
boasted, and the water of  which, we are told, cor-
roded all metals with the exception  of one alone,
which they described simply by this property  of
inalterability, from the facility with which it was
volatilized by heat, and a  residue  procured under
the form  of powder, perfectly white, and of ex-
treme tenuity, was such as we need not refer to
the land of fables.   Such springs are at the  doors
of the French capital,  at  Enghien: and for dis-
tributing  the water, pipes  and taps of zinc  are
asses in Scythia; some other animal, therefore, must have pro-
duced the horn sent to Alexander.—Ed.
 * JElian, De Nat. Animal, lib. x., cap. xl.
 t The name of Scythia began to be applied to the northern
parts of Asia, in the Macedonian period, and was  employed at
the time of the conquest of Asia by Alexander.—Ed. 
116          INFLUENCE OF  POISONS.

used,* because this metal appears to be the only
one  which  does   not  decompose   sulphureous
waters.
  Our incredulity would be redoubled, if an unac-
credited author had made us  acquainted, for the
first time, with the zagh ;  that substance which is
employed in the East for  inlaying steel arms with
apparent gold.   It is drawn from a spring in the
mountains of the Druses, and can only be preserved
in vessels of lead, or of glass, or porcelain.   Zagh
is a mixture of the acidulated sulphate of alumina,
and sulphate of iron,t the solution of which will
corrode any other  metal except lead.!   This, and
the preceding example, at once sets  aside part of
the improbability which pervades the recitals rela-
tive to the water of Nonacris.   Nothing  precludes
the zagh from being,  as the Orientals assert, a pro-
duction of nature.  In a work§  which does as much
honor to his vast knowledge  as to his philosophy,
Seneca describes a spring near to Tempe in Thes-
saly, the waters of which are mortal to animals, and
penetrate through  iron and copper.||  In Thrace,
in  the country of the Cyclops, also, there  flowed
a rivulet whose limpid water seemed to differ in

  * Revue Encyclopedique, tome xxxv., p. 501.
  t Report of the Society for encouraging National Industry, Decem-
ber, 1821, p. 362.
  t Our author here labors under a mistake.  Such a solution
will not affect vessels of platinum, gold, or silver.—Ed.
  § Senec, Quasst. Nat., lib. iii., cap. xxv.
  II It is probable that this spring contained either free sulphuric
acid, or a highly acidulous  salt of that  acid.  Modern chemistry
has detected this acid in a free state, as well as hydrochloric acid,
in the water of the Rio Vinagre, which descends from the volca-
no of Paraie, in Colombia, South America.  Sulphuric acid is also
found in the waters of other volcanic regions.  The sour springs
of Byron, in the Genesse country, about sixty miles south of the
Erie Canal, contain pure sulphuric acid.  Such waters, therefore,
would rapidly corrode both iron and copper, converting the former
into green, the latter into blue vitriol—sulphates of both metals.
—Ed. 
INFLUENCE OF  POISONS.          117
nothing  from  common water;  yet every animal
who drank of it instantly died,f
   The  water  of Nonacris, which  corroded iron,
and cracked or dissolved vases  of silver  and of
brass,  and even those of baked clay,t could only
have been a solution more charged with corrosive
substances  than the  zagh, and  the water of  the
stream  of Tempe.  I think, nevertheless, that it
was a  production  of art.  1st. Because it was, ac-
cording  to Qnintus Curtius, a production of Mace-
donia, and according to  many other  authors, of
Arcadia also, which could not have been the case
unless it was manufactured in both countries.   2d.
Plutarch adds, that it was obtained under the form
of a light  dew,!  an  expression which  seems to
characterize  it  as the production  of distillation.
3d. At Nonacris, Herodotus says, they took an oath
on the  water  of  the Styx.   Stobaeus  adds that,
according to the general opinion,  this water pos-
sessed the terrible property of punishing perjurers
who had dared  to swear by it.§   If this fact is re-
garded as the employment of poison in ordeals, we
may believe that the water of Nonacris and of the
Styx was  a production  of occult  science which
rendered  it,  at  will, either  innocent or injurious.
4th. The water of Nonacris  could not be detected
by its  taste, when mixed with wine, which  was
   * Arist., De Mirab. Auscul
   t Q. Curt., lib. x., cap. ultim.—Vitruv., De Architect., lib. iii.,
cap. iii.—Justin, lib. xii., cap. xiv.—Pausanias, Arcad., cap.  xviii.
__Plutarch in Alexandr., cap. xcix.—Plin.,  Hist. Nat., lib.  xxx.,
cap. xvi.—Arrian, De Exped. Alexand., lib. vii., cap. vii.  Plu-
tarch extends the dissolving virtue of the water of Nonacris  to
glass and  to crystal. The ancients were anxious to exaggerate ;
and the possessors of the secret probably seconded this disposition
with all their power.
   X Plutarch in  Alexandr., cap. xlix.—Herodot., lib.  vi.,  cap.
lxxv.
   t) Herodot., lib. vi.—J. Stobaeus, Eclog. Physic. De Statu, am-
marum. 
 118   POISONINGS AIDED BELIEF IN  MAGIC.


not the case with the zagh, nor is it with the water
of Enghien, which can be detected, however small
the quantity, when mixed with wine or  any other
liquid.  It could not  be suspected, says Seneca,*
either by its  appearance  or by its smell; similar
in this respect  to  the  poisons  composed  by the
most  celebrated poisoners,  which could only  be
discovered  at the  expense  of life.  In speaking
thus, does not Seneca describe a composition anal-
ogous to the aqua Toffana of the Italians ;t espe-
cially when he  adds, that its deleterious action is
exerted particularly on the  entrails, which  it con-
tracts and binds, and thus occasions death.
   Setting aside  historical  discussion, it is sufficient
for us to draw the attention  of our  readers to the
extent of the apparent magical  power which such
a secret had put into the hands  of the Thaumatur-
gists.   What could  they not accomplish, if, joined
to the power of graduating the effect  of  poison,
they could determine the exact  day when the vic-


  * Senec, loc. cit.
  t The Aqua delta  Toffana, or Aquetta di Napoli, was the inven-
tion of a woman of the name of Toffana, a celebrated secret poi-
soner, who resided at Naples in the end of the seventeenth and
the commencement of the eighteenth centuries.  This water was
so powerful, that from four to six drops were sufficient to destroy
a man. It was sold in small vials, inscribed " Manna of St. Nicho-
las of Bari," and ornamented with the image of the saint.  By
thus concealing her drops under the name of a miraculous oil for
curing diseases, then in high repute in Naples, Toffana long car-
ried on her abominable trade of assisting heirs to their estates,
and wives to new husbands.  This violation of a sacred name,
however, having raised a loud outcry against her among the cler-
gy, the wretched woman was arrested, put to the rack, and after-
ward strangled.  These drops were stated by Garelli,* physician
to the Emperor Charles VII., to be a strong solution of arsenioug
acid in an infusion of the  ivy-leaved toadflax, Linaria cymbalaria,
which was an unnecessary addition, as the arsenious acid is per-
fectly tasteless.—Ed.
 * Hoffman quotes Garelli's letter to him, in his Medicines Rationalis
Symptomata, tome ii., p. 2; cap. ii., § 19, p. 185. 
POISONINGS AIDED  BELIEF  IN  MAGIC.   119
tim should fall ?  This  art has existed at all times
in India, where the possession of it is not conceal-
ed.*  " There are," says a personage in the East-
ern Tales.t " all kinds of poisons.  There are some
which take away life a  month after they have been
taken; there are others which destroy it at the end
of two months; and there are  others, the effect of
which is  still  more gradual."   When  a Hindoo
widow,  in 1822, burned herself upon the funereal
pile of  her husband, the Bramins said frankly to
the English observer whom we have quoted,! that,
had she been prevented or dissuaded from accom-
plishing the sacrifice, she would not have survived
the violation  of her vow more  than three hours,
as they had graduated, for that  time, the strength
of  the  poison which  they had administered to
her.
   ^Elian,§ who mentions the art of the inhabitants
of India  in manufacturing poisons, the  effect of
which is  slow and  graduated at will, ascribes to
them also the possession  of  a  substance, a very
small dose of which will  occasion almost sudden
death without pain.  It was sent to the  King of
Persia,  who promised  his  mother  that  she alone
should share with him  the possession of this valua-
ble poison.  In fact, it  served as well for murder-
ous  political  unions, as for the sacred vengeance
of the Thaumaturgists.
   When  the  Church,  scarcely delivered from the
persecutions of the Polytheists, was torn by disputes
on transubstantiation, which, to use the expression
of a great poet, caused  Christians to perish martyrs
  * The  Hindoo poison is named powst, and is a preparation of
the poppy.—Ed.
  t Arabian Nights' Entertainments, 14th night.  Story of the
Forty Thieves.
  X See ch. i., vol. ii.—Asiatic Jour., vol. xv. (1823),. pp. 292, 293,
  § Mlian, De Nat. Animal, lib. iv,, cap. xxx. et xli. 
 120   POISONINGS  AIDED  BELIEF IN MAGIC.


 of a diphthong,* St. Athanasiust and his partisans
 had the imprudence to celebrate the miracle which

   * Lorsque attaquant le verbe et sa divinite,
    D'une syllabe impie un saint mot augmente,
    Faisait, dans une guerre et si vive et si longue,
    Perir tant de Chretiens, martyrs d'une dipthongue.
                         ' Boileau, Satire xii., vers. 199-202.
   Omousios, unsubstantiate or of equal essence ; Omoiousios, or of
 similar essence.  The dipthong oi, which distinguished these two
 words from one another, was adopted by the Arians, and rejected
 by their adversaries.
   t St. Athanasius was born in Alexandria, a.d. 206, of Christian
 parents.  He received the most liberal education, and profited by
 it to a degree that admirably fitted him for thestation in the Church
 which he afterward filled.   Arius, his opponent, was a native of
 Cyrenaica.   He had been expelled the communion of the Church
 by St. Peter, who had ordained him a deacon, on account of hav-
 ing joined the Meletians; but, having repented, he was readmit-  *
 ted by Achillas, who had succeeded St. Peter as Patriarch of
 Alexandria, and was ordained a priest and  pastor  to one of the
 churches of Alexandria.  The ambition of Arius was disappointed
 when his patron was succeeded by St. Alexander; and he soon
 afterward began to preach the heresy known by his name, respect-
 ing the divinity of our Savior, which caused his second expulsion
 from  the  communion of the Church. St. Athanasius was then
 merely  a  deacon; but, in the Council of Nice, he combated so
 auccessfully the doctrines broached  by Arius, and supported by
 the followers of the heresiarch, that, on the death of Alexander,
 he was elected Patriarch of Alexandria, a.d. 326.  Soon after this
 event, the Meletians and Arians having joined, and St. Athanasius
 having  had a sentence of deposition pronounced  against him,
 through the means of Eusebius, Arius made a kind of retraction
 of his former opinions to Constantine, and was readmitted to the
 Church generally, but, nevertheless, he was refused to be admit-
 ted by the church at Alexandria.   It is unnecessary to enter into
 the history of Arianism, and  the various controversies, feuds, and
 even appeals to arms, which this heresy occasioned.  On the re-
 cantation of Arius to Constantine, in a third confession of his faith,
 and his profession on oath to  submit to the Nicene Creed, the em-
 peror, in 336, commanded that the patriarch should leave his see
 in case he persisted to refhse admitting Arius to communion, and
 resolved that he  should be  received in  a solemn  manner.  St.
James, who was  then  at Constantinople, exhorted  the people to
have recourse to God by fasting and  prayer for seven days; and
on the eighth day, the Sunday on which  Arius was to have been
admitted, that wretched man was  found dead in a privy.  Soc-
 rates relates that he was taken ill of a bowel complaint during
 the procession.  Some writers ascribed his death to poison; but
as tflB Arians ascribed his death to the magical practices of his
enemies, the accusation of poisoning was not believed.—Ed, 
POISONINGS AIDED BELIEF IN MAGIC.   121
had  freed them from Arius.  Let the names  be
suppressed ;  let the details alone of this unexpect-
ed death be recalled—those which have been trans-
mitted to us  by three church historians :*  there is
no man, however  indifferently educated, who will
not there recognize symptoms produced by violent
poison    No physician  would have hesitated to
counsel a circumstantial  examination, in order to
clear up some very plausible suspicions, and  no
magistrate would have declined to order it.   And
if it is added, that a few hours  before the  death,
St. Alexander, the adversary of Arius, was heard
addressing  fervent prayers  to heaven, that  rather
than  the heretic should  be permitted to  enter in
triumph into the Church, and his heresy with him,
he might be struck dead,t it is not surprising that
the partisans of Arius did not think  his death nat-
ural, although they had  supposed it to be a mira-
cle,  and  that their  accusations were sufficiently
public to induce one of their adversaries to think
it necessary to pass them over in silence.!
   Such, in those days of discord, was the transport
of zeal!  The Christians, in the excess of j oy which
the death of the Emperor Julian occasioned them,
indiscreetly published that his  tragical  end had
been foretold by marvelous dreams, and that they
perceived in it  a  signal  miracle  of the  divine

  * Socrat, Hist. Eccles., lib. i., cap. xxxviii.—Sozomen, Hist.
Eccles., lib. ii., cap. xxix., xxx—Theodoret, Hist. Eccles., lib. 1.,
cap. xiv.
  t Theodoret, Hist. Eccles., lib. l., cap. xiv.
  t Sozomen,  Hist. Eccles., lib. n., cap. xxix  From what has
been already stated, the Editor can not avoid blaming our author
for great partiality, in insinuating the charge of poisoning against
  he opposers of Arius.  Such feuds in the Christian Church were
undoubtedly most unhappy at the  time for the progress of the
true faith, and led to much of the apostasy  that followed; but
 there are no grounds for the accusation of the poisoning of Anus
 -Ed. 
122
ORDEALS  BY  POISON.
vengeance.  The philosopher Libanius* the friend
of the monarch, after his death, and under succes-
sors who had  very little  respect  for his  memory,
boldly declared that Julian had fallen beneath the
blows of a Christian assassin.  To this imputation
an  orthodox writer replies, " The fact might  be
true;  and who will blame that  man, who, for his
God  and his  religion, would have  committed so
courageous an action 1"\  This shameful glorying
in crime, so contrary to the precepts of the religion
which the writer believed, may, however, be natu-
ral ; for it is natural that, in proportion to the keen-
ness  of the  interests  by which they are affected,
men  become  eager, reject reason, and precipitate
themselves into delirium and fury.
   It  must be  lamented, that in every nation, the
ancient priests enjoyed an influence equally infalli-
ble and mysterious in  submitting  the judgment of
crimes to ordeals, more especially to those of bev-
erages  prepared  by their hands; and which were
generally deadly or innocent  beverages, according
to  their wish  to  save  or to  destroy  the accused
person.
  The Hindoo law, the most  ancient of all, is the
only one which dares frankly  to utter  the name—
poison.  The  accused who submits to this ordeal,
in taking the  poison which he is about to drink,
believes that it will change, if he is innocent, into
a delicious draught.!   This is a remarkable formu-
lary, which, conformable with what we have else-
  * Libanius was a native of Antioch, in Syria.  He became so
celebrated a teacher of rhetoric, that, although a pagan, yet he
numbered some Christians among his scholars, and was on inti-
mate terms with St. Basil. He was the personal friend of Julian;
and, being adverse  to the Christians, his assertions respecting the
death of the  emperor can, therefore, be scarcely regarded as
worthy of much credit.—Ed.
  t Sozomen, Hist. Eccles., lib. vi., cap. ii,
  X Asiatic Researches, vol, j., pp. 473, 486, 
ORDEALS BY POISON.
123
where  declared,  addresses itself to  the  physical
agent as if it were a being endowed with supernat-
ural power and knowledge ;  as, for instance, a ge-

nius, or a god.
   Sometimes the trial was confined to swallowing
the water in which the priest had bathed the image
of one  of the divinities* which, although less form-
idable  in appearance, yet was, in fact, as decisive.t
   In Japan, the accused  is obliged to swallow, in
a  cup  of water, a piece of paper,  on  which the
priests have  traced  magical  characters  and  pic-
tures ;  and this beverage tortures him cruelly, until
he has confessed his crime.!
   Guided,  probably, by  ancient tradition more
than by any knowledge which  belongs to them, the
Arabs  practice  similar trials.
   The negroes of Issyny dare not drink the water
into which the Fetiche has been dipped, when they


  * Refer to vol. i., chap. vi.
  t Asiatic Researches, vol. i,  pp. 474-4:86.  Upon the different
ordeals employed among the Hindoos, namely, those of fire, of a
weight, of freezing water, of scalding  oil, of the serpent, of poi-
son, &C, see  Dubois, Mceurs et Coutumes des Peuples de VInde,
tome ii., pp. 546-554.  There is not one of them, the success of
which does  not depend on the will of the priests.
  The Hindoo code of laws is a pure theocracy, the lawgiver
being supposed to promulgate nothing but what was revealed to
him by the divinity; hence the unconditional and implicit obedi-
ence which the people yield to their priests, who must be neces-
sarily the interpreters of revealed laws.  Princes are even subject
to them; and, so far does the assumption of power  by the Bra-
mins extend, that we find these words in the Institutes of Menu:—
" What prince could gain wealth by oppressing those (Bramins)
who, if angry, could frame other worlds; and could give being to
other gods and to other mortals."*  After such an assumption in
the priesthood, the degree of superstition and mental degradation
which has  kept the condition of man servile and stationary in
India, will no longer excite surprise ; for, what follows so closely
in the steps of superstition as popular ignorance, mental despot-
 ism, and barbaric tyranny ?—Ed.
   X Koempfer, History of Japan, book in., chap, v., p. 51.

              * Institutes of Menu, chap, ix., v. 315. 
124
ORDEALS BY POISON.
affirm what is not the truth.*  Before consecrated
water could inspire so great a fear, must there not
have been several examples to prove  its deadly
efficacy 1
  The initiated of Para-belli, a very powerful re-
ligious society in the interior of Southern Africa,
prepare, among the  Qojas negroes, a water  of
trial, which is thrown over the legs, the  arms, or
the hands of the accused.   If the water burns him,
he is declared guilty ; if it does not burn him, he
is innocent.f   Is not  the  mysterious composition
of the water, and the care that is taken to wash the
limbs before  they are exposed to its action, suffi-
cient to explain the assumed miracle ]
  Among the Qojas, and among numbers of other
African tribes, a person suspected of poisoning is
made to  drink a very  acid liquid, prepared  by
scraping the  inside bark  of the  quony-tree, from
which the sap has been first pressed out into water.
The accused who survives the trial is declared in-
nocent;  he who dies  is pronounced guilty.!  It
may be believed that the care with which the bark
is pressed, decides the  fate  of the accused.   In
other countries, the accused  is obliged to drink a
liquid  prepared by the  hands  of the priests: in
Monomotapa he is condemned if he vomits it;  and
in the kingdom of Loango, if the liquid has a diu-
retic effect upon him, he is also condemned.§
  Nations more advanced  in civilization have au-
thorized those trials in which the divinity  is called
upon to work a miracle to manifest the truth.   At
Rome, in the time of Cicero and Horace, a master
who suspected that his slaves had robbed him con-
ducted  them  before a priest.  They were each
     * Godefroy Loyer, Voyage to the Kingdom of Issyny.
     + O. Dapper, Description de VAfmque, pp. 269, 270.
     X Ibid., 1. C, p. 263.    $ Ibid., pp. 325, 326, 392. 
ORDEALS BY POISON.
125
obliged to eat a cake over which the priest  had
pronounced some magical words  (carmine infec-
tum).  This plan undoubtedly discovered the au-
thor of the theft*   Near  Tyana, an inexhaustible
spring of very  cold, but  always bubbling water
(water strongly gaseous),  served to test  the truth
of vows.   The truthful man drank of it with impu-
nity ; the man guilty of a false vow, if he dared to
taste it,  saw  his body covered with  blisters  and
abscesses, and was so deprived of his  strength that
he could not quit the place until he had  confessed
his perjury.t
   Christianity has not  altogether  rejected these
kinds of ordeals.   The fountain of Wieres\ is still
celebrated in Picardy.   The unfaithful wife of St.
Genoulf dared  to plunge her arm  into it, vowing
that her  conduct was irreproachable ; but her arm
immediately became withered.  The fountain, how-
ever, is  now less malicious,  and all  women wash
their hands in it with impunity.  It may,  therefore,
be believed that this ordeal  has not been always
harmless ; and  that, more than  once,  the terror
which it inspired had restrained many from attempt-
ing it.  This  has often occured with other ordeals.
The collections of anecdotes are replete with stories
of the guilty, who, by the fear of a miracle, have
been induced to confess  their crimes.  Here we
repeat the reasonings that we have already offered,
that fear would not have been occasioned, if pre-
ceding experiments had not proved that the ordeal
was sometimes  well founded.  It was so managed
that the  promised miracle should not exceed the
powers of the Thaumaturgist.
   * Acron. in Horat. Epist., lib. i., epist. x., v. 9.
   t Philostrat., Vita Apollon., lib. i., cap. iv.
   X A fountain which is situated near Samer, department of the
Pas de Calais.—Memoires de VAcademie Celtique, tome v., pp. 109,
110. 
126    APPARENT  MIRACULOUS BLINDNESS.
   Death was not the only revenge which was fore-
 told by the  interpreters  of  an  irritated  god.
 Turning against his  enemies  the secrets  of the
 sacred science with which he was armed, with more
 address and less danger to himself, the priest often
 reserved to himself the  power of producing a sec-
 ond miracle in favor of repentance.
   A very  bright  light, such, for  example, as  the
 Bengal fire, can dazzle  the eye so effectually, that
 the power of seeing will  remain suspended  for
 some time.  At the taking of Milet by Alexander,
 when the soldiers entered the  temple of Milet to
 despoil it, so strong a light shone forth from  the
 sanctuary,  that the   soldiers  were  struck with
 temporary blindness.*  But the effect produced by
 such a method of revenge is of very short duration;
 and its success depends too much on the concur-
 rence of favorable circumstances to permit it to be
 often practiced.
   Near the river Archelous grew the plant myope :\
 it is impossible  to  rub the face  with it, without
 losing the sight.  The leaves of the stramonium
 possess  a property differing very  little from the
 myope.   A  young man, having accidentally spurted
 a drop of the sap into his eye, remained for several
 hours  deprived  of the  use of the organ.!  We
 know, in this day, that .the extract of belladonna,
 diluted with water, paralyzes for a time the organ
 of  sight.-  To  seize the  propitious  moment for
causing  the poisonous  substance to act,  and for
working the miracle, requires nothing more than
address.  Thus,  with  the talents  of  the  juggler

ca* ^ier' Maxim,) Ub- L» caP" i'-Lactant, Divin. lnstit., lib. ii.,
  t Plutarch, De Nomin. Fluv. et Mont, 6 xxii. M Vallot of the
academy of Dijon, is of opinion that \L plant  was  a tind of
Mhymale, most  probably Euphorbia offkinarum.
  X Bibhotheque Universale des Sciences, tome i'v., p. 221. 
  ORACLES CONSULTED IN ENDEMIC DISEASES. 127

aiding the science of the Thaumaturgist, the histo-
ries of men  miraculously struck blind, and as  mi-
raculously recovered, present nothing improbable.
  Endemic  diseases, which  ravage a  country, an
army, a city,  sometimes  assume  so  malignant a
character that  ignorance believes, and policy feigns
to believe  them as contagious as the pestilence.
  Formerly, before the  oracles were abolished,
desolated  populations had recourse to them;  and
it was the wish of the  oracles that  the  people
should always recognize in these diseases the ven-
geance of gods, justly irritated  against their wor-
shipers.   This belief being once established, the
priest menaced  countries rebellious  to  his com-
mands with the invasion of the plague  : more than
once he has announced the appearance of it  at a
certain time, and his prophecy  has been fulfilled.
It was, in fact, easy for him to found his opinion
upon  probabilities,  equivalent  to certainty :  it is
only  requisite to have observed  beforehand the
return of circumstances capable of reproducing
these diseases.   It was  this science  in  ancient
Greece which procured for  Abaris* the reputation
of being a prophet.  The same observations will,
at the present time, serve for  similar predictions,
although  the  honest man will  confine himself to
indicating precautions for preventing the evil; and
he is afflicted if,  in  neglecting  them, a triumph is
provided  him of passing for a true prophet.t  But
  * Iamblich. in Vit. Pythag., lib.-i., cap. xxviii.
  t In 1820, the port of Roquemaure (an arrondissement of Uzes,
 department  of Gard) was discovered to be surrounded by stag-
 nant waters in those places where the  Rhone had been turned
 from  its course.  M. Cadet, of Metz,  predicted that, from the
 month of March, the country would certainly be ravaged by an
 endemic fever, if, before summer, the river was not restored to its
 old bed. The works could only be completed in  autumn, and the
 summer saw Roquemaure depopulated  by raging fevers.  (Letter
 from M. Cadet, of Metz, to the Minister of the Interior, March 23,
 1820.) 
128 PREDICTIONS INFLUENCING AGRICULTURE.

instead of the philosophical observer, let us sub-
stitute a Thaumaturgist;  would not the coincidence
of the prophecy and of the disaster strike many
minds, even at this day,  with a deep and religious
terror 1
                 CHAPTER VI.  .
Sterility of the Soil.—The Belief in the Means which the Thau-
  maturgists were supposed to possess for causing Sterility arose
  particularly from the Language of Emblems.— Sterility produced
  naturally.—Cultures  .which injure one another.—Substances
  which are prejudicial to Vegetation.—The Atmosphere render-
  ed Pestilential.—Deleterious  Powder and Nitrate of Arsenic
  employed as offensive Weapons.—Earthquakes and Rumblings
  of the Earth foreseen and predicted.
   The  threats of celestial anger were not  alone
pointed at isolated individuals;  they were not alone
confined to the production of transitory diseases :
they raised alarms in a whole people that the earth
would deny  them its fruits ; that mortals would
only inhale death  from  the  air; that  under their
feet the trembling earth  would  sink and  open in
abysses ;  or that rocks, shaken  from their founda-
tions, would  roll  upon  them and crush  them to
atoms.
   The habit  of observation, assisted by reflection
and eisdightened by reasoning, imparts  to mankind
some plausible idea of the results of the different
cultures to which  he devotes himself.   Thales, in
purchasing beforehand a crop of olives, the fecun-
dity of which he had prophesied,* proved to the
Milesians that the philosopher depended only upon
his scientific  skill  to  obtain wealth.  If the Thau-
maturgist also could thus predict an abundant har-
vest, he might be able to predict others less  abun-
dant ; being enabled  also to  foresee a true famine,
               * Diogen. Laert. in Thalet. 
    PREDICTIONS INFLUENCING AGRICULTURE.  129

he has the power of threatening the people with
it.   Should  the event justify his prophecy,  he
would be regarded  not merely as the interpreter,
but as the agent of the gods, who had thus punish-
ed guilty mortals by the scourge of famine.
  Nevertheless, how distant is this point still from
that absolute sterility with which the imprecations
of a sacred man, or the maledictions of a perfidi-
ous  magician,  were  formerly believed to  strike
plants, trees, or even  the soil!  This remark will
scarcely escape a judicious reader, when he reflects
that, according to  the principle upon which I have
constantly reasoned, some positive facts have given
birth to the opinion of the  possibility of this terri-
ble means of vengeance.  In the eloquent menaces
that ^schylus  ascribes to Eumenides* I can only
perceive the expressions of poetic enthusiasm and
the hyperbole which belong to the Oriental style.
  In vain I recall to remembrance the  inclination
which man always has had to ascribe to the wrath
of the gods scourges, the cause  and the remedy
of which nature has hidden from him.  The edifice
which I have attempted to raise is shaken, if the
belief in  apparent miracles has no  other  origin
than some transient predictions and the dreams of
a terrified imagination.
   Let us first retrace the influence of the language
of emblems, and  then  observe how its power has
been effectual in misleading writers of veracity,
when they have related similar menaces, the ac-
complishment of which they have themselves wit-
nessed in foreign  countries.
   For a long period of time, when a conquered
city was condemned to eternal desolation, salt was
sown among the ruins ; and, in the face of experi-
ence to the contrary, the property of rendering the
      * ^Eschyl. in Eumen., vers. 783, 786, 803, 806, &c.
     II.                I 
130  PREDICTIONS INFLUENCING AGRICULTURE.

earth unfruitful was for a long time attributed to
salt.   Let us turn our eyes toward those climates
where, in immense deserts, salt is seen everywhere
effloresced on  the surface of the ground.  There
one privileged spot may be seen productive.  An
enemy invades it, disperses its inhabitants, fills up
its wells, turns the course of its rivers, destroys the
trees, and burns up its vegetation;  and this previ-
ously fruitful spot is confounded with  the desert
which surrounds it; and almost immediately, under
a burning sky, the despoiled soil becomes covered
with the saline efflorescence, the forerunner of fu-
ture sterility.  The emblem of salt strewed upon
the earth was  most expressive, therefore, in those
countries where this phenomenon was known:  bet-
ter than an edict, better than the sound of trumpets
and the voice of heralds, it proclaimed the will of
the destroyer;  it announced that the country should
remain  uninhabited,  without cultivation,  and  de-
voted to eternal sterility.  The menace  was not
vain, even where climate and the  effects of time
did not hasten  the work of violence.
  What a conqueror is to a weak people, so is the
wicked man to a defenseless  fellow-being.   The
Roman  law punished  as a  capital  offense  that
which may  appear to us as a  trivial delinquency,
namely, the act of putting stones on the inheritance
of another person.  But in the  country to which
this law belonged, in Arabia, Scopelism* such  was
the name of the crime, was tantamount to the threat
that whoever should dare to cultivate an inheritance
thus insulted would perish by a violent death. That
this mute language was  understood, and  that the
field  remained from that time  uncultivated  and

  * Scopelismus, lapidum positio—lapides ponere indicia futuros quod
si quis eum agrum coluisset malo letho periturus esset," &c —Dieest.,
lib. xlvii., tit. xi., t) ix. 
     PREDICTIONS INFLUENCING AGRICULTURE. 131

sterile, was a sufficient reason for the seriousness
of the punishment carried out against this emble-
matical threat. Let us transfer, without any expla-
nation, the  indication of this fact into a different
order of things; the emblem of Scopelism, like that
of salt, would soon be regarded as a physical agent
capable of destroying the earth by rendering it un-
alterably sterile.
   Sterility is known to be the result of natural
causes.   Agriculturists  know  that every perennial
plant with a tap-root, such as the luzerne,* sown
at the foot of young  and delicate trees, injures
their growth, and frequently destroys them.   The
Thaumaturgists were able to collect several ob-
servations of this kind ;  and they thus acquired the
power of predicting the unfruitfulness of trees, and
the barrenness of cornfields, when the imprudence
of the cultivator placed such mischievous neighbors
near useful  vegetables ;  and, as may be supposed,
their  predictions were  frequently fulfilled.   The
parable of the Gospel, which describes tares being
sown in the night among the wheat,  by the enemy
of the proprietor^ evidently  alludes to a known
and even a common delinquency.  No police, and
especially no  rural police, existed among the an-
cient nations; hence every one was the guardian
of his own property.   It was then much  easier
than it  is  at  this day  to  injure a  field already
sown, by treacherously scattering other seed over
it, whether it was expected  that the person thus
acting would profit by the antipathy existing be-
tween diverse plants, or that  the result  would be
the choking of the good grain by the excess of a
useless plant.
  From the judicial avowals of several pretended
     * Medicago laciniata, a native of Syria.—Ed.
     t The Gospel of St. Matthew, chap, xiii., vers. 24-28. 
132 PREDICTIONS INFLUENCING AGRICULTURE.

sorcerers, it appears  that, among the inventions
taught in the Sabbat,  the  composition of powders
for injuring every kind  of crops, for drying up
plants,  and blasting  fruits,*  was included.  All
that has been related by these wretched beings as
to their occupations there, we have considered as
dreams; but as dreams founded upon the recollec-
tion of ancient practices.   To the tradition of the
possibility of the assumed miracle was attached the
idea that it  could still be worked.
   A Chinese  book,t the  antiquity of which is un-
doubted, notices the crime of destroying a tree by
watering it  secretly with poisoned water.  Accord-
ing to ancient traditions, individuals^ envious of the
fertility of their neighbors' fields, threw upon them
a Stygian water! to destroy their fertility.   Theo-
phrastus,  quoted by  St.  Clement of Alexandria,
affirms, that if the shells of beans  are buried among
the  roots of a tree recently planted, the  tree de-
cays^  To obtain a similar result, even to a great
extent, Democritus has directed  that the  roots of
trees should be watered with the juice of the hem-
lock (conium maculatum), in which the flowers of
the  lupine  have  been  steeped.||   I am  ignorant
whether experience has  ever confirmed these as-
sertions ;  but  they indicate  that some efficacious
secret was  concealed under  a veil, more or less
dense,  and that the ancients were not ignorant of
the  existence  of a process capable of destroying
plants and trees.  Recent  experiments have proved
that, to succeed  in procuring such an event, it is

  * Llorente, Histoire de I'Inquisition, tome iii., pp. 440-447.
  t Le Livre des Recompenses et des Peines, translated by M. Stan-
islas Jullien, p. 346.
  X See the Scholiaste of Stace.  in Thebaid., lib. ii., v. 274, verbo
Telchines.
  c) St. Clement, Alexandr. Stromat., lib. iii.
  II Plin., Hist. Nat., lib. xviii., cap. vi. 
       THE  AIR RENDERED  PESTILENTIAL.    133

only necessary to spread upon the soil a combina-
tion of sulphur and lime, in the proportion of fif-
teen parts of the  former to one of the latter; a
combination  which is  found to be formed in the
residue  of the lixivium,  which is used in making
curd soap, and  in the residue of the artificial fabri-
cation of soda.  It is also proved, by daily observa-
tion, that the waters proceeding from coal-pits, and
from the workings of metallic  mines, first change,
and finally destroy vegetation,  upon  every soil
which is watered by them:  and is it not natural to
connect these waters with that Stygian water,  of
which  the Telchines,  a  race celebrated in the art
of  excavating  mines, and  of  working brass and
iron, were accused of employing for so  guilty a
purpose 1  But it matters little, as we have  thus
observed  more than once, whether these mischie-
vous properties were formerly known or discovered
by the founders of modern sorcery : the possibility
of their being  known is unquestionable; and the
belief established among the ancients, and' verified
by the assertions of Theophrastus and Democritus,
is unrefuted, that a natural process was sufficient to
realize this possibility.
  Let  us apply the same reasoning to the terrible
art of rendering the air pestilential.  Natural phe-
nomena were  doubtless, at first, attributed to  the
vengeance of  the gods.  Under the  government
of  Marcus Aurelius, a temple at Seleucia was d?
livered up  to  be plundered;  the  soldiers having
discovered a narrow aperture, entered it, and broke
open a  door  which had been carefully  shut by the
Chaldean priests.  Suddenly there was exhaled a
lethiferous vapor,  the disastrous effects  of which
extended itself to some distance.*  It was, I be-
lieve, a gas similar to that which sometimes escapes
    * Amm. Marcell., lib. xxiii.—Jul. Capitol, in JElio-Vero. 
134    THE  AIR RENDERED  PESTILENTIAL.


from mines, and from deep and deserted wells.*
From two  gulfs, one near  to  the borders  of the
Tigris,  and another situated  near Hierapolis  of
Phrygia, there arises, in the same manner, a vapor
mortal to every  animal that inhales it.t
   According to  a tendency which we have already
noticed, art has  attempted to imitate the modes of"
destruction which nature produces; and,  at differ-
ent periods, certain traces have been found of these
means having been employed as offensive weapons.
In 1804, the French government accused the En-
glish sailors of  having  attempted  to  poison  the
atmosphere of the coasts of Bretagne and of Nor-
mandy, by leaving on shore horns containing burn-
ing nitrate of arsenic.   Several of these horns being
extinguished, they were  collected,  and  their  con-

  * The deleterious gas mentioned in the text must have been
chiefly, if not wholly, carbonic acid gas, which frequently accu-
mulates in old cellars that have been long shut up, especially if
they have contained any fermentable vegetable  matter.  It was
not the fire-damp, or gas exhaled in mines, which consists almost
solely of light carbureted hydrogen, and which  issues from fis-
sures in the beds of coal, and, being light, collects in the upper
part of the mines, owing to deficient ventilation.  This gas is very
explosive when mingled with atmospheric air, and, prior to Sir
Humphry Davy's invention of the safety-lamp, frequently proved
dangerous to miners, when the atmosphere of it sank so low down
in the pit as to be fired by their candles ; but it is not so poison-
ous when breathed as carbonic  acid gas, fixed air, which destroys
life even when mixed with an equal portion of pure atmospheric
air.  Carbonic acid gas causes a sensation of giddiness, ringing
in the ears, dimness of sight, drowsiness, and hurried respiration;
and the debility which also attends it comes on so suddenly, that
the person is unable  to make his escape, and falls down insensi-
ble : hence the dread and horror which it must have  occasioned
in the Roman soldiers, when  their comrades nearest the door
were  immersed in the flood of this gas  which rolled from  the
apartment.  This gas is  also considerably heavier than atmos-
pheric air; and, therefore, when those who fell first were attempt-
ed to be raised by their  companions, the necessity of stooping
would bring them also into the same atmosphere, and  thus in-
crease the  number of victims.   Ignorance would be most likely
to deem their deaths a punishment for the sacrilege.—Ed.
  t Amm. Marcell., lib. xxiii.  The modern bambuk-calasi.—Ed. 
       THE AIR RENDERED PESTILENTIAL.    135

tents having been chemically examined, no doubt
remained of the nature  of the  composition with
which  they  were  charged.*   The  enemies  of
France,  in  this instance, only renewed  and per-
fected  an  invention  which, in Europe, followed
close upon the  invention of cannon.  At that time,
bombs and grenades were filled  with  a powder
prepared for the purpose; and these projectiles,
in bursting, diffused, to a great distance, an odor
so deleterious,  that it proved mortal to all who had
the misfortune  to inhale it.  Paw, who has discov-
ered in an Italian pyrotechnic  the composition of
this offensive powder, recollects  that a trial of it
was made in London  with a  melancholy  result.t
A long time before, if we may believe Strabo,! the
Soanes, not contented with wounding their enemies
with poisoned  weapons,  endeavored  to suffocate,
with poisonous exhalations, those warriors whom
they were unable to strike.  It is evident that this
poisonous  odor developed itself only in the ene-
my's ranks;  for, if such  had not been the  case, it
would have first destroyed the men  who  carried
the weapons which concealed it.  It will be neces-
sary to distinguish these weapons  from  poisoned
arrows, and to  suppose that they were filled with a
composition  similar to the exploding powder; a
composition which acted  either on  the rupture of
the vessel  containing it,  or by the contact  of fire.
As this secret was known by the barbarians of the
Caucasus,  it might have  been also known among
more enlightened nations.  Its nature might have

  * See the newspapers of 1804.
  t Paw, Traite des Fleches empoisonnees (inserted in vol. xii., in
4to., of the translation of  Pliny's' Natural History), pp. 460-470.
Paw calls in question the efficacy of this offensive powder. We
think, with him, that it was trifling, since the use of it was so
speedily abandoned.
  X Strabo, lib. xi. 
136        EARTHttUAKES PREDICTED.
been understood also by the Thaumaturgists, and
have been made the origin of a belief in the appa-
rent miracles which rendered the air pestilential.
  If the iniquity of man can injure the fertility of
the soil  and the salubrity of the air, it is not so
easy for him to  shake  the  earth, and to cause
mountains  to roll upon the people, whom his ha-
tred has devoted to destruction.  But if signs which
escape  the observation  of the  unobserving vulgar
warn him of the approach of some great convulsion
of nature,  and if he  dares  to  predict it,  whether
with the intention of calling his fellow-creatures to
prevent the sad consequences of the event, or to
induce them to see in it the effects of the vengeance
of the  gods, what glory and what power will be
his share, when the event shall have confirmed his
prediction !
   Iamblichus* attributes the possession of this won-
derful sagacity to Pythagoras, to Abaris, to Epi-
menides, and  to Empedocles.  At a much later
period, in the thirteenth century of our era, a monk,
wishing to persuade  the Emperor Andronicus to
recall the patriarch St. Athanasius, threatened him
with divers scourges, and, among others, with that
of  an  earthquake; and three days  had  scarcely
elapsed when many shocks, not indeed dangerous,
were felt in Constantinople.t
   Is  it  necessary to reject this recital,  and  the
assertion of Iamblichus;  and should  we forget
that Pherecydes, the first master of Pythagoras, in
tasting, or only in looking at the water drawn from
a well,  announced to the inhabitants of Samos an
approaching earthquake 1%  or ought we,  with Ci-

  * Iamblich., Vit. Pythagor., lib. i., cap. xxviii.
  t Pachymer., lib. x., cap. xxxiv.
  X Diogen.  Laert. in  Pherecyd.—Plin., Hist. Nat., lib. ii., cap.
lxxix.—Maxim. Tyr., Dissertat. iii., $. v.—Cicer., De Divinat., lib 
EARTH QUAKES  PREDICTED.        137
cero, to reply, that the thing is impossible ?   Thu-
cydides was enabled  to discover the connection
that exists  between volcanic fermentations and
earthquakes ;  and the appearance of water, gener-
ally pure and clear,  becoming  suddenly  muddy
and. sulphurous,  was  sufficient to enable him  to
foresee the phenomenon which he predicted.  In
1693, at Bologna, in Italy, the waters became muddy
on  the eve  of an earthquake.*   This observation
is not singular : the water of several wells became
equally muddy a few  days before the earthquake
which  was felt in Sicily in the month of February,
1818.t  The symptoms of the approaching  disas-
ter might even appear much  sooner.  There was
an  eruption of a volcano at the summit  of Mount
Galoungoun, in the island of Java, on the 8th of
October, 1822.   In  the preceding month of July,
the waters of the Tji-Kounir, a river which rises in
the same mountain, were seen to become  troubled;
they had a bitter taste, and exhaled a sulphureous
odor;  and a whitish scum! settled upon the legs
of  travelers who forded  the river  at that  time.
The prophecy of Pherecydes, founded  upon  ob-
servations  of  a similar description, was  that of a
sage, and not of  an impostor.
   From the passage quoted  from Iamblichus,  it
maybe concluded, that the art of foreseeing earth-
quakes was common among the first masters  of
the Pythagorean school.  It must  have  been  a
portion of the secret science among the ancients.

i., cap. 1.—Iamblichus (Vit. Pythag., lib. i., cap. xxviii.) attributes
this prediction to Pythagoras.
  * Histoire de I'Academie des Sciences, ann'ee 1696.—Buffon, Hist.
Nat.—Preuves de la Theorie de la Terre, art. xi.
  t Agathino Longo, Memoire Historique et Physique sur le Trem-
blement de Terre, tfc.—Bibliotheca Italiana, September, 1818.—Bib-
liotheque Univ. Sciences, tome ix., p. 263.
  X Bulletin de la Societe de Geographic, tome xii., p. 204. 
138        EARTHQUAKES PREDICTED
Pausanias, who believed  these  phenomena to be
the effect of the wrath of the gods, enumerated,
however, the signs which preceded and announced
them.*  Pliny adds to the indication of these signs,
the number of which he  does not omit to reckon,
the fetor and  the  change  of color  of the water
of the neighboring wells.   He  also  discusses the
proper  methods  of preventing  the return of the
scourge, and advances  the  plausible opinion, that
they may sometimes succeed, by digging very deep
wells in those countries where it has been felt.t
   Let us suppose, that, in the island of Hayti, a
strange population were to establish  itself.  While
living under the  most beautiful  sky,  and in the
midst of productions of a fruitful and rather prodi-
gal soil, let us  imagine that a subterraneous noise,
a tremendous  sound, should  occur to  alarm their
minds, and that the chief who conducted the colony
to this  shore,  assembles  them  together.  Let us
then  suppose that he announces  to  them that the
gods, irritated  with their want of submission to his
commands, are going to shake  the earth from the
depths  of the  valleys to the summits of the hills.
They would, probably, laugh at a prediction that
appeared to belie the  universal  tranquillity; and
they  would give themselves  up to indifference, to
pleasure, and  to  sleep.  But suddenly the threat
is accomplished in all its  horror.   The terrified
population  simultaneously  prostrate  themselves,
and  the chief is triumphant.  How often will not
this  phenomenon  be renewed before experience
teaches what  at this day is known  by the most
ignorant of the blacks, that the noise known by the
name of Gouffre, is  a presage, as natural as  it is
certain, of an approaching earthquake, and not the
         * Pausanias, Achaic, cap. xxiv,
         t Plin., Hist. Nat.,Mb. ii., cap. lxxxi., lxxxii, 
EARTHQUAKES PREDICTED.         139
voice of an angry god, nor the  announcement of
his inevitable revenge!
  It was a subterraneous noise of a particular kind
which announced to a Peruvian observer the earth-
quake which desolated  Lima in  1828,* and led
him to predict it four months before it occurred.
  Nine lusters before the above period, a similar
prediction had proved the perspicuity of a French
scholar.   In 1782,  M. Cadet, of Metz, observed
very thick sulphureous  vapors over all the plain
which serves as a basis to Calabria.  He concluded,
from this appearance, that the country was threat-
ened with  an  earthquake, and publicly predicted
the  disaster, which took  place at  the commence-
ment of 1785.f
  About the same time, a subterraneous road was
dug through the Alpine  mountains, called Tenda,
with the intention of opening a direct communica-
tion between Piedmont and the province of Nice:
the nature of the mountain rendered the soil easily
penetrable to the filtration  of waters.   The same
scholar announced the  fast approaching  falling
in  of the  subterraneous passage,  and solicited
the  suspension of the works;  but  the engineers
did  not dream  of  profiting  by his counsels un-
til  the event proved  how well his fears had been
founded.!
  * M. de Vidaurre.  This scholar revived the opinion of Pliny
regarding the possibility of preventing earthquakes by digging
very deep wells. See the Moniteur Universel, No. for August 27,
1828.
  t  The notes in  which he had consigned his prediction were
added to the archives of an agricultural society, founded in Cor-
sica by the intendant, M. de Boucheporn.  The latter, writing in
April 23, 1783, to  M. Joli de Fleury, then minister, recalls the
prediction of M. Cadet, with details  much anterior to  the  event.
M. Denon also recalls it in a letter addressed to M. Cadet, dated
April 19, 1783.
  X M. Cadet, of Metz, Histoire Naturelle de la Corse, note aa, pp.
138-147, 
140   PREDICTIONS FROM  METEOROLOGY.

  Anaximander* foretold to the Lacedaemonians a
subterranean concussion, and the fall of the Peak
of Taygetes ;  doubtless his foresight depended on
the observation of analogous symptoms  as to the
nature of the  soil, as well as of phenomena which
were the precursors of an earthquake.   Anaximan-
der, Pherecydes, the  Peruvian observer, and our
own countryman, were only philosophers;  but had
any one of them been a soothsayer, the adoration
for  the Thaumaturgist would  have succeeded to
the esteem for the sage.
                CHAPTER VII.
Meteorology.—The Art of foreseeing Rain, Storms, and the Direc-
  tion of the Winds ; this is converted, in the Minds of the Vul-
  gar, into the Power of granting or refusing Rain and favorable
  Winds.—Magical Ceremonies for conjuring a Hail-storm.
  Difficult  to be foreseen, and followed by re-
sults  still  more difficult  to  be repaired, are the
crumbling of mountains, earthquakes, and all great
convulsions of nature ;  but  they are happily rare.
Such is  not  the case, however, with many atmos-
pheric phenomena, attendant upon  the course of
the seasons, the months, and the days ;  phenomena,
the occurrence, the repetition, and the variation of
which promise to mankind  enjoyments  or priva-
tions, and the laws regulating which, although for-
merly inscrutable, have yet been at length partially
revealed to persevering and reflective  observation.
The knowledge which has been acquired on this
subject constitutes  meteorology; a  branch  of sci-
ence destitute of fixed principles, and  without par-
  * Plin., Hist. Nat., lib. ii., cap. lxxviii.—Cicer., De Divinat. lib.
i., cap. i.  Anaximander was a Milesian, a disciple of Thales.and
a consummate mathematician for the period in which he lived.—
Ed. 
         PREDICTIONS FROM METEOROLOGY.     141


ticular truths, but which has been, in all ages, most
powerful in acting  on the credulity of mankind.*
It influences the  fate of the labors of the  year; of
the subsistence of the morrow, or that of to-day ;
and,  stimulated  by  present  sufferings, or by anx-
iety for the future, the curiosity which awakens the
desire  to know what may be expected from atmos-
pheric   phenomena becomes  excusable  to  man,
when we consider  his  hopelessness, the intensity
of his fears, and the excess of his gratitude  under
such  circumstances.  Every menace would be  list-
ened to with religious  submission;  and  all  prog-
nostics  that call for salutary precautions  against
great disasters, or, in  pressing urgency, reanimate
almost extinguished hope, would be hailed as ce-
lestial inspirations.t

  * The limited extent of information in meteorology, and the
laws which regulate aerial phenomena and perturbations, is mor-
tifying to the pride of science.   When atmospheric  changes oc-
cur of a violent and desolating  nature, man becomes conscious
how little he is acquainted with their causes; and how inadequate
his means are even to shield himself from the fury  of elements
which he can not control.  He is forced to tremble upon his hearth,
the slave to the apprehension of  anticipated evil; and, powerless,
to await  the spontaneous lulling  of the sweeping tempest and the
driving hurricane.  It is, however, gratifying to know  that, of
late years, some  progress has been made in the  philosophy of
storms ;  and we must, therefore, hope that a more effectual inves-
tigation into the origin and laws of these  overwhelming disturb-
ers of atmospheric quiet, may lead to some practical means of
evading  their  fury, and  foretelling their  approach.  Some pro-
gress,  indeed, has been made in the latter: for example, in the
hurricane which desolated Barbadoes in 1831, Mr. Simons, of St.
Vincent, before it reached that island in its passage  from Barba-
does, observed a threatening cloud in the north, of an olive-green
color,  which indicated an approaching aerial conflict.  He has-
tened home, and, by nailing up his doors and windows, saved his
habitation from the general calamity.  If the power of predicting
atmospheric conflicts formerly existed, when ignorance  contem-
plated every acquirement which was- not universal as a direct
gift from Heaven, we can scarcely wonder that those who pos-
sessed meteorological knowledge were regarded as little less than
divinities.—Ed.      x
  t Many valuable observations on the statistics and philosophy 
142    PREDICTIONS FROM  METEOROLOGY.
    " The cape of Good Hope is famous for its tem-
 pests and for the singular cloud that precedes them;
 this cloud  appears at first like a little round spot
 in the sky; and sailors call it the bull's-eye.  In
 the land  of Natal, a little cloud also forms itself
 like the bull's-eye of the cape of Good Hope, and
 from this cloud there seems to issue a terrible wind
 that produces the same effects.  Near the coast of
 Guinea, storms  are also announced  like those of
 the  cape  of Good Hope, by a small, black cloud;
 while the rest of the heaven is usually very serene,
 and the sea calm."*  Is it requisite  to direct the
 attention  of the reader to the consideration of the
 marvelous predictions produced by the knowledge
 of these symptoms of approaching storms, and the
 astonishment  thereby  created among men who
 could have no cognizance -of them ; or ask him if
 he would  be astonished at Anaxagoras and Demo-
 critus in  Greece,  and  Hipparchus  at Rome, all
 three accustomed,  no  doubt, by observation, to
 judge of the state of the atmosphere, having in fine
 weather predicted abundant rains,  which of course,
 when they fell, justified thfe clear-sightedness of the
 three naturalists ?t   When a drought  had lasted
 a long time in Arcadia, the priest of Jupiter Ly-
 caeus addressed prayers and  offered a sacrifice to

 of storms are contained in  the treatises of Lieutenant-Colonel
 Reid, of the Royal Engineers; and those of Mr. William C. Red-
 field, of New-York; and there is much reason for hoping that
 the foundation having been laid by these able observers, a super-
 structure may be raised, honorable to science  and practically
 beneficial to the human race.—Ed.
  * Buffon^Hist Nat. Preuves de la Theorie de la Terre, art. xv.
  t Plm., Hist. Nat.,hb. xviii  cap. xxviii.—Diogen. Laert. in
 lhalet.—Cicer., De Divinat., lib. 1., cap. iii.—Aristot., Polit., lib.
l., cap. 11.  Hipparchus was an astronomer, who flourished be-
tween the 154th and 163d Olympiads.   He predicted the times of
eclipses, discovered a new star, and also the precession of the
equinoxes, and the parallax of the planets.  After a life of labor
in the cause of science, he died 123 b.c.__Ed. 
        PREDICTIONS FROM  METEOROLOGY.    143

the fountain Hagno; and then toucned the surface
of the water with an oak branch.   Suddenly there
arose a vapor, a mist, and a cloud, which soon dis-
solved into abundant rain.   The priest, no doubt,
did not attempt to operate  the assumed miracle
until promising  circumstances guarantied success.
Thus, in modern Europe, the priests never carry
the shrines or  images  of saints in procession, or
order solemn prayers for  the  restoration  of fair
weather or for rain, until they are able to reckon
on the near approach of the one or the other.
  Many atmospheric phenomena exercise so great
an influence on agricultural labors, that to the art
of foreseeing the one is naturally joined the hope
and the possibility of divining  the  success of the
other.*   There is nothing  at all improbable in a
fact related by Democritus and Thales, who, it is
said, were able to foretell what would be the prod-
uce of  the olive-trees.   These philosophers  only
made use of their success to prove to the detractors
of study how  science  might lead to wealth.   If
they had pretended, however, that heaven had re-
vealed  its  secrets to them, they would have been
listened to with greater admiration.   Science, cul-
tivated  by the followers of learning, or  by the dis-
ciples  of the priesthood, has been able to extend
its foresight still further ; and, consequently, obser-
vations  on the habitual course of  the  winds  and
tides  of certain latitudes, would enable either an

  * Simple observation alone is often sufficient to enable such
predictions to be successfully advanced.  Sir Isaac Newton, one
fine morning, taking an accustomed ride, was accosted by a cow-
herd, and assured that he would soon be overtaken by a shower.
As the sky was cloudless and the sun brilliant, Sir Isaac disre-
garded the remark and rode on ; but, before he had proceeded far,
a heavy shower fell. The philosopher immediately rode back to
ascertain the foundation of the prediction.  " Well, sir," replied
the countryman, " all I know about it  is this—my cow always
twirls her tail in a particular way before a shower."—Ed. 
144    METEOROLOGY  AN AID  TO MAGIC.

oracle or a philosopher to announce the success or
unfortunate issue of a voyage.  Thus, in the pres-
ent day, such  issues have been  predicted many
years previously, by anticipating what obstacle the
movement, which carries  the icebergs  to the east
or to  the west would oppose to  the attempts of
navigators  to reach the Arctic Pole; and that as
long a time as they would take for sailing from the
west  to the east would be  required also for  the
voyage.  But to an ignorant people, only  accus-
tomed to regard the physical  sciences environed
by the  marvelous,  these circumspect  announce-
ments of learned foresight would not have sufficed;
in order to satisfy impatient desire, it was, there-
fore, necessary to transform these prognostics into
positive assurances.  Thus the priests of Samoth-
race* promised to those who came to consult them
favorable winds and a happy voyage.  If the prom-
ise was not realized, it was easy to exculpate the
divinity, by alledging (whatever might  have been
the faults of the candidate, or the harm done to his
boat) that he was  guilty of some crime, or, what
was worse,  some want  of faith.
   The Druidesses of the isle of Sena also pretend-
ed to the power  of appeasing waves and winds ;f
and, doubtless, it was  by the  same  artifice they
preserved their title to infallibility.
   Empedocles and Iamblichus only repeated  the
language of the temples, when  the one, in his ver-
ses, boasted of being able to teach the art  of en-
chaining or loosing the winds, exciting the tem-
pest, and  calming the  heavens;! while the other

  * Samothrace is situated on the Thraeian coast, and peopled
by Pelasgians.   It was so celebrated for its mysteries, that it ob-
tained the name of sacred; and its  shrines were resorted to by
pilgrims from every country.—Ed.
  t Pomponius Mela, lib. iii., cap. vi.
  X Diogen.Laert..libviii.,cap.lix.—St. Clem., Alex. Stromat.,]iby. 
METEOROLOGY  AN  AID  TO  MAGIC.    145
ascribes to Abaris and Pythagoras a power no less
extended.*
  Such promises were too flattering to  credulity
not to be  taken in the  most literal  sense.   Con-
trary winds were, at Ulysses' return, shut up in a
leather bottle  by vEolus, and liberated by the im-
prudent companions of the hero.   The Laplanders
believe that their magicians possess  the power at-
tributed by Homer to the  god of the winds.  Do
not let us mock their ignorance; at least, it does
not render them unjust or cruel.
  The belief  that endowed the adepts of philoso-
phy with  the  power  of arresting and enchaining
the  winds,  existed in  the  fourth  century, even
among men enlightened by Christian knowledge.
Constantinople, incumbered with  an immense pop-
ulation, suffered from famine.   Vessels  freighted
with corn were stopped  at the entrance  of the
straits; they  could  only  pass  them by a  south
wind, and they still awaited this propitious gale.
Jealous of the favors which the philosopher  Sopa-
tert received from Constantine,  the  courtiers ac-
cused him of having enchained the winds, and
caused  the famine;  and  the weak  emperor had
him put to the torture, and murdered-!   It matter-
ed  little  whether the denouncers themselves be-
lieved in  the truth of the accusation ; it is clear
that  the  prince and  the people regarded the thing
as possible, and as a fact of which many examples
were already known.
   We shall no longer doubt this, when we find that

  * Iamblich , Vit. Pythagor., lib. i., cap. xxviii.
  t Sopater was  a native of Apamea, and like his master, Iambli-
 chus, pretended  to possess supernatural powers; so that, in some
 degree, he may be considered as having brought his death upon
 hi?SuwTjverbo Sopater.-Fhotius, Bibliothec, cod. cli.-Euna-
 pius in jEdcsio.-Sozomen, Hist. Eccles., lib. i., cap. v.
      II.                K                     » 
146    METEOROLOGY AN AID  TO MAGIC.

in the eighth and ninth centuries, among the number
of magicians  proscribed by Charlemagne,  some
were designated by the name of tempestarii, or
those who regulated storms,  tempests, and hail.*
  Did this superstitious  belief, and  the  agitation
excited by  it everywhere,  disappear  before the
progress of  civilization 1  We believe not. On
one  occasion, when  excessive  rains were unpro-
pitious to the labors, and destroyed the hopes, of
the  agriculturist,  the long  continuation  of  these
evils were attributed by the multitude to the sor-
ceries of a woman who had arrived in the country
to exhibit the spectacle, a hundred times repeated,
of an aerostatic ascension.  This persuasion spread
and acquired so much force that the aeronaut was
obliged to take  precautions for  her safety,  or to
run the risk of being burned alive by men  about
as enlightened as those  who formerly applauded
the  murder of Sopater.   Who, we  may inquire,
were these men 1   They were  peasants in the en-
virons of Brussels, and the inhabitants  of  the town
itself; and the date of the event was so recent as
1828.t   The same case may  again occur in another
century, or in three  centuries hence, or as long as
those, who, pretending  to the  exclusive  right of
instructing the people, make them believe  in magic
and sorcery.  Those who have  accorded to the
wonder-worker  the  power  of  inflicting  plagues,
attributed to them, with not  more reason, that of
being able to cure those  produced by  nature.  In
order to confirm an opinion so favorable  to  their
credit, it is only necessary to* remark, that the pos-
sessors of sacred science have disguised more than

  * De Auguriis et alfis Maleficiis.—Capitul., lib. i., cap. Ixxxiii.
(12mo., Paris, 1588.)  See also Ducange, Glossar., verb. Tempes-
tarii— Tempestuarii.
  t Le Moniteur Universel of the 23d August, 1828. 
METEOROLOGY  AN  AID TO  MAGIC.     147
once the most simple operations  under a magical
veil.
  They  ordered, for example, the  husbandman
who desired that in the season his fruit-trees should
be laden with fruit, to cover  them with a band of
straw on the night celebrated by the Polytheists as
the renewing  of the  invincible sun; and  in  the
Christian Church, as the coming of our Savior,* the
night when the sun, supposed to  be enchained for
ten days by  the winter solstice, begins to arise
again toward the equator, and  on which we often
find cold suddenly and intensely  developed.  Ex-
perience has proved that this  precaution will effect-
ually protect trees from the hurtful effects of frost.
  In the present day, natural physics are consulted
for preservatives against hail : magic formerly was
consulted  for  that purpose.   The inhabitants of
Cleone in  the Argolide, imagined  they could dis-
tinguish,  from  the  appearance  of  the sky, the
approach of frost that would  endanger their crops ;
and  immediately they endeavored,  by  offering
sacrifices to the gods, to avert the evil :t other na-
tions sang sacred hymns for this purpose.!   These
were only acts of piety; like the secret taught by
some theologians to avert the hail supposed to be
conjured by witchcraft, which consisted in making
signs of the cross, and such long continued prayers,
that, in  the interval, the rain might  have  time to
cease.§
   But, in  ancient Greece, men  pretended to obtain
by enchantments|| what elsewhere was only asked
through the mercy of Heaven.fl  Pausanias  even
  * Fromann, Tract, de Fascionatione, pp. 341, 342.
  t Senec, Queest. Nat., lib. iv., cap. vi.
  X Carmina.—Plin., Hist. Nat., lib. xxviii., cap. ii.
  6 Wierius, De Prcestigiis Daemon., lib. iv., cap. xxxii.
  (1 St. Justin, Quasst. et Respons. ad  Orthodox, qucest. 31.
  f The inhabitants of Methana, in Argolis, when a strong south 
148     METEOROLOGY  AN AID TO  MAGIC.


declares that he  himself  witnessed the successful
issue of their magical operations.*   Until positive
experience has proved  the still doubtful efficacy of
the paragreles.t we shall think that if the men who
boasted of  success  of  this  kind have  sometimes
appeared to obtain  it, hail would  not  have  fallen
whether they had recourse or not to magical cere-
monies for  conjuring  it.   It  is  not undesignedly
that we place modern  attempts  and  ancient opin-
ions in juxtaposition.   In  the eighth century, they
hoped to avert hail  and  storms  by pointing long
poles toward the skies.   This measure reminds us
of what  was  recently  proposed,  and,  fifty  years
ago,  was accredited by Berthollon, the naturalist.


east wind blew up  the Saronic Gulf, defended  themselves from
it  by the following spell.  They  took a white cock, and having
cut the  bird in halves, two  men seized  each a part, and then,
standing back to back, started off in opposite directions, made the
tour of the vineyard, and  returning whence they set  out, buried
the remains in the earth.  After this the  wind  might blow as it
listed, since it possessed no power to injure any man's property
within the consecrated circle.—Pausan.,  ii., 34, 2, quoted in St.
John's History of the Customs, c\c, of Greece, vol. ii., p. 339.
  * Pausanias, Corinthiac, cap. xxxiv.
  t In a Report read to the Academie des  Sciences, in 1826, their
efficacy  is represented as somewhat doubtful.  These  instru-
ments, more properly  called paragrandines, are intended to avert
hail-storms ; and, according to Seignior Antonio Perotti and  Dr.
Astolfi, they have succeeded in averting hail as efficiently as con-
ductors in obviating danger from lightning.  Seignior Perotti re-
ports that, having  fixed up several of them on a piece  of land
containing sixteen thousand perches, both his corn and his vines
were protected, although fourteen hail-storms had occurred in the
current year, which did great mischief in the neighboring fields;
and in an official notice to the government of Milan, by the gon-
faloniere of St. Pietro, in  Casale, a very favorable account, also,
is given  of these protectors from hail.   They are formed of metal-
lic points and straw ropes, bound together  with hempen or flaxen
threads.   If we admit that the ancients were acquainted with the
use of lightning conductors, we may imagine that they were also
aware of the value of the paragrandines, and  employed them.
The protection from  the  effects of hail of certain fields by their
means might have been readily passed off  as the result of super-
natural influence.—Ed. 
        METEOROLOGY AN AID  TO  MAGIC.     149

But, as at the  end  of the  poles just mentioned,
pieces of paper inscribed with magical characters
were affixed, the custom seemed to be tainted with
sorcery, and was consequently proscribed by Char-
lemagne.
  Did the sorcerers  of that age, then, we may in-
quire, only  revive  the  belief,  and,  perhaps, the
practice,  adopted  in preceding ages %  We may
certainly  reply in the negative.   But  what appears
decided to us is, that processes, tending to the same
ends,  were  very anciently  described, written in
hieroglyphics ;  and what is still more remarkable,
they gave rise to an  error already exposed by us*
The ignorant  man,  deceived by these  emblems,
imagined that by imitating, Well or ill, what they
represented, he should obtain the effect  procured
by  the success  of  the  prescription  which  they
served to disguise.   We may thus explain two very
ridiculous examples  of  Tuscan ceremonies, that,
according to Columella,t the husbandmen, instruct-
ed  by experience, employed  to appease violent
winds, and  calm  the tempest.   Gaffarel furnishes
us with a third example, in a magical secret, sup-
posed to  be efficacious in averting hail-!   It is the
height of absurdity; yet,  such is  the  point  to
which man's credulity will ever conduct him, that
whenever the results of science only, without  its
principles, are presented to him, and displayed  as

  *  See chap, viii., vol. i.
  t  Columella, lib. x., vers.  341-345.   Further on the author
 mentions a plan, probably efficacious for preserving the  seed in
 the ground from the approach of insects.  It is the employment
 of a mixture of the juice of bitter plants with the grain, together
 with the lees of ashes.   (Ibid., vers.  351—356.)   But directly
 after this,  he  relates a  ridiculous secret for  destroying cater-
 pillars—a'secret which the same author (lib. xi., sub. finem) pre-
 tended was taught by Democritus, but which  is probably only a
 hieroglyphic put into practice.
   X Gaffarel, Curiosites inouies, chap, vu., § i. 
150         ELECTRICAL  PHENOMENA
the effects of supernatural power, and not as the
ideas acquired  by the  union of reason  and  expe-
rience, he believes and confides  in  the apparent
miracle.
                CHAPTER VIII.
The Art of drawing Lightning from the  Clouds.—Medals and
  Traditions that indicate the Existence of that Art in Antiquity.
  —Disguised under the Name of the Worship of Jupiter Elicius
  and  of Zeus  Cataibates, it was known to Numa and many
  others among  the Ancients.—The Imitators of Thunder made
  Use of it.—It may be traced from Prometheus ; it explains the
  Fable of  Salmonious ; it was known to the Hebrews, and the
  Construction of the Temple of Jerusalem is a Proof of this.—
  Zoroaster made Use of it to light the Sacred Fire, and oper-
  ate in the Initiation of his Followers :  his Experiments and
  Miracles.—If the Chaldeans possessed the Secret, it was after-
  ward lost among them.—There existed  some Traces of it in
  India in Ctesias's time.—Wonders resembling those performed
  through this Art, which, however, may be otherwise explained.
  Of  all scourges  that alarm  men for the pres-
ervation  of their wealth and  their lives,  the  most
fearful, although, perhaps, the  least destructive, is
thunder.   The fiery clouds—the  roaring wind—
the shaking  earth—the dazzling  lightning—long
peals  of  rolling thunder—or, suddenly, a frightful
crash, presaging the fall of celestial fire, redoubled
in the distance by  the  mountain  echoes—all are
so conducive in  producing terror, that  even the
frequent  repetition of these phenomena  does not
at all familiarize us with them, nor lessen the alarm
of the multitude.   Realizing every  thing that  a
poetic imagination  can picture, and the  menaces
threatened  by  the priesthood,  they are  the  most
imposing  of all the  signs of  divine  wrath, and
in addition,  they always  present  to the  ignorant
the direct feeling that heaven  is  warring  against
earth.
  Trembling man  will  supplicate  the gods, and 
EMPLOYED  IN MAGIC.
151
appeal to those privileged mortals whom the gods
have deigned to instruct, in order to avert from his
head this instrument of terror.   The miracle which
he would demand has  been  performed  by the ge-
nius of the eighteenth century ;*  but, we may ask,
was it known to the ancients 1
  At first  sight  it seems  absurd  to admit such  a
supposition; for  we  are  aware  how little the  an-
cients were in general acquainted with  electricity.
The horse of Tiberius, at  Rhodes, we are told,
threw off sparks when  strongly rubbed by  the
hand ; and another horse is mentioned  as being
endowed  with the same faculty.   The' father of
Theodoric, and many others, had  observed it on
their  own bodies :t yet these  simple  facts  were
ranked  among  prodigies.   We  may also call to
remembrance  the superstitious  terrors  that were
formerly awakened by the fire of St. Elmo shining
on  the masts of ships, and  the  place the appari-
tions  of light evidently held among the histories of
supernatural events ; to these proofs of  ignorance,
we may add the  absurd belief in  the  pretended
  *  Admitting that the ancients were acquainted with the means
of drawing lightning from the clouds, the .merit of  the invention
of protecting our dwellings from its direful influence is not the
less due to Dr. Franklin.  That philosopher, having demonstrated
the identity of lightning and electricity, and  that  metals are its
best conductors, recommended that pointed metallic rods should
be raised  some feet above the highest point of any building, and
continued down into the ground, as the  best mode of securing
the safety of the edifice during thunder-storms.  The pointed
rods attract the lightning, which then passes along  their surfaces,
and is thus carried into the earth, instead of being scattered upon
the building on which they are erected.—Ed.
  t Damascius in Isidor. Vit. apud Phot. Biblioth., cod. 242.  " In
winter, at Stockholm, the accumulation of animal electricity is
quite perceptible; a great quantity is visibly discharged when
people  undress in a warm apartment."—James's Travels in Ger-
many and Sweden.—Nouvelles Annates des Voyages, tome xxxv.,
p. 13.   I have often, adds our author, made the same observation
at Geneva ; and the Editor has done so, in this country, on draw-
ing off silk stockings in a dark room. 
152         ELECTRICAL  PHENOMENA
preservatives against lightning.   T arch on, in order
to guard against thunder-strokes, as he terms them,
surrounded  his dwelling with the white bryony.*
Here, however, a legitimate suspicion is aroused.
Tarchon, the disciple of the mysterious Tages—
Tarchon, the founder of the Theurgism  of the an-
cient Etruscans, might very probably have alledged
the efficacy  of these ridiculous means, in order to
enable him  more effectually  to conceal the true
secret that  preserved  his  habitation and temple
from lightning.  A similar stratagem has, perhaps,
been  the reason why  the property of averting
lightning was attributed to the laurels that sur-
rounded the temple of Apollo—a virtue regarded
as real, in  spite  of the evidence throughout all
antiquity to the  contrary,  and  which caused the
laurel to  be consecrated, until nearly our own time,
in all poetical language.
   The same may be alledged of the apparitions of
light, of which ancient histories  discourse. All can
not  be false;  all can not be accidental.  We can
produce all  these brilliant phenomena in the pres-
ent day : is  it wise, therefore,  we may ask, to deny
that  other ages  have possessed the power of pro-
ducing them l  To balance the  reasons for doubt-
ing, we may oppose many  other reasons in favor
of the  supposition.   We will not argue from the
numerous traditions  on the art  of  turning away
thunder.  Neither will we scrutinize  the origin of
the religious precept that ordered the Esthonians
   * Columella, lib. x., vers. 346, 347.  In Hindostan, the property
of averting thunder is attributed to certain plants; and this is
the reason these plants are seen on all the houses. The white
bryony, bryonia alba, is a common weed in the hedgerows and
the woods in the south of Europe, as well as in Hindostan.  It is
a  climbing  plant,  with five-lobed,  angular, cordate leaves, with
callosities on both sides.  The flowers are unisexual on the same
plant, and the  fruit berries of a black color in clusters.  It pos-
sesses acrid and purgative properties.—Ed, 
EMPLOYED IN MAGIC.           153
to close their doors and windows whenever  there
was a thunder-storm, " for fear of allowing the evil
spirit that God was then pursuing to enter."*  This
precept reminds us  of the belief, not unfounded,
that a  current of air,  especially humid air, will
attract and conduct  the  thunder-explosion.   But
what is the reason of another precept, which  com-
manded this people  to place two  knives  on the
window-ledge, in  order  to dispel  lightningH
Whence arose the immemorial habit in the dis-
trict of Lesneven,!  of placing a  piece  of iron,
during a thunder-storm, in the nests of hens that
are sitting 1   Practices of this  nature, when ob-
served in only  one place, ai*e of little importance;
but when they are found in places  at considerable
distances from one another, and among nations who
have had no communication with each other, it is
almost sufficient to prove that the science that dic-
tated them was anciently possessed  by men who
carried instruction among these different nations.
"In the castle  of Duino (says P. Imperati, a writer
of the seventeenth century)  there  was a very an-
cient custom of proving lightning.   The sentinel
approached  an iron pike,  or a bar of iron, erected
upon the  wall, and  the  moment he perceived  a
spark, he  rang the  alarm-bell,  to  warn the shep-
herds  to  retire to their homes."   In the fifteenth
century,  St. Bernardin,  of  Sienna, § reprobated,
as superstitious, the  precaution  used in all ages of
fixing a naked sword on the mast of a  vessel to
avert the tempest.

   * Debray,  on the Prejudices  and Superstitions of the Livo-
nians, Lethonians, and Esthonians.—Nouvelles Annales des Voy-
ages, tome xviii., p. 123.                       t Ibid.
   X Department of Finistere.—Cambry, Voyage dans le Depart-
ment du Finistere,  tome ii., pp. 16, 17.
   c) St. Bernardin was born at  Massa,  in 1380, and died at the
 same place, in 1444.—Ed. 
154         ELECTRICAL PHENOMENA
   M.la Boessiere, in a learned commentary, whence
I have taken these two last quotations, and in which
he discusses the knowledge  of the  ancients in the
art of conjuring and dispelling lightning,* speaks
of many medals that are apparently connected with
his subject.  One of them, described by Duchoul,
represents the temple of Juno, the goddess  of the
air: the roof that covers it is  armed with pointed
blades of swords.   The  other, described and en-
graved by Pellerin, bears,  as its legend, Jupiter
Elicius.  The god appears  with lightning  in hia
hand, while below  is a man  who is  directing a fly-
ing stag.  But we  must remark,  that the authen-
ticity of this medal is suspicious.  Other medals,
also,  described by  Duchoul in  his work on the
religion of the Romans, bear  the inscription XV,
 Viri Sacris faciundis, and the  figure of a fish, with
bristly spikes, lying on a globe or partera.  M. la
Boessiere thinks that a fish, thus armed with points,
on a globe, was the conductor  employed by  Numa
to attract the clouds of electric fire.   And, putting
together the image of that globe, with  that of a
head  covered with bristly hairs, they afford  an in-
genious  and plausible explanation of the singular
dialogue between Numa  and  Jupiter, related by
Valerius Antius, and ridiculed  by Arnobe, without
probably either of them  comprehending its  mean-
ing.t   The history of the knowledge possessed by
Numa in natural physics merits  more  particular
examination.!
  * Notice sur les  Travaux de t'Academie du Gard, from 1812 to
1821, Nismes, 1822, 1st part, pp. 304-313.  The paper of M.la
Boessiere, read in 1811, was only published in  1822.
  t Arnob., lib. v.
  X Numa was more of a  philosopher than  a king, and cultivated
science long after he was  invested with  the imperial purple. Al-
though a pagan, yet he had the wisdom to dissuade the Romans
from worshiping the deity through images, on which account no
statues nor paintings of the gods appeared in the Roman temples 
EMPLOYED BY  MAGICIANS.        155
  In an age when lightning made frequent devas-
tation, Numa, instructed, we are told, by the nymph
Egeria, attempted to propitiate it (Fulmen piare) ;
that is to say, setting aside  the figurative style, to
put in practice the means of rendering it less mis-
chievous.   He  succeeded in  intoxicating Faunus
and Picus,  whose names probably are used to des-
ignate the priests of the Etruscan divinities, from
whom he learned the secret of making Jupiter, the
Thunderer, descend upon earth: and he immedi-
ately  put it into execution.   From this time Jupi-
ter  Elicius was worshiped in  Rome*
  Here the veil of mystery is too transparent not
to be  seen  through.  To render lightning less hurt-
ful, and to  make it descend without danger from
the  bosom of the clouds, was, both in effect and in
end, obtained by Franklin's beautiful discovery, as
well as by the religious experiment repeated many
times  with  success by Numa.  Tullus  Hostilius
was less fortunate.   " They  relate," says  Titus
Livy,  t " that this prince, when perusing the notes
left by Numa, found among  them some instructions
on the secret sacrifices offered to Jupiter Elicius.
He attempted to repeat them; but, in his prepara-
tions for or celebration of them, he deviated from
the sacred rite;  and being  thus exposed to the
anger of Jupiter, aroused by a defective ceremony
{sollicitati prdva religione), he was struck by light-
ning,  and consumed in his own palace."
  An ancient annalist, quoted by Pliny, explains
this event much more explicitly, and justifies the
liberty I have taken in deviating from  the sense
for upward of one hundred years.   He nevertheless imposed
upon their credulity, and flattered  their superstitious prejudices
in many respects.—Ed.
  *  Ovid, Fast., lib. iii., vers. 285-345.—Arnob., lib. v.
  t  Tit. Liv., lib. i., cap. xxxi.—Plin., Hist. Nat., lib. ii., cap. liii.;
lib. xxviii., cap. iv. 
156          ELECTRICAL PHENOMENA
commonly  given  to the  words  of Livy by his
translators.   " Guided by  Numa's books, Tullus
undertook to  invoke  the  aid  of Jupiter  by  the
same  ceremonies  employed by his predecessor.
But having  performed imperfectly the prescribed
ceremony (parum rite), he perished,  struck by
thunder."*  Instead of the  term ceremony, if we
substitute the  word  experiment, we shall perceive
that the fate of Tullus was similar to that of Pro-
fessor Reichman.  In  1753 this learned man was
killed by lightning while repeating, with too little
caution, one of Franklin's experiments.!
   Pliny, in the  exposition  of Numa's scientific
secrets,  makes use of  expressions which  seem to
indicate two distinct processes:  the one obtained
thunder (impetrare),  the other forced it to lightning
(cogere); the one was,  doubtless, gentle, noiseless,
and exempt from any  dangerous  explosion;  the
other  violent, burning, and in the  form  of an
electric  discharge.   It  explains the story of Por-
senna destroying the terrible monster who deso-
lated the territory  of Volsinium ;!  an explanation,
however, which can scarcely be received: because,
although it is not absolutely impossible, yet  it is
very  difficult  and  dangerous  to cause a strong
electric  detonation to take effect at a very distant
point;  and  there still  remains the difficulty of
drawing to this exact point the  being whom it was

  * Lucius Piso.—Plin., Hist. Nat., lib.  xxviii., cap. ii.
  t He had constructed an apparatus for observing atmospheric
electricity, and while intent upon examining the electrometer, a
large ball of electric fire glanced from the conducting-rod, which
was insulated, to the head of the unfortunate experimentalist, and
instantly deprived  him of life.  His companion, Sokolow, an en-
graver, who was present to delineate the  appearances that might
present themselves, was also struck down, and remained  sense-
less for some time ; the door of the room was torn from its hinges,
and the door-case split.—Ed.
  X Plin., Hist. Nat., lib. ii., cap, liii, 
EMPLOYED BY MAGICIANS.    .    151
intended to overthrow by the magical commotion.
We shall propose, elsewhere, another explanation
of this  Etruscan apparent  miracle.  But, in the
coactive process mentioned by Pliny, and the well
known and well  attested possibility of obtaining,
either from an isolated thunder rod or an immense
electrical battery, a discharge of such power that
the luminous flash, the noise, and the destructive
influence of it completely resemble the effects of
lightning, do we not perceive the secret of these
imitators of thunder who so often themselves be-
came the victims  of their own success ; and who,
on that account,  were  said to have fallen  under
the vengeance of the god whose arms they dared to
usurp 1
  Among these  we may name Caligula, who,  ac-
cording to Dion  Cassius and John of Antioch, op-
posed lightnings to lightnings, and to the voice of
thunder one not less fearful; and shot a stone  to-
ward heaven at the moment the lightning fell.  A
machine, not very  complicated,  would suffice to
produce those effects so well suited to the vanity
of a tyrant, ever trembling  before the gods  whom
he sought to equal.
  It is not  in times so modern that we are to look
for a mysterious idea which had already extended
into all the temples.
  On the contrary, we must trace it into antiquity:
and we may first remark, that Sylvius Alladas  (or
Remulus),  eleventh King of Alba after iEneas, ac-
cording to  Eusebius,* imitated the noise, of thun-
der, by making  the soldiers strike their bucklers
with their  swords;  a fable as ridiculous as that
afterward related by Eusebius of machines  which
the King of Alba made use of to  imitate thunder.
" This prince," says Ovid, and Dionysius of Hali-
     * Euseb., Chronic. Canon., lib. i., cap. xiv, et xlvi. 
158         ELECTRICAL  PHENOMENA
carnassus,  " despising  the gods, had invented a
method of imitating the  effects  of lightning and
the noise of thunder, in order to pass as a divinity
in the minds of those whom  he inspired with ter-
ror; but
      " In imitating thunder, the thunderer perished."*

the victim of his impiety, according to the priests
of his time;  according to our ideas, only of his
own imprudence.
   Here then we perceive that the secret of Numa
and Tullus Hostilius was known a century before
their time.  We will not attempt to fix the epoch
when  it was  first possessed  by  the  divinities, or
rather by  the Etruscan priests, whose successors
taught it to the King  of Rome, and to those from
whom the King of Alba must have  received it;
but  the  tradition relative to Tarchon  being  ac-
quainted with a mode of preserving his dwelling
from lightning, enables us  to trace it to this Theur-
gist, who was much anterior to the  siege of Troy.
   It is from these historical ages that we trace the
fable of Salmonius.   Salmonius, said the priests,
was an impious man, blasted with lightning by the
gods  for  having  attempted  to  imitate  thunder.
But how unlikely is their  recital!   What a miser-
able imitation of thunder would the vain noise of
a  chariot going  over a bridge of  brass appear;
while  torches, to imitate  lightning, were thrown
upon victims who had been condemned to death !t
How was  it likely that the  bridge, which could
only be of a moderate size, would, by the noise of
a chariot passing over it, astonish  the people of

  * " Fulmineo periit imitator fulminis ictu."—Ovid, Metamor-
phos., lib. xiv., vers. 617, 618.—Fast., lib. iv., v. 60; Dionys., Ha-
lie, lib. i., cap. xv.
  + Hygin., lib. i., fab. lxi.—Servius in ASneid, lib. vi., v. 508. 
EMPLOYED BY MAGICIANS.         15U
Greece ]*  Eustathiust advances a more plausible
idea: he describes Salmonius  as a  learned man,
clever in imitating lightning and the  noise of thun-
der;  and who perished the victim of his dangerous
experiments.   In this perfect imitation we discover
the coactive process of Pliny—the art of attracting
from the clouds, and condensing the electric fluid
when on the point of a fearful explosion.
   What confirms our conjecture is, that in Elidia,
the scenes  of Salmonius' success,! and the  catas-
trophe  that put an end to his life,  there may be
seen, near the great altar of the temple of Olympus,
another altar§  surrounded by a  balustrade,  and
consecrated to Jupiter Cataibates (the descending).
" This surname was  given to Jupiter to  indicate
that he demonstrated his presence on earth by the
noise of thunder, by lightning, by meteors,  or  by
apparitions."11  In fact, many medals of the town
of Cyrrhus in Syria represent Jupiter armed with
lightning, with  the legend Cataibates below him.
It would be difficult  to mark more  strongly  the
connection between this word and the descent of
lightning.   In the  temple of Olympus  also they
worshiped the altar of Jupiter the Thunderer (Ke-
raunios), raised in memory of the lightning that
had  destroyed  the palace of ffinomaus.^f  This

  * Virgil, sEneid, lib. vi., v. 585, et seq.
  t Eustath. in Odyss., lib. ii., v. 234.
  X Salmonius was a King of Elis, whose ambition led him to
desire that he should be thought a god ; -for which purpose he is
said to have taken the means mentioned in the text. But the
whole story is too absurd to deserve any reference being made to
it.—Ed.
  § Pausanias, Eliac, lib. i., cap. xiv.
  || Encyclop. Method. Antiquit'es, tome i., art. Cataibates.
  % Pausanias, loc. cit.  CEnomaus was King of Pisa, in  Elis.
He was informed by an oracle that he should perish by the hands
of his son-in-law; to prevent which, being a skillful charioteer.
he determined to give his daughter in marriage only to him who
could outmatch him in driving, on condition that all who entered 
160         ELECTRICAL PHENOMENA
surname and that of Cataibates present, however,
different ideas to  piety.  It becomes  difficult to
avoid  confusion  between Jupiter Cataibates  and
Jupiter Elicius—that is, between the thunder that
descends, and the thunder constrained to descend.
It must be seen that we are obliged to reason from
analogy, in defect of positive traditions ;  but  the
analogy receives great strength when we recollect
that Jupiter Cataibates was worshiped in the places
where Salmonius reigned, a prince  whose history
closely resembles  that of the two kings  who, at
Alba and  Rome,  fell  victims to  the worship  of
Jupiter Elicius.
   It is true, that there  remain no proofs of Greece
having possessed, in past ages,  any idea of  the
chemical experiment that proved fatal to Salmo-
nius ; but  the  worship of Jupiter Elicius existed
at Rome when  the  mysterious process  used by
Numa had long  ceased to be employed, and had,
indeed, been completely forgotten.   A similar for-
getfulness could not hinder the worship of Jupiter
Cataibates from being  kept up in Elidia.
   Whenever we look  back into  the past, we find
the most certain vestiges of the  existence of  the
knowledge of the sciences.
   Servius  carries  us back to the infancy of  the
human race.   " The first inhabitants of the earth,"
said he, " never carried fire to their altars, but by
their  prayers they brought down  the heavenly
fire."*   He relates this tradition when he is com-
menting on a verse where Jupiter is described by

the lists should agree to lay down their lives if conquered. Many
had suffered, when Pelops opposed him.  He bribed Myrtilus, the
chariot-keeper of CEnomaus, who gave his master an old chariot,
which broke down in the course, and killed CEnomaus. Pelops
married  Hippodamia, the  daughter of CEnomaus, and became
King of Pisa.—Ep.
  * Servius in /Eneid, lib. xii., v. 200. 
            EMPLOYED BY  MAGICIANS.        161

Virgil as ratifying the treaty between the nations
by a peal of thunder.*   It would, therefore, seem
that the priests  regarded this miracle as a solemn
proof  of the  guaranty  given by  the gods  to  the
covenant/)"   From  whom, we  may  inquire, had
they received the  secret]  "Prometheus,"  says
Servius,! " discovered and  revealed to man  the art
of bringing down  lightning (eliciendorum  fulmi-
num); and, by the process  which  he taught* to
them,  they brought  down  fire from the  region
above (supernus ignis eliciebatur)."   Among  the
possessors  of this secret, Servius reckoned Numa
and Tullus Hostilius.   The  former only employed
the celestial  fire for sacred purposes; the latter
was punished for having profaned it.
   The legend of the Caucasus, upon the rocks of
which an expiation for  the partial divulgement of
an  art so  precious had for  many centuries been
pending, leads us toward Asia, over which country
this art must have been diffused before it pene--
trated into Europe.   The  legend of Jupiter Catai-
bates has been, as we before observed, discovered
on the medals of the town of Cyrrhus.   Now it is
hardly probable that the Greeks would have car-
ried this worship into a distant land, the foundation
of which could not have been posterior to the time
of  Cyrus.  It is,  therefore,  allowable  to suppose
that the legend quoted was only a Greek transla-
  * Audiat haec genitor qui fulmine  foedera sancit.
                          Virgil, JEneid, lib. xii., v. 200.
  t This use of the coaetive  process may explain the apparent
miracle, more than once repeated by the poets, of claps of thunder
being heard in calm weather.
  X Servius in Virgil, Eclog. vi., v. 42.  This passage, which has
been overlooked by so many modern writers, had, however, struck,
more than three, centuries ago, an author who is never read but
for amusement, but who may be well read for instruction : " Qu'est
devenu," said Rabelais, "l'art d'evoquer des cieux la foudre et le
feu celeste, jadis invente par le sage Promethee ?"—Rabelais, liv.
v., chap, lxvii.
     II.                  L 
162         ELECTRICAL PHENOMENA
tion of the name of the thundering god ;  and that
the secret to  which it  alluded  was not anciently
unknown  in Syria.
   The Hebrews, however, appear  to have been
acquainted with it.   Ben-David has  asserted that
Moses possessed some knowledge of the phenom-
ena of electricity;  and M. Hirt, a philosopher of
Berlin, has brought forward  very plausible argu-
ments in support of this opinion.  Michaelis* has
even  gone further.   He remarks—1st. That there
is no indication that lightning  ever struck the Tem-
ple of Jerusalem, during a thousand years.  2d.
That, according to Josephus,t  a forest of points
either of gold or gilded, and very sharp, covered
the roof of the temple, in a manner similar to that
of the temple of Juno as figured on the Roman
medals.   3d. That this roof communicated with the
caverns in  the hill  upon  which  the  temple was
situated, by means of pipes in connection with the
gilding which covered all the exterior of the build-
ing ;  in consequence of which the points would
act as conductors.   Now we can hardly suppose
that they accidentally performed so  important  a
function, or that the advantage to be derived from
them had not been calculated  upon.  It can not
be supposed that so many points had been placed
upon the  temple merely for the birds to perch on;
nevertheless,  it is the only use  assigned to them
by the historian Josephus.   We  may, however,
readily consider his ignorance  as a proof of the
facility with which  the knowledge  of important
facts  is forgotten.
   This secret certainly does not appear to have
survived the destruction of the empire  of Cyrus;
and yet there is much reason  for thinking that so
    *  Magasin Scient. de Guttingen, 3e annee, 5e cahier, 1783.
    t  Fl. Josephus, Bell. Jvd. qdr. Jiomnn.., lib. v., cap. xiv. 
EMPLOYED BY  MAGICIANS.        163
powerful  an instrument for displaying  apparent
miracles was not unknown  to  Zoroaster and his
successors.
  Khondemir* relates that the  devil  appeared to
Zoroaster in the midst of fire, and that he imprinted
a luminous  mark on  his body: and, according to
Dion Chrysostom,t when  the prophet  quitted  the
mountain where he had so long dwelt in solitude,
he appeared shining with an unextinguishable light,
which he had brought down from heaven ; a prodigy
similar to the experiment  of the electric beatifica-
tion, and easy to be produced in the entrance of a
dark cavern.  The author of the Recognitions (at-
tributed  to  St.  Clement of  Alexandria,! and  St.
Gregory of Tours)§ affirms that, under the name
of Zoroaster, the  Persians  worshiped a son of
Shem, who, by  a magical  delusion,  brought down
fire from  heaven, or  persuaded  men that he  pos-
sessed that  miraculous power.   May we not ask
whether these facts do not indicate,  in other terms,
the experiments on atmospheric electricity of which
a Thaumaturgist might so easily avail himself, as
to appear  sparkling  with light in  the eyes  of a
multitude struck with admiration V\\
  We have, in another work.fl attempted to dis-
tinguish the founder of the religion of  the Magi
from the princes  and  priests who, to insure the
respect of  the people, had assumed, after him, the

  * D'Herbelot, Biblioth. Orientate, art. Zerdascht.
  t Dioru Chrysost., Oral. Borysthen.
  X Recog., lib. iv.
  (j Greg. Turon, Hist. Franc, lib. i., cap. v.
  || The Editor is of opinion that the arguments of the author, on
this part of his subject, are far from convincing, as they are found-
ed altogether  upon an assumption  for which there is no tenable
foundation. It is more probable that the accounts are wholly
fabulous, and, consequently, require no comment.—Ep.
  %  Eusebe Salverte, Essai Historique et Philosophique sur les
Noms d'Hommes, des Peuples, et des Lieux.  Additional Notes, B. 
164         ELECTRICAL PHENOMENA
name of Zoroaster.   We are reminded of this dis-
tinction in relating what has been recorded respect-
ing Zoroaster, by authors  who were ignorant of
this fact: for these  writers would not have attribu-
ted to that prophet  what belonged to his disciples,
the inheritors of his  miraculous science.  Zoroaster,
say they, perished, being burned up by the demon
whom he importuned too  often to repeat his brill-
iant miracle.   In other terins, they describe a nat-
ural philosopher who, in the frequent repetition of
a dangerous experiment, ended  by neglecting the
necessary precautions, and fell a victim in a mo-
ment of carelessness.   Suidas,* Cedrenus, and the
chroniclers  of  Alexandria relate  that  Zoroaster,
King of  Bactria, being besieged in his capital by
Ninus, prayed  to the  gods to be struck by light-
ning ; and when he saw his wish  about to  be ac-
complished, desired his  disciples  to preserve his
ashes, as  an  earnest for the preservation of their
power.    The ashes of Zoroaster, says the author
of the Recognitions, were collected and carried to
the Persians,  to be  preserved  and worshiped  as a
fire divinely  sent down from  heaven.   There is
here an evident confusion  of ideas:  they apply to
the ashes of the prophet the worship that was never
rendered by his disciples to the sacred fire which
they had  received from him.   Must not this  confu-
sion have arisen-from the  pretended origin  of the
sacred  fire,  kindled, it  was  said, by lightning 1
" The Magi," says Ammianus  Marcellinusj " pre-
served perpetually, in their furnaces, fire miracu-

  * Suidas, verbo Zoroastres.—Glycas, Annul, p. 129.
  + Ammianus Marcellinus was a celebrated historian, who flour-
ished in the reigns of Constantine, Julian, and Valens.  He is
supposed to be correct in his  statements; and certainly he dis-
plays less of the acrimony against Christianity than is usually
found in the writings of  pagan historians, although he enjoyed
the favor of Julian, and was a warm advocate of Paganism.—Ed 
EMPLOYED BY MAGICIANS.         165
lously sent from heaven."*   The Greeks,  who be-
stowed on the first Persian chief the name  of his
country,  also  relate that in the time when  Perseus
was instructing some  Persians in the mysteries of
the  Gorgons,t a  globe of  fire  fell  from  heaven.
Perseus took  from it the sacred  fire, which he con-
fided  to  the  Magi; and from this  event arose the
name that he  imposed upon his disciples-!  Here
we recollect  what was said by  Servius of the ce-
lestial fire  which the ancient   inhabitants of the
earth brought  down  on  their  altars, and  which
they only employed for sacred purposes.   The re-
semblance between the two traditions shows us the
origin of this  fire that fell from heaven at the voice
of the institutor  of magic; and was  destined to
burn forever on the Pyres, in honor of the god who
had granted it to earth.

  * Ammian. Marcell., lib. xxiii., cap. vi.
  t Three  fabulous sisters, Stheno, Euralye, and Medusa, the
two first of whom were immortal.   Their bodies were stated to
be covered with impenetrable scales ; their hands were of brass,
their heads covered with snakes, their teeth like the tusks of the
wild boar, and their eyes capable of turning to stone all on whom
they were fixed.  The absurd traditions  respecting them are un-
worthy of being  mentioned ; but it may be necessary merely to
remind the reader that Perseus, being provided with a mirror by
Minerva, winged shoes by Mercury, and a helmet which rendered
him invisible by  Pluto, attacked these damsels—cut off the head
of Medusa, the only mortal of the  three, and presented it  to Mi-
nerva, who wore it on her aegis.  Perseus was still more favored;
for, after this conquest, he took  his flight through the air toward
Ethiopia, but dropping some of the blood from Medusa's head on
Libya, the drops changed into serpents, which accounts for those
that  infest the Libyan deserts.  Diodorus explains this fable by
supposing  that the Gorgons were a tribe of Amazons,  which Per-
seus conquered  in war.  The Abbe Bannier supposed that the
three sisters were  three ships,  belonging to Phareys, their sup-
posed  father, who traded  with Perseus;  and that these ships
were laden with elephants' teeth, horns of fishes, and  the eyes of
hyenas ; a supposition as improbable, as far as concerns the cargo
of these ships, as the original tradition.—Ed.
  X Suidas, verbo Perseus.   In the Chah-namah of Ferdousi, Hou-
cheng, father of Djah-Muras, as Perseus is of Merrhus, collects
also in a miraculous manner the sacred fire.—Annates des Voyages. 
166         ELECTRICAL PHENOMENA
  Two of the magical oracles* which  Plethon has
preserved and commented on seem to bear some
connection with this subject.   These oracles were
attributed to the  first  disciples of Zoroaster, or to
Zoroaster himself, which is not at all  improbable,
since antiquity possessed  two hundred verses,  the
authorship of which was attributed to this prophet.t
They contain the following lines:
" Oh, man ! the production of Nature in her boldest mode,
If thou dost more than once invoke me, thou shalt behold alone
    that which thou hast invoked:
For, neither the heaven, nor its arched concavity, shall be visible
    to thee:
The stars shall not shine;—the light of the moon shall be veiled;
The earth shall tremble; and  lightning alone shall be presented
    to thy sight."                          Vers. 39-43.
   Plethon, after having  observed that  man is prop-
erly called the workmanship of an intrepid nature,
because  he undertakes the  most  daring  deeds,
adds, " The oracle speaks in the character of  the
god to the initiated.   ' If more than once thou dost
invoke me, thou wilt  see  everywhere me that
thou hast invoked ; for  thou shalt see nothing  but
lightning, that is, fire falling  throughout the uni-
verse.' "
   The commentary, which informs us that the  last
oracle relates to the initiations, refers us, by one of
its expressions, to the second  oracle, whence it is
borrowed.
" When thou seest the holy and sacred fire devoid of form,
Burning and flying about everywhere  into the depths of the uni-
    verse !
Listen to the voice of the Fire !"               Vers. 46-48.
   " When thou  shalt  see," says  Plethon, " the di-
vine fire that can not be  represented under  any
form" (it is well  known that the  laws of Zoroaster
       * Oracula Magica, edente  Joanne Opsopoeo, 1589.
      t Plin. Hist. Nat., lib. xxx., cap. i. 
EMPLOYED  BY MAGICIANS.        167
proscribed all images), " give thanks, and full of
joy listen to  the voice of the fire, which will give
to thee a very true and  certain preuotion (knowl-
edge of the future).
   Through the obscurity of the text and its ex-
planation, we seize upon an important feature in
the Zoroastrian initiations.   If the initiated is fear-
less, he will invoke the god he worships, and will
soon see  the god alone.  Every other object dis-
appears ;  he  is surrounded  by meteors and light-
nings,  which  neither  can nor may be depicted by
any image; and  from the midst of which a loud
voice  is heard, that pronounces infallible oracles.
From the preceding,  we may conclude, with some
probability, that  Zoroaster  had ideas upon elec-
tricity ; and possessed the means of attracting light-
ning, which he made use of to operate the first ap-
parent  miracles destined to prove  his prophetic
mission;  and especially to  light  the  sacred  fire,
which  he offered  to the adoration of his disciples.
Such being the case,  may we  not inquire whether
we are correct in adding, that in his hands, and in
the hands of his disciples, the heavenly fire became
an instrument for proving the courage of the initi-
ated, for  confirming  their faith, and for  dazzling
their vision by its immense  splendor, impossible to
be gazed upon by mortal eyes; which is at  once
the attribute and the image of the divinity.
   A tradition (most probably known to the reader)
seems  to  attribute the  death of Zoroaster to that
want of precaution to which  many other victims
had fallen a prey.   Another  story presents  in  a
more noble aspect the prophet, or King of Bactria,
who, in order not to fall into the hands  of a con-
queror, decided  to die, and drew down  lightning
upon himself; and by this  last wonderful effort of
 his art, he  gave himself an  extraordinary death, 
168
ELECTRICAL PHENOMENA
worthy of the envoy of heaven,  and the institutor
of the fire-worship.*

  * Zoroaster admitted no visible object of adoration except fire,
which he considered the only proper emblem of the deity.  It is
said, that it is difficult to ascertain who the great institutor of fire-
worship was ; as there were several, at least six, lawgivers of the
name of Zoroaster; but this opinion has been satisfactorily re-
futed by Hyde* and by  Pasteret ;t  and there is sufficient reason
for believing that there was only one Zoroaster or Zerdusht, the
founder of the religion of the Parsees.  He was the son of hum-
ble, but nobly descended parents.  He was born at Urmia, a town
of Azerbijan, about the year 589 B.C., in the reign of Lehrasp,
the father of Darius Hystaspes, or Gushtasp.  It  is unnecessary
to mention the prodigies that announced and appeared at the birth
of this extraordinary man.  His early years, nevertheless, were
productive of nothing remarkable ; but, at the age of *wenty, he
secluded himself from the society of mankind, and in  his retire-
ment conceived  the idea of effecting a religious reformation, and
restoring the faith of his forefathers in greater purity, and more
adapted for the exigences of his country, than he  found it.  The
Parsee authors teach that, in this  retirement, he was taken to
heaven, and there received the following instructions from Or-
muzd (the Principle of Good):—" Teach the nations that  my
light is hidden under all that shines.  Whenever you turn your
face toward the  light, and you follow my commands, Ahriman
(the Evil Principle) will be seen to fly."  He then received from
Ormuzd the Zend-Avesta and the sacred fire.
  Setting aside  this fable, Zoroaster repaired, about the age of
thirty, to the court of Darius Hystaspes, who 60on was converted
to his faith, and  became a zealous and efficient propagator of it.
He introduced it into every part  of his dominions; and had its
 Erecepts written upon parchment, which were deposited in a vault,
 ewn out of a rock in Persepolis, and placed under the guardian-
ship of holy men.   He commanded that the profane should not
be permitted to  approach  the sacred volumes.  Darius not only
aided Zoroaster in the propagation of his faith in Iran,  but his at-
tempt to promulgate it  in neighboring states involved him in a
war with Arjasp, King of Tureen.  Instead of being killed by
lightning, as the tradition states, the prophet is said to have been
murdered during the persecution of the fire-worshipers by Arjasp.
His death took place in  his seventy-sixth year, 513 b.c.
  Of all the pagan faiths, that of Zoroaster, which acknowledges
the Supreme Being, and a good and evil principle, is undoubtedly
the most rational; and, if emblems of the deity are admissible,
the sun, or fire, is the most sublime of all visible emblems.
  The  ancient religion  of Iran, which was the same  as  that of
Zoroaster, was  established by Djamschid; and  was, in truth,

         * Veterum  Persarum et Majorum Religionis  Hist.
         t Zoroastre, Confucius, et Mahomet comparts. 
EMPLOYED BY MAGICIANS.          169
   Thus we trace this great secret from the earliest
period of history; and it perhaps existed even be-

fore it.
   The  Chaldeans, who  aided  Ninus  in  the war
against  the Bactrians, with all the power of their
magic arts, must have possessed the  same knowl-
edge relative to lightning as their rivals, although
the fact is  not established by any historical docu-
ments.   It might not be impossible for these priests
to have lost it, perhaps from want of the  occasion
of using it; while it was preserved  in the moun-
tainous countries of Asia  and  Etruria, that were
much more exposed than Babylon to the ravages
of lightning.   The magical oracles that are attribu-
ted by  Plethon to Zoroaster, or his  disciples, are
commented on by Psellus, under the  name of the

fire-worship, which renders the supposition of  our author  re-
specting the knowledge of electricity by Zoroaster at least prob-
lematical ; for, unless the traditional fable of his obtaining fire
from heaven be admitted, we have no data for the assumption that
he drew lightning from the clouds.  It is more probable that the
original fire of the altars was lighted by reflected mirrors, or by
burning-glasses, as is  now done in the houses of the Parsees in
India, when their fires are accidentally extinguished, or allowed to
go out: in which case, it may be said to be bestowed by the sun.
  It is remarkable, that although the Parsees  (fire-worshipers)
in India are an active, rich, and intelligent class, and follow their
religious faith without hinderance, yet, in Persia, they are a de-
graded and oppressed race. They have no temples, and no priest-
hood ; and, according to Sir Kerr Porter, their whole worship
" has sunk into nothing more than a few hasty prayers, mutter-
ed to the sun, as supreme god:  and what they call commemo-
rative ceremonies are now only, sad confused shadows of their
 former religious festivals."*
   The Parsees of India, in the emigration from the isle of Ormuz.,
 where they had fled from the Mohammedan persecutions, carried
 with them the antus-byrum, or sacred fire, which is still preserved
 at  Oodwarra, near Nunsarree; and from it all the fires in their
 temples  have been lighted.  It is intended as a sacred and per-
 petual monitor to preserve their purity.  The  Parsees are a tall,
 comely,  athletic, and well formed race ; and much fairer than the
 Hindoos, and»wear a peculiar cap, which distinguishes them from
 the Hindoos.—Ed.________________________________________
         * Sir R.K. Porter's Travels in Persia, vol. ii., p. 40. 
170          ELECTRICAL  PHENOMENA
Chaldaic oracles*  regarding  them as  emanating
from the Chaldean  priests ; and the explanation he
gives respecting  those we have quoted, is only as-
trological and allegorical.  The sages of Babylon
and the prophet of Ariema had probably drawn
from the same source.  It is possible that the secret
alluded to by  the  oracles having been  preserved
for a long time by  the successors of Zoroaster, tra-
ces might be found in the doctrine  of  the Magi,
from which Plethon borrowed the idea developed
in his  Commentary.   The Chaldeans, on the con-
trary,  would have thrown themselves  into allegory,
and drawn their followers with them, in desiring
to solve an enigma the secret  of which was lost to
them, and which could alone furnish  the solution.
   If we turn toward Hindostan, the cradle of civ-
ilization, we find the substance, and some  of the
most striking expressions, of the two oracles in this
stanza of the Yadjour- Veda: " There  the sun 6hines
not, neither do  the moon nor the stars; the me-
teors  do not fly about"  (that  is, in this  place):
" God overwhelms  these  brilliant substances with
light,  and  the universe  is dazzled  by  its  splen-
dor."!  Zoroaster, who  borrowed much from an-

  * The compilation of Psellus differs from that of Plethon in
the order in which the oracles are disposed.  There are also vari-
ous readings and  considerable  additions.   Beside, the Greek
verses are much more  correct, which seems to indicate a less
faithful translation, or one taken from an original not so ancient.
  t Recherches Asiatiques, tome i., pp. 575, 576.  The Vedas are
the scriptures, or revelations of the  Hindoos; and, like the
sacred  parchments of Zoroaster, they must  not be read by the
multitude, nor approached  by the profane.  They are supposed
to have proceeded from the mouth of Brahma, and to be in-
tended for the universal  sacrifice.  They are supposed, however,
to have been scattered;  but again brought together and arranged
by a sage, named Deraparayana, or arranger, who flourished
more than five thousand years ago, or in the second age of the
world.  He was assisted in his labor, and divided the whole of
the recovered fragments of the Vedas into four parts.
  J, The Rigveda, which contains invocations addressed to deities 
              EMPLOYED BY  MAGICIANS.         171


cient India, doubtless, in  this instance, might have
changed the sense of the words, and applied a met-
aphorical picture of the divine splendor to the magi-

of fire, of the sun, the moon, the firmament, the winds, and the
seasons, whose presence is invited to  the sacrifices intended to
supplicate their aid.   Some of the manhras, or hymns contained
in it, display specimens of the  most exalted poetry.   The sun,
savitri, is addressed as the  light of the Divine Ruler;  but in an
allegorical sense as the divine light which sheds its rays over all,
and  emanates from the Supreme Being.   One of the hymns,
translated by Mr.  Colebroke, contains expressions closely resem-
bling those in  the Book  of Genesis, which describe the period
prior to the creation of this world.  " Then there was no entity
nor  nonentity ; no world, nor sky, nor aught above it; nothing,
anywhere, in the happiness of any one, involving  or  involved;
nor waters deep and dangerous.  Death was not; nor then was
immortality ;  nor distinction of day or night."*   In  another por-
tion  of the Veda,  called Aitareya Brahaman's, we find this sen-
tence :—" Originally this  was indeed soul only, nothing else
whatever existed, active  or inactive."  He thought,  " I will
create  worlds."  These, and similar expressions, are  supposed
to imply the Monotheism of the ftamadam Hindoo faith, accord-
ing to which, the creation 'of man arose from the circumstance
that every element begged from the Creator a distinct form,  and
the whole chose a distinct body.
   II. The Yajish, or,  Yadjour-Veda, which relates chiefly to ob-
lations and sacrifices, one of the most splendid  of which is " to
light," and  another " to fire;" which induces  the  Editor to
attribute the Hindoo  faith to the same origin as that of Zoro-
aster.  All the hymns in  this Veda relate to sacrifices and cere-
monies.  It  is scarcely necessary to say that many of these are
of a character inconsistent with the original faith, and seem to
belong  to "an  after-period; especially the bloody  sacrifices to
Kali;  indeed,  the  following is one of the texts of  the Veda:
" O ye gods, we slaughter no victim, we use no  sacrificial  stake,
we worship by the repetition of sacred verses."—Sdmaveda San-
hitd, p. 32, v. 2.)
   III.  The Sdmaveda concerns  the  names of ancestors, and re-
lates chiefly to a sacrifice termed Soma-Yaga, or moon-plant
sacrifice ; to which the three highest classes of Bramins only are
admitted.  The plant (sarcostema viminalis) must  be  pulled Up
by the roots in a moonlight night, from the top of a mountain;
and, at the same time, the afani wood (premna spinosa) must be
collected for kindling the sacred fire.  From the juice  of the
 sarcostema an intoxicating liquor,  called  sama, is prepared for
 the  oblation, and  also for the consumption of the  officiating
 Bramins, after the  fastings, during the  sacrifice,  have been
 finished.  The fire with  which the altar is lighted is produced
* Colebroke's Essays, vol. i., p. 43., 
 172          ELECTRICAL  PHENOMENA


 cal ceremony of initiation.    But Sir W. Jones is
 inclined to think that this stanza is a  modern para-
 phrase of some text of the ancient sacred books."*
   This explains why these terms do  not exactly
 correspond with those of the magic oracles;  and
 may be applied in a less explicit  manner to the se-
 cret  of attracting lightning  from  the  clouds.   The
 paragraph  might  have been written at a period
 when  this  process  had  been  forgotten and  lost
 sight of; and, consequently, the proper sense of
 the sacred text also forgotten.
   Elsewhere the following passage of the Oupnek'-
 hat,  " to  know fire, the  sun, the  moon, and light-
 ning,  is  three  fourths  of  the  science  of God,"t
 proves that the sacred science did  not neglect to
 study the nature of thunder;  and by  the possession

 by the friction of one piece of the arani  wood upon another; and
 may, consequently, be regarded as  being  procured from the air.
 The following verses from  one of  the  hymns  demonstrate that
 this  sacrifice  was  originally a kind of  purifying  sacrament,
 although it is now degenerated into a  festival disgraced by ex-
 cesses of all kinds: " That saving moon-plant,  by its stream
 of pressed sacrificial viands, makes us pure. That saving moon-
 plant makes us pure."—(Stevenson's translation of the Sdmaveda,
 part i.; Prapathaka, vi.; Dasiata ii., v. 4, p. 94.)
  IV.  The Athar'vana contains  incantations for the destruction
 of enemies, and is not much reverenced by the Hindoos on that
 account.
  The real age  of  the Vedas is supposed to be much less than
 that assigned by the Bramins; and it probably does not extend
 beyond the  year  200 B.C.  It is singular that  throughout  these
 scriptures there is  a decided allusion to  the  fall  of man,  who,
 although emanating from, and a part of the deity, had lost his
 primeval purity,  to recover which a great and universal sacrifice
 was required.   It is impossible not to perceive in these, and in
all the earliest traditions of all nations, that the primeval faith
of man was the belief  in one God; and that Polytheism arose
out of the vices  and backslidings of the human race; and it is
satisfactory to trace in the Cosmogony-of so ancient a faith, and
in its account  of  the fall of man, and the consequent  necessity
of a propitiatory sacrifice, a confirmation,  if any were required,
of the truths of our own sacred volume.—Ed.
  * Recherches Asiatiques, tome i., p. 375.
  f Ownnek'-hat. Brahmen xi, 
EMPLOYED BY MAGICIANS.
173
of this knowledge the  priests might indicate the
means of averting it.   Finally, this opinion is also
strengthened by an historical fact.  In the time of
Ctesias, India was acquainted with the use of con-
ductors of lightning.   According to this historian,*
iron placed  at the bottom of a fountain of liquid
gold (that is to say, a sheet of gold), and  made in
the form of a sword, with the  point upward, pos-
sessed, as soon as it was fixed in the  ground, the
property of averting storms, hail, and  lightning.
Ctesias, who had seen the experiment tried twice,
before the eyes of the  King  of Persia, attributed
to the iron alone this quality which belonged to its
form  and position.  Perhaps they used, in prefer-
ence, iron naturally alloyed with a little  gold, as
being less susceptible of rusting, for the same mo-
tive that leads the moderns to gild the points of
lightning conductors.   Whatever might  be the in-
tention, the  principal fact remains ; and it is not
useless to remark that, from that time, the ancients
began to perceive the intimate connection between
the electric  state of the atmosphere and the pro-
duction not only of lightning, but also of hail and
other meteors.
   If  the question so often resolved  be renewed,
namely, why no vestiges of  a knowledge so ancient
can be discovered since the time of Tullus Hostil-
ius, more than four-and-twenty centuries ago ]  we
reply, that it was so little diffused, that it was only
by chance,  and  in an imperfect manner, that it was
discovered  even by Tullus Hostilius,  when perus-
ing the memoirs left by Numa.  Would not  the
dangers attached to the least error in repeating the
processes  in these  memoirs,—dangers  so  often
proved by  fatal experience,—have been sufficient
to cause  the  worship  of Jupiter  Elicius, and
       * Ctesias in Indie ap. Photium. Bibl, cod. Ixxii. 
174         ELECTRICAL PHENOMENA
Jupiter  Cataibates,  to fall into  disuse through
fear ]
  The destruction of the  Persian Empire by the
Greeks,  anterior to the nearly general massacre of
the Magi, after the death of Smerdis, might  cause
this important  gap in the  occult  sciences known
to the disciples of Zoroaster.   In India, which has
been so  often the prey of the conqueror,  analogous
causes might  exercise an inflence as  destructive.
In  all countries, indeed, over what subject  more
than  this would the veil of religious mystery have
been thrown,  and greater obstacles placed in the
way of ignorance, so  as ultimately to plunge it into
oblivion %
   Other questions arise, more important and more
difficult.   We may ask, whether electricity,  what-
ever  were the resources which  it afforded, would
be  sufficient to explain the brilliant apparent mira-
cle of the Zoroastrian initiation ]  Does it  suffi-
ciently explain what  Ovid  describes so accurately
in the worship of Jupiter Elicius by Numa, name-
ly,  the art of making the lightning, and the  noise
of  the thunder, seen  and  heard  in a clear sky ]*
Does,it  explain the terrible power of hurling light-
ning upon an enemy, such as attributed to Porsen-
na,! and which two Etruscan magicians  pretended
to possess in the time of Attila 1   Certainly not;—
at least it is not within the limits  of our knowledge,
a limit which has, probably, not  been surpassed by
the ancients.   To supply any deficiency, may we

  * Ovid,  Fast., lib. iii., vers. 367-370.
  t  Porsenna was a king  of Etruria, in whose tent, when the
Etrurian army lay before the gates of Rome, Mutius Scsevola put
his hand into the fire, and allowed it to be burned, without any ex-   •
pression of suffering, in order to  convince Porsenna that it was
in vain to make head against a people who could display such
fortitude and daring. Porsenna was supposed to possess many
magical secrets.—Ed. 
             EMPLOYED  BY  MAGICIANS.          175


not suppose that, by a happy chance, the Thauma-
turgists, profiting by the explosion of  a luminous
meteor, attributed it to the influence of their art,
and led enthusiasm to  look  upon it  as a miracle,
although it was only a natural  effect]  May we
not, for example, recollect how, according  to an
historian,  when a miraculous  rain quenched the
thirst of the soldiers of Marcus  Aurelius, the  em-
peror, at the same time, drew down, by the influ-
ence of his prayers, lightning  on the warlike  ma-
chines of his enemy.*   We may also transport the
apparent miracles of one country into another ; and
discover at the  present day, in a place consecrated
through all ages to religion, a secret  equivalent to
the miracle of  Numa.   Naphtha, when dissolved
in atmospheric  air, produces the same  results as a
mixture of oxygen and hydrogen.   Near Bakhouf


  ♦ "Fulmen de coelo, precibus suis, contra hostium machina-
mentum extorsit."—Julius Capitolinus in Marc. Aurel.
  t The town of Bakhou is the capital of a territory of the same
name, situated on the southern extremity of the peninsula of Abe-
sheron, on the west side of the Caspian Sea.  The soil  of the
whole territory is saturated  with naphtha; and the  peninsula
contains many volcanoes.  Not far from Bakhou, a spring of white
oil gushes from the cleft of a rock at the base of a hill; it is pure
naphtha, and readily burns in the surface of water.  The inhab-
itants of these districts sink a hollow cane, or tube of paper, about
two inches into the ground, and by blowing upon a burning coal,
held near the orifice of the  tube, the gas lights, but the flame
does not consume the paper, nor the cane.  There are many wells
of the same substance; and  these, as well as the burning places,
or Atesch-gah, as they are called, were generally shrines of grace ;
and many thousands of pilgrims and fire-worshipers resorted there
to purify themselves.  Notwithstanding the degradation of the
Parsees when the Mohammedan religion was established in Per-
sia, a few, as stated in the text, still find their way to the Atesch-
gah of Bakhou, and spend five, seven, or even ten years on the
spot, worshiping the sacred fire, and performing prayer and peni-
tential exercises.   This sanctuary, which is surrounded by four
low walls, is a space about twenty  feet square,  and  contains
twenty cells, in which the priests and Ghuebres reside ; and from
each corner of the  quadrangle arises a chimney, about twenty feet
high, out of which  a bright flame, three or four feet in height, con 
\
176      NAPHTHA  AN  AID TO MAGIC.

is  a well,  the water of which  is  saturated with
naphtha ;  if a mantle be extended, and held above
the water for some minutes, and then some lighted
straw thrown into it, there  is suddenly heard, says
the traveler whose words I quote,  "a thundering
noise, like that of a line of artillery, accompanied
by a brilliant flame."*  Restore to  the Atesch-gah
its  ancient  majesty, and for its  little number of
penitents and pilgrims, who still  awaken religious
associations, substitute a college  of priests,  clever
in turning to the glory of their divinity phenomena,
the causes of which are carefully concealed from
the eyes  of the profane, and, under the clearest
skies, at their  command fire and peals of thunder
would  issue from the  wells  of Bakhou.   Let us
admit  that  substances which are abundant in cer-
tain countries might have been transported by the
Thaumaturgists  into those countries where the ac-
tion of them, being quite unknown, would appear
miraculous.   The Tiber might have seen, in the
age when Numa invoked Jupiter Elicius, the same
wonder which at the present day is famous on the
banks  of  the Caspian.t  The  ceremonies, indeed,
of the same magic worship, might be enhanced by
the effects of a composition of naphtha, and by those
of the lightning-conductors and electricity elicited
by the artifice of the Thaumaturgist, always  care-
tinually issues.  The penances to which these deluded creatures
subject themselves are so severe, that scarcely one individual
out of ten who visit the shrine ultimately survives them.—Ed.
  * Journey of George Keppelfrom India to England by Bassora.—
Nouvelles Annates des Voyages, 2e series, tome v., p. 349.
  t Native naphtha  is, in the present day,  exported to almost
every part of Europe, from the neighborhood of the Caspian.  It
is a limpid, nearly colorless, volatile liquid, with a strong, pecu-
liar odor. It is much lighter than water, having a specific gravity
of 0.753 ; consequently it swims on that fluid, for it does not mix
with it.  Naphtha is very inflammable, and  burns with a white
flame, which evolves much  smoke. It is a compound of carbon
and hydrogen.—Ed, 
PHOSPHORESCENT SUBSTANCES.
177
ful to make the treasures of his science  impene-
trable, and thence more respected.
  But, in  spite of the  principle we have  hitherto
followed, it is with regret we admit that it affords
only a partial  or local explanation, applicable  to
some isolated facts.   We prefer general facts, such
as were for so long a period concealed within the
bosom of the temple.  In recalling to remembrance
the brilliant or destructive influence of the different
inflammable compositions, the  existence of which
is indicated by these facts,  we shall measure the
extent of the resources in  the power  of the pos-
sessors of the sacred science,  calculated to enable
them to rival the fires  of heaven by the apparent
miracles of terrestrial fire.
                 CHAPTER IX.
Phosphorescent Substances.—Sudden Appearance of Flames.—
  Heat developed by the Slackening of Lime.—Substances which
  are kindled by Contact with Air and Water.—Pyrophorus,
  Phosphorus, Naphtha, and Alcoholic Liquids employed in differ-
  ent apparent Miracles.—The Blood of Nessus was a Phosphu-
  ret oil Sulphur;  and also the Poison that Medea employed
  against Creusa.—Greek Fire. — This Fire rediscovered after
  many Attempts.—In Persia and Hindostan an unextinguishable
  Fire was used.
   Nothing is more  striking to the vulgar than the
sudden production of light, heat, and flame without
any apparent cause, or with a concurrence of causes
seemingly opposed to such an effect.
   Art teaches the preparation of substances which
emit  light, without  allowing any sensible heat to
escape.   The  phosphorus of Bologna,*  and  the
  * The Bologna phosphorus is a natural gypseous spar, or sel-
enite which has the property of emitting light, when it is calcined
for that purpose.  It is powdered after calcination, and then formed
into small cakes by  means of a solution of gum-tragacanth; these
cakes are dried, brought to a state of ignition, and then suffered
     If.                  M 
178       PHOSPHORESCENT SUBSTANCES.


phosphorus of Baldwin,* are known to the learned,
but  they now only figure  in  books,  among  the
amusements of physics.  The ancients were  ac-
quainted with bodies endowed with a similar prop-
erty.   Isidoret mentions a brown"stone, which be-
came luminous wheni^prinkled with oil.
   The Rabbins, given up to the study of the Cab-
bala,| speak of a light belonging  to saints, to the
elect, upon whose  countenance it shines miracu-
lously from their birth, or when they have merited
this sign of glory.§   ArnObus,|| on the authority of
Hermippus, gives  to  the magician Zoroasterfl a
belt of fire ; a suitable ornament for the institutor
of the worship of fire.   A philosopher of the pres-
ent age  would  be very little  embarrassed  how to
produce these brilliant wonders, particularly if their
duration was not required to be much prolonged.

to cool. If kept from air and moisture, they shine like  a burning
coal when carried into a dark place, after being exposed for a few
minutes to the light. In 1602, Vincentius  Casciorolus, a shoe-
maker of Bologna, who had discovered the properties of this spar,
showed it  to Scipio Bezatello, an alchemist, and several learned
men, under the martial name of lapis Solaris, and as the  substance
called the  sol of the alchemist, or philosopher's stone, fitted for
converting the ignoble metals into gold.*—Ed.
   * Baldwin's phosphorus is nitrate of lime, which,  after the water
of crystalization has been evaporated, and the salt has become
dry,  acquires the property of emitting light in the dark.—Ed.
   t Savinius lapis, oleo addito, etiam lucere fertur, lsid., Hispal. Ori-
gin., lib. xvi., cap. iv.
   X  The Cabbala is the work which contains the esoteric phi
losophy of the Jewish doctors, and which derives its name from
the Hebrew word kibbel, to receive ; as the laws it contains were
received by Moses from above.—Ed.
   § Gaulmin, De vita et morte Mosis, not. lib. ii., pp. 233-325.
   || Arnobus lived in the reign of Diocletian, and was  converted
to Christianity.  In proof of his  sincerity, he wrote a treatise in
which he  exposed the absurdity of irreligion, and ridiculed the
heathen gods.—Ed.
   1"  Nunc veniat quis, super igneam' zonam, magus interiore ab orbe
Zoroaster.—Arnob., lib. l. It; is  without any reason that some
commentators wish to read it thus :  Quin Azonaces magus, <fc.

       * Beckinan's Hist, of Inventions, trans., vol. ix., p. 423. 
DRUIDICAL FIRE.
179
   The Druids extended the resources of science
much farther.  The renowned person, who, in the
poem of Lucan, proclaims their magical power,
boasts of possessing the secret of making a forest
appear  on fire, when it does not burn.*   Ossian
paints old men, mixed with the sons of Loda, and
at night making  conjurations round a cromlech, or
circle of stones ; and, at their command, burning
meteors arose, which terrified the warriors of Fin-
gal ; and by the light of  which Ossian distinguished
the  chief of the enemy's warriors.t  An English
translation of Ossian  observes that  every bright
flame, sudden, and  resembling lightning, is called
in Gaelic the Druid's  flame.\  It is to this flame
that Ossian compares  the sword of his son Oscar.§
Connected with the recital  of the bard, this expres-
sion indicates that the Druids possessed the art of
causing  flames to appear, for the purpose of dis-
maying their enemies. ||
   We may join to the traits of resemblance already
observed between the Celts and the ancient inhab-
itants of Italy, the fable of Caeculus, the founder
of the city of Preneste.  Wishing to make himself
known  as the son of the god Vulcan, he implored
the  aid of his sire, when  suddenly an assembled
multitude, who  had refused to  acknowledge his
brilliant origin, were  enveloped in flames, and the
alarm quickly subdued  their incredulity.^]
   We  may remark, that Caeculus, most probably,
had chosen  the place  of  assembly, and that the

   * " Et non ardentis fulgere incendia sylvae."—Lucan, Phars.,
lib. iii.,v. 420.
   t Ossian's Poems, 8rc, published by John Smith, 1780.
   X Ibid.          $ G. Higgins, The Celtic Druids, p. 116.
   II From one  strophe of the Hervorar Saga, it may be inferred
that this  art was not unknown to the Scandinavian magicians.
(See Magasin Encyclop., 1804, vol. iv., pp. 250-260.
   f Servius in JEneid, lib.  vii., vers' GW-68I. 
 180      FLAME EVOLVED BY  MOISTURE.


Druids  only  exercised their power  in sacred in-
cisures, interdicted to the  profane, as in  certain
optical illusions where fire has often played a part;
for these apparent miracles required a theater suit-
able  to those who  worked them ;  and,  in other
places, in  spite  of the  urgency of necessity, they
would have  experienced great difficulty  in any
attempt to produce  them.
   The instantaneous development of latent heat is
not less likely to excite astonishment, particularly
if water kindles the flames.   Substances suscepti-
ble of evolving heat, or of taking fire, in absorbing
or  in decomposing water, are numerous,  and they
have  very often occasioned  fires; such  as  were
attributed, formerly, to negligence  or to  malice.
Stacks of  damp hay, and slates of pyrites,* moist-
ened  by a warm shower, will produce this phe-
nomenon.t

  * Pyrites consists of a natural combination of iron and sulphur.
It is frequently found in seams of coal; and when it is exposed to
moisture, the sulphur and the iron aid one another in decomposing
the  water, and attracting its oxygen, which changes the sulphur
into sulphuric acid, and the iron into an oxide; and thus forming,
by the union  of these two, the sulphate of iron. During these
natural processes the degree of heat developed is  often  sufficient
to inflame the hydrogen, the other constituent of  the water, as it
escapes into the air.—Ed.
  t  In ricks of hay thus consumed, the combustion is the result
of fermentation, a fact which was known to the ancients: for Ga-
len informs us that the fermenting dung of pigeons is sufficient to
set fire to a house, a phenomenon which he has witnessed: and
it is recorded, on good authority, that the fire which consumed the
great church of Pisa was  occasioned by the  fermentation of the
dung of the pigeons that had for centuries built their nests under
its roof.  Many other substances, also, cause spontaneous com-
bustion.  When recent charcoal is reduced to an impalpable pow-
der, by rollers, it gradually absorbs air, which is consolidated, and
heat is developed during the process equal to 360° of Fahrenheit,
which soon causes the combustion of the charcoal.  The inflam-
mation is more active in proportion to the shortness of the inter-
val between the production of the charcoal and its reduction into
powder: and the free admission of air is indispensable.*—Ed.
* Brewster's Natural Magic, p. 215. 
SUBSTANCES  EXTRICATING  HEAT.     181
  Were the Thaumaturgists acquainted with phe-
nomena similar to the latter ?  I reply, without
doubt, they were.  The prodigious heat which is
emitted by quicklime sprinkled with water could
not have escaped  their observation.  Now, let us
suppose that a sufficient quantity of quicklime is
hidden at the bottom of a pit, or kiln, and that the
pit  is then filled  with  snow:  the  absorbed snow
will disappear ; .and the  interior temperature of
the pit or kiln will be so much more raised, owing
to its being thus  closely shut, that less  of the ex-
panded heat  will be allowed to escape—and an
apparent  miracle will be  proclaimed.   Thus, a
writer of legends has ornamented the history of St.
Patrick, by relating that  the apostle   of Ireland
lighted a kiln with snow.
   Theophrastus* gives the name of  spinon  to a
stone which is met with  in  certain  mines ; and
which,  if pounded, and then exposed  to the sun,
ignites of itself, particularly if care has been taken
to  wet it first.   The  spinon, there can be little
doubt, is merely an efflorescing pyrites.   The stone
named gagatesX (true pyritic jet) is black, porous,
light, friable, and resembles burned wood.  It ex-
hales a disagreeable odor;  and, when it is heated,
 it attracts other bodies in the  same manner as am-
 ber.  The smoke which it exhales in  burning re-
 lieves  women  attacked with hysterics ;  and it is
 kindled by means of water, and extinguished when
 immersed in oil.  This latter peculiarity was also
 the distinguishing feature of a stone which, accord-
 ing to JElian  and  Dioscorides,$ ignited in a like
 manner, when sprinkled with water, and, in burn-
   * Theophrast, De Lapidibus.
   t Plin  Hist.  Nat., lib. xxxvi.,  cap. xix.—Sohn., cap. xxv.—
 Isid., His'pal Origin., lib. xvi., cap. iv.  So named from being ob-
 tained near the river Gagas, in Lycia.—Ed.
   J yElian, De Nat. Animal, lib. ix., cap. xxvni. 
182       PERSIAN  PHOSPHORUS STONE.
ing, exhaled a strong bituminous smell;  but, as it
was extinguished by blowing above  it,:.it^ com-
bustion seems to have depended-on the escape of
a gaseous vapor.*  ;.           ■ •    '
   Those three.substances, whether they were the
productions, of.artdriof nature, mighthave sufficed
to work rpiracujbus conflagrations.   But Pliny and
Isidore of Seville  have described a  fourth,  still
more   powerful:  a black  stone  that is  found  in
Persia, and which, if broken  between the fingers,
burns  them.t   This  is precisely  the effect pro-
duced by a bit of pyrophorus, or phosphorus stone;
and this wonderful. stone,  was probably  nothing
else.    It  is" known  that- phosphorus, melted  by
heat,  may ^become black and  solid ;| and the word
stone ought not  to impose  more upon  us  here than

  * Many instances of spontaneous combustion can be traced to
the escape of carbureted and s'ulp.hureted fiydrogen gases, through
rents in the earth.   Near the  village pf*Bradley, in Staffordshire,
an unextinguish'able fire has burned  for'seventy-years,-arising
from a burning stratum of coal, to which the air has free access
from beneath it.  At Bedley, also, near Glasgow, a constant
stream of inflammable gas issues in the bed of a river, which is
occasionally set on fire, and, in calm weather, continues burning
at the surface of the water for weeks together.   It consists of a
mixture of two volumes of hydrogen gas and one volume of car-
bon, so that it is little more than half the weight of atmospheric
air.*  The light  which has been termed the " Lantern of Mara-
caybo,"  in South America, and which  is seen every night hover-
ing over a mountainous,  desert spot,  on  the banks  of the river
Catatumba,t near its junction  with the Sulia, is another example
of the escape of inflammable gas issuing from  the ground, in-
flamed,  most probably, at first by electricity. In some places
these gases are  applied to  domestic use, as at the  salt mine of
Gottizabe, near Rheims, in Fecklensburg.—En.
  t " Pyrites ; nigra quidam,  sed attrita digitos admit."— Plin,
Hist. Nat., lib. xxxvii., cap. 11.—" Pyrites ;  Persicus  lapis ....
tenentis manum, si vehementius prematur, adunt."—Isidor., His-
pal. Origin., lib. xvi., cap.  iv.
  X It is not probable that it was phosphorus; but it might have
been a natural pyrophorus, which took fire on the exposure of a
fresh surface to the air.—Ed.
* Edinb. Journal of Science, new series, vol. i., p. 71.
t Humboldt's Personal Narrative, vol. iv., p. 354. 
     PHOSPHORUS KNOWN TO THE ANCIENTS.  183

the words lake mid fountain when a liquid is spoken
of.  Custom has consecrated in our own language
the words infernal stone (7'apis infernalis) and cau-
terizing stone* for a pharmaceutical preparation.
  But  were the  ancients  acquainted with phos-
phorus and pyrophorus 1  I reply iii the affirma-
tive, since they relate wonders which could have
been produced by no other means than the employ-
ment of these  substances, or by reactives, endowed
with analogous properties.   We shall have occa-
sion to mention an ancient description of the effects
of a combination of phosphorus, a description  as
exact as if it had been made at the present time
by a modern chemist.  As to pyrophorus, science
possesses  so many substances which ignite after
some  minutes' exposure  to  the air,  that it may,
without improbability, be believed that  many of
them were known to the ancients.   Without men-
tioning bitumens  as  being highly inflammable, or
petroleum, or  naphtha, which take  fire at the ap-
proach of a lighted candle, how many of the resi-
due of distillations kindle spontaneously in a damp
atmosphere.   This property, to which no attention
is paid, except to explain it by a general principle,
was certainly never neglected by the performers
of apparent miracles, since  the art of distillation
formed an important part of the sacred sciences.
   We will not then hesitate to  believe, though it
may well astonish us, what history relates of a vestal
threatened with the  punishment reserved for those
who allowed the sacred  fire to go out, that she had
only to spread her veil over the altar in order that
the flame should suddenly rekindle, and burn more
vividly than before.t  From beneath the friendly
veil, we may imagine that we perceive a grain  of
         * It is a preparation of pure potassa.—Ed.
         t Valer. Maxim., lib. i., cap. iv., $ 8. 
  184  PHOSPHORUS KNOWN TO THE ANCIENTS.

 phosphorus  or of pyrophorus  to fall  on the hot
 cinders, and supply the place  of the  intervention
 of the divinity.
   Nor  need we  longer share  the  incredulity of
 Horace, respecting the apparent miracle which was
 worked in the sanctuary of Gnatia,* where the in-
 cense kindled  of itself in honor of the  gods.t   We
 also may understand how Seleucus, sacrificing to
 Jupiter, saw the  wood-pile upon the  altar  ignite
 spontaneously to  offer a  brilliant presage of his
 future greatness;% neither can we  deny that the
 Theurgist Maximus,§ offering incense  to  Hecate, *
 might have been  able to announce that the torches
 which the  goddess  held would  light  themselves
 spontaneously, and  that his prediction had been
 accomplished.||
   Notwithstanding the precautions which the love
 of mystery inspired, and which was seconded by
 the  enthusiasm of admiration, the working of the
 science was sometimes openly shown in its assumed
 miracles.   Pausanias relates what he  saw.in two
 cities of Lydia, the inhabitants  of which, subject-
 ed to the yoke  of  the Persians, had embraced  the
 religion of the  Magi.  " In a chapel," he says,  " is
 an altar, upon which  there are always ashes, that in
 color do  not resemble any others.  The Magi placed

  * A town of Apulia, about eighty miles from Brundusium —Ed.
  t.Horat., Serm., lib. i., sat.  v., vers. 97-190; Plin. Hist Nat
 lib. 11., cap. vii.
  X Pausanias, Attic, cap. xvi.
  § This Maximus was a cynic, and a magician of Ephesus  He
instructed  the Emperor Julian in magic; but refusedto reside in
^Mcou^-  He was aPPointed pontiff in the province of Lydia
When his patron Julian went into the East, Maximus promised
him success, and that his conquests should  be more numerous
than those of Philip. After the death of Julian, he was almost
sacrificed to the fury of the soldiers, but escaped to  Constantino-
ple, where he was, soon afterward, accused of magical practices
before the  Emperor Valens; and being condemned, he was be-
headed at Ephesus, a.d. 366.         \\  Eunapius in Maxim. 
     PHOSPHORUS KNOWN TO THE ANCIENTS.  185

some wood upon the  altar, and invoked  I* know
not what god, by orisons taken  from a book writ-
ten  in  a barbarous  language  unknown  to  the
Greeks: the wood soon  ignited of itself without
fire, and the flame of it was very brilliant."*
  The extraordinary color of  the  cinders,  which
were always kept upon the altar, doubtlessly con-
cealed an inflammable composition;  simply, per-
haps, earth soaked in petroleum or naphtha—a spe-
cies of fuel still employed in Persia, in every place
where these bituminous substances are  common.
The Magi,  in  placing the wood, probably  threw
there, without its being perceived, a few grains of
pyrophorus, or of that stone which was  found in
Persia, and which was kindled by alight pressure.
While the orison lasted, the action  of either sub-
stance had time to develop itself.
  The vine-branches which a priest placed upon
an  altar, near Agrigentum, lighted  spontaneously
in the same manner.   Solinust adds, that  the flame
ascended from the altar toward the  assistants with-
out  incommoding them.   This  circumstance an-
nounces  that between the  vine-branches  a  gas
escaped, and was lighted from  below the altar, in
a manner similar to that at Mount Eryx, where a
perpetual flame is preserved on the altar of Venus.|
The fumes of a spirituous liquor would have  pro-
duced the same phenomenon.   By the inflammation
of  an ethereal fluid, also, may be explained the
power that Fromann attributes to the Zingari§ of
  * Pausanias, Eliac, lib. i, cap. xxvii.
  t  Solin., cap. xi.
  X Refer to chap, iv., vol. i.
  § Zingari is the Italian appellation of that extraordinary race of
mankind known as wanderers in almost every part of the world,
but whose original home, or aboriginal region, is still a problem.
In every country, although the same people, yet they have a dis-
tinct name.  In England we term them Gipsys, from their sup-
posed Epyptian origin; in France they are called Bohemians ; in 
186    _   COMBUSTIBLES INFLAMED
making fire appear upon a single  bundle of straw
placed.(among  many,..others", andp of extinguishing
it at pleasure.*  . In,this  manner school-boys amuse
themselyes bwmaking alcohol burn in their hands :
a puff of''breath disperses the flame at the moment
wheh.they begin to feel the heat of it.
   " It bias  been  observed,"  says Buffon,t  " that
some  substances thrown up by iEtna,  after having
been  cooled during several years and then moist-
ened  with  rain, nave rekindled, and thrown off
flames, with an explosion violent enough to pro-
duce even a slight earthquake."   The composition'
of these  volcanic productions may have been imi-
tated  by  art, or the Thaumaturgist may have care-
fully collected and preserved those which nature
had formed.   One of the four stones inflammable
by water, of which we  have spoken, shall  be ex-
plained elsewhere.
   In fact we may remark, with a man whom sci-
ence and  his country have equally regretted,^ that
quicklime mixed with sulphur,  by the heat which

Holland, Heydens; in Germany, Zigeuners; in Spain, Gitanos;
in Russia, Tzengani; and in Italy, Zingari; while the Oriental
nations call them Tschingenes.  From the time they first appear-
ed in Europe, they pretended to possess magical science, and to
have the power of looking into the future.   The art of chiroman-
cy, or telling fortunes by the inspection of the hand, however, is
not of their invention, lectures having been  read in colleges upon
that absurd art long  before the Gipsys appeared in. Europe.
With respect to their origin, the most probable opinion brings
them originally from Hindostan.  Their language has a close re-
semblance to the Hindostanee  ; and it is supposed that they mi-
grated from India in the beginning of the  fifteenth century, when
Timur-Beg invaded that country, and  endeavored to establish in
it the Mohammedan faith.  Whatever may have been their origin,
they are now little  better than lawless wanderers, thieves, impos-
tors, and the only pretenders to sorcery in Europe at the present
time.—Ed.
  * Fromann, Tract, de Fascinatione, pp. 263, 527, 528.
  t Thiorie de la Terre,  Preuves, t) xvi.
  j-Cadet-Gassicourt, De VExtinction de la Chaux, djf-c.  Thesis
sanctioned before the Faculte des Sciences, August, 1812, 
             BY  MOISTURE AND HEAT.          187

it emits when sprinkled with  water, .first fuses, and
then  causes the combustion  of the, sulphur ;  that
this mixture rapidly sets  on,fire,mixed with  sul-
phur and  chlorate of ;p.Qtassa, an'das suddenly ig-
nites gunpowder and .phosphorus ;'and that, in the
latter caj3e',,ithej,e.;ejeists; a physical means of fixing
the pr-Octse, mpm,enti when the;develpped heat  will
causgthe^cpmbusitkm..  .'./..'.  •   -  ■„..!.  j
 ;,Letr!u«transport,ourselves among a;p§ople.whose
first -historical; centuries,, owing.; to the. marvelous
recitals with which they are .filled, are thrown back
into the indefinite ages of mythology.
   The impartial reader will follow us in the march
of these recitals.   Let him weigh well all the ex-
pressions which  Dejanira* employs for .describing
the first effects of the Blood of Nessus, a marvelous.
philter, with which she impregnated the precious
tunjc. that .was. .to bring back the heart of her in-
c<*RSj^tntdhnsIIand.t  V'Nessus," says she, " advised
me •to/keep^.this  liquid, in  a  dark  place until the
moment-when I _ wished to make use of it.  This
is  what I  have done.   To-day, in the dark, with a
flock of wool dipped in the liquid, I have dyed the
  * Dejanira was the daughter of Oimus, King of ^Etolia.  She
was married to Hercules, and traveling with him, on one occa-
sion, being stopped by the swollen  waters of the Evenus, she
was conveyed  across the river by the centaur Nessus, who no
sooner, however, landed her on  the opposite shore,  than he
offered violence to her person in the sight of her husband.  Her-
cules, to revenge the insult, killed the centaur with a poisoned
arrow. Nessus, in dying, bequeathed his tunic, stained with his
poisoned blood, to  Dejanira, observing that  it had  the power
of reclaiming  husbands from infidelity. The  lady gladly ac-
cepted and  preserved the  tunic; and when Hercules proved
faithless to her bed, she sent it to him; and he, having put it on,
was burned to death. The romance of the legend Is scarcely
destroyed by the explanation given by our author.—Ed.
  t Sophocl., Trachin., act iv., sc. 1.  To be more concise, I have
blended  together  two  passages very much like each other.
Seneca (Hercules QZtacus, act  hi.,  sc.  1) describes the  same
details, and particularly the efflorescence produced  whenever
the philter touched  the earth. 
188         COMBUSTIBLES INFLAMED
tunic  which I have sent, after having shut it in a
box, without its having been exposed to  the light.
The flock  of wool,  exposed to  the sun upon a
stone,  was spontaneously consumed, without hav-
ing been touched by any one.  It was reduced to
ashes,  into powder resembling that which the saw
causes to fall from wood.   I have  observed that
above the  6tone on  which  I had  placed it froth
bubbles appeared, like those which, in autumn, are
produced from wine poured from a height."
   Let a chemist read these details, stripped of all
mythological recollections;  what will he recognize
in  this pretended  philter,  given  by the hand  of
vengeance, and which, from its consistence, color,
or some other property, received the appellation
of blood l   I reply,  a liquid preparation of phos-
phorus,* which, owing to  the  proportions of  its
elements, inflamed spontaneously when it was ex-
posed to the light and heat  of the sun.   The phos-
phoric acid produced from its combustion would
produce upon the stone the effervescence  which
struck the eyes  of Dejanira, and also the ashes
of the wool reduced to  a dry and insoluble phos-
phate.
   Hercules clothed himself with  the  fatal  tunic;
then he  sacrificed  twelve bulls; but scarcely had
he taken the fire to  the wood-pile on which the
victims were deposited,  than he felt the effects of
the philter.t   The vicinity of the flame, the chem-
ist will say, and the humid heat of the  skin of a
man who works with strength and activity before
a  kindled pile will infallibly determine, though

  * A portion of phosphorus, combined with one portion of sul-
phur, composes a phosphoret which remains liquid at  the tem-
perature of 10°, and is ignited at that of 25° of the centrigrade
thermometer, 50° and 770 of Fahrenheit.
  t Sophocl., Trachin., act iv., sc. 2. 
BY  MOISTURE  AND LIGHT.        189
without visible  inflammation,  the  decomposition
of the phosphoret spread upon the garment.  The
compound  being dried  up,  and therefore much
more caustic, would act upon all parts of the
body, disorganize the skin and the flesh, and, by
inexpressible pains, cause the death of its unfortu-
nate victim.  Even at this day, when its nature is
not unknown, it would be difficult to  arrest the
action once begun of these consuming substances:
formerly it would have been impossible.
   In discovering so perfect a uniformity between
the picture painted by Sophocles and the illustra-
tions of science, can it fairly be supposed that by
chance alone the dreams or the imaginings of a
poet should  coincide exactly with  the operations
of nature ?   It is more  reasonable to admit that the
details of these  marvelous facts were preserved in
the memory of men, than that  the poet would di-
gress from the received tradition, of  which  he
knew not  the origin.   There can  be little doubt
that this  origin belonged to  occult science, to
magic studied in Thessaly, in the country of Nes-
sus, from the time of the siege  of Troy.*
   Convinced  that  the  Greek  tragedian has de-
scribed the effects of  a secret  preparation which,
perhaps, in his  time still existed in the temples,  I
have given to the blood of Nessus the property of
inflaming  spontaneously in the light, although this
may not have been an essential  condition~of the
phenomenon that  it produced.  Every  potential
cautery, spread in sufficient quantity upon the sur-
face of the body, will  exercise the same power;
will cause the  same pains, and soon occasion the
same impossibility of taking off the garment which
is daubed  with  it, without tearing the skin and the
flesh, and  without  redoubling instead of diminish-
            * Plin., Hist. Nat., lib. xxx., cap. i. 
190            THE  OIL OF  MEDEA.
ing the sufferings of the victim irrevocably doomed
to death.*
   The poison poured  by Medea upon  the  robe
which she sent to her rival, resembles, by its effects,
that which Dejanira, without knowing its malig-
nity, employed.   But this myth presents, further,
an impossible circumstance.  From the fillet  of
gold offered with the dress to the unhappy Creusa,
there shot unextinguishable flames.t  As it can not
be supposed that here there was an elevation  of
temperature, or the power of a burning sun, the
spontaneous inflammation discloses the employ-
ment of naphtha, which takes fire at the approach
alone of a lighted body.  Many authors relate that
Medea  really rubbed  the  robe  and  the crown
destined for Creusa with naphtha.f   Procopius
strengthens this tradition by twice  observing that
the liquor called naphtha by the Medes, received
from the Greeks  the  name  of the  oil qfMedea.%
Pliny, in fact, says that Medea having rubbed the
crown of her rival, whom she wished to destroy,
with naphtha, it  caught fire at the instant when the
unfortunate individual approached the altar to offer
a sacrifice.||
   In  the tragedy of Seneca, Medea, after having
announced  that the " golden frontlet sent to Creu-
sa inclosed a hidden fire, the composition of which
  * Toward the end of the last century, a pharcomopolist of
Paris,  M. Steinacher, was called into a house under the pretext
of giving relief to a sick person.   Some people who pretended to
condole with him, made a barbarous game of covering him with
blisters, and holding him in this state during several  hours.
When he recovered his liberty, the most active and best directed
means to relieve him were useless ; he languished for some time,
and died in the most horrible torments; the authors of this crime
remained unknown and unpunished.
  t Euripid., Medea, act vi., sc. i.
  X Plutarch,  Vit. Alexandr.
  § Procop., Histoire melee, chap. xi.
  II Plin., Hist. Nut., lib. ii., cap. 105. 
THE  GREEK FIRE.             191
she had  learned from Prometheus, adds that Vul-
can had  also given her  fire, concealed under the
form  of  a light sulphur, and that she borrowed
from  Phaeton the flashes of an  unextinguishable
flame."*   In withdrawing the veil from these fig-
urative expressions, it is difficult, not to  perceive
there  a  genuine  Greek fire,  which a grain of
pyrophorus, or  a little  naphtha would  kindle,
when the  fatal mixture was  dispersed through
the air, or by the vicinity of flame, such as that
burned  upon  the  altar  which  the wife of Jason
approached.
   We do not inadvertently add the Greek fire to
the number of the weapons of Medea.  According
to every probability, we may  ask, what was  the
foundation of the  Greek fire?   I answer, naphtha
—the oil of Medea; and those bulls which vomited
flame in order to defend the  golden fleece that
Medea's  lover had delivered up to Jason—those
bulls, the feet and the  mouth of which were of
brass, and which Vulcan had fabricated!—were
they not  machines adapted for throwing out the
Greek fire 1
   Faithful to the method which we have followed,
we shall endeavor to  trace the history of this weap-
on, formerly so dreaded,-from  the  earliest times
when it was employed, till the latest records of it;
when nothing announced that the discovery of it
was still recent.
   Two troubadours,  one of whom flourished in the
first years of the thirteenth century, mention the
Greek fire.  One of them says  that it was extin-
  * " Ignis fulvo . . clausus in auro.. latet obscurus . . quel mihi
cceli. . qui furta luit. . viscere foeto. . dedit et docuit. . condefe
vires . . arte Prometheus. . dedit et tenui. . sulfure tectos. . Mul-
ciber ignes. . Et vivaces . .  fulguraflammae .. De coghatd.. Phae-
tonte tuli. ."—Senec, Medea, act iv., sc. 2.
  t Apollon., Rhod. Argonaut.,  lib. hi 
192
THE GREEK FIRE.
guished by  means  of vinegar.*   Joinville enters
into a curious detail upon the use of this fire, which
the Saracens darted  forth upon  the  Crusaders.!
The  Arabs  have, at all times, made a great use of
inflamed darts for  the attack and the  defense of
places;  so that the Sheik of Bamou, who derived
his knowledge from this  people, was much aston-
ished to learn that the English had never employ-
ed this method of destruction in war.J
   Manuel Comnenus§ employed  the Greek fire
upon the galleys which he had armed to oppose
Roger of Sicily;  and the historian observes that
he restored  the  use  of it, after it had been given
up for a long  time.\\   Alexius Comnenus had em-
ployed it, however, against the Pisans.   Upon the
prow of his vessels were  lions  of bronze, which
vomited  flame in every direction  where it was in-
tended to fall.fl  Anna Comnenus** speaks of fire
that the soldiers, armed with tubes resembling our
fusees, shot forth upon the enemy.   But, accord-

  * Millot, Histoire  litteraire des Troubadours,  tome i.,  p. 380;
tome ii., pp. 393, 394.
  t Memoires de Joinville, fol. edit., 1761, p. 44.
  X Voyages of Denham, Oudney, and Clapperton, vol. i., pp. 115,
238.
  t) Manuel Comnenus, although the second son of John Com-
nenus, yet  ascended the throne after the death of his father, in
1143.  His reign, of thirty years, was filled with the vicissitudes
of military enterprises against the Christians, the Saracens, and
the scarcely civilized nations beyond  the Danube.  He believed
in astrology, and the professors of that mystical art had promised
him many years of glory, even when his death was approaching;
but not feeling any confidence in their predictions, he requested
to have the habit of a monk brought  to him, and, substituting it
for the royal robe, he expired.—Ed.
  || " Ignis Graecus qui longo jam tempore abditus latuerat."
  % Ann. Comnen.,  Hist.,  lib. xi., cap. ix.  Alexius Comnenus
commenced his reign in 1081.  His daughter Anna  endeavored
to immortalize  his memory in the Alexiad, or the history of his
reign.  If her narrative  can be  depended upon, it would almost
induce the belief that the use of gunpowder was then understood
and employed instead of the Greek fire ; or that gunpowder was
that lire.—Ed.                   ** Ibid., lib. xiii., cap. ix 
THE GREEK  FIRE.
193
ing to her, they prepared their fire with a mixture
of sulphur and resin reduced into powder.   This
account, however,  is  not worthy of credit;   for
such a composition would have melted before igni-
ting, and would not have shot forth with an explo-
sion.
   Here three observations present themselves : 1st.
The lions  in bronze, employed by Alexius Com-
nenus, recall to  our remembrance the f re-vomit-
ing bulls manufactured in bronze by Vulcan—they
are  evidently the  same description of weapon.
2d. Sixty years had scarcely elapsed between the
maritime expedition of Alexius and that of Manuel
Comnenus ;  in so  short  a space  of time had the
Greek fire been almost  entirely forgotten !  How
many other processes of occult science  may have
perished by a more prolonged disuse.   3d. The
delusive process which Anna Comnenus  gives  for
the composition of the Greek fire is another proof
of the care with which the ancients then concealed
these  processes  beneath a double veil of mystery
and of falsehood.
   Constantine  Porphyrogenitus,* indeed, recom-
mends his son never to disclose to the barbarians
the secret of the composition  of the Greek fire;
but to say to them that it was brought from heaven
by an angel, and that it would be sacrilegious to

   * He was the son of Leo, and, although clothed with the im-
perial purple, yet he was of a retired habit, and dedicated much
of his time to the cultivation of literature and science.  He drew
many learned men to his court, and himself became an author.
He delineated what he regarded as a perfect image of royalty, in
the life of his grandfather, Basil; he also wrote a treatise, intend-
ed to instruct his son in the practice of government j and another
entitled Theurata, in which a  detailed account of the empire is
 eiven  Such a monarch was likely to inquire into the nature ot
 the Greek fire; and, knowing it, to secure its influence  for his
 people.  Water only increased its burning; it  was only extin-
 guished by stifling it under a heap of dust—Ep.
      II.                 N 
194
THE GREEK FIRE.
reveal it to them.*  Leon, the philosopher,-! order-
ed brass tubes to be placed upon the vessels, and
tubes of smaller dimensions to be put in the hands
of the soldiers.   Both  shot forth fire upon the en-
emy, with a noise similar to  that of thunder;  but
the emperor alone directed the fabrication of that
fire.
  It is said that Callinicus, of Heliopolis, in Syria,
invented  the Greek fire in the seventh century of
our era; but  he only  restored  or  divulged a pro-
cess, the origin of which, like  many  others, was
lost in the obscurity of initiations.   The initiated,
who were discovered and punished at Rome in the
year 186 B.C., possessed the  secret;  they plunged
their lighted torches into water without extinguish-
ing them, " because," says Livy, " the composition
consisted  of lime  and sulphur ;|  but they most
probably added  a bitumen,  such  as  naphtha or
petroleum, to the other ingredients."
  Callinicus and the initiated must have borrowed
their unextinguishable fire from  some Asiatic initi-
ation.  The  Persians  possessed the  secret,  but
they reserved  the use  of it for  combats.   " They
composed an oil with which they rubbed the darts,
which, when  thrown with  a  moderate force, car-
ried with them, wherever they fixed themselves, de-
vouring flames,§  increased and strengthened by
water, and only extinguish able by dust."
  *  Constantin. Pophyr., De administ. imper.
  f  Leon le philosophe; Institutions militaires,  inst. xix., vol. ii.,
p. 139.
  X  Tit. Liv., lib. xxix., cap. xxiii.
  (j Ammian. Marcell., lib. xxiii., cap. vi.  Pliny (Hist. Nat., lib.
ii., cap. civ.) describes the effects of a substance called maltha, of
which the inhabitants of Samosate made use against the soldiers
of Lucullus. The maltha was drawn from a neighboring pond
situated near the town.  Naphtha, or petroleum, doubtless formed
the basis of it. Besieged by Lucullus, the defenders of Tigrano-
certa shot out inflamed naphtha upon their enemies.  (Dio Cass.
—Xiphilin in Pompeio.) 
THE GREEK FIRE.
195
  Traditions almost always lead us back toward
Hindostan, when we  are  desirous  of discovering
the inventors of ancient arts.
  Among the numerous writers who have  trans-
formed the history of Alexander  into romance,
some relate that the Macedonian, when  in India,
opposed to the elephants of his  enemies machines
of bronze,  or  of  iron, which  vomited fire, and
which secured his conquest.*  Others, on the con-
trary,  describe " the large flashes  of flame that
Alexander beheld as showered upon  his army, on
the burning plains  of India."t  These conflicting
recitals have a common foundation, and the tradition
only relates that, in India, a composition analogous
to the Greek fire was employed as an engine  of
warfare.  It was a composition similar to that which
a sorcerer and a sorceress shot forth from inflamed
jets, mentioned in one of the marvelous narrations
of Hindoo origin.   The spectators of the combat,
and the combatants themselves, experienced the
bad effects of it.|   Fictions of this kind generally
originate in reality.   The fire which burns  and
crackles on the bosom of the waves, instead of being
extinguished,  denotes  that  the Greek  fire  was
anciently known in Hindostan, under  the name of
the  fire of Barrawa.%  It was employed  against
besieged towns.  On the banks of the Hyphasis,
an  oil was  composed, and inclosed  in pots of
earth; and, on  being shot out against the wood-
works, or the  gates of a city, kindled with an  un-
   it j Vactrius, Vit. Alexand. (discovered and published by M.
 Mai), Biblioth.  Univ. Litt'erature, vol. vii., pp. 225, 226.  Extract
from the romance of Alexander  the Great, from a Persian manu-
script &cc.—Bibliotheque des Romans, Octobre, 1775, tome l.
  t This tradition, given in an apocryphal letter of Alexander to
 Aristotle, has been adopted by Dante, Inferno, cant. xiv.
   X  The Arabian Nights' Entertainments, 55th night, vol. l., pp.
 320-322.                       ...    „
   §  Sacountala, em VAnneaufatal, act, ill., sc. 4, 
196
THE GREEK  FIRE.
 extinguishable flame.   The fabrication of this dan-
 gerous substance was  left to the king ; no  other
 person had permission  to  prepare even a drop of
 it."*  This recital by  Ctesias has been rejected,
 because what the historian adds, as to the manner
 of composing this unextinguishable oil, is thought
 improbable.   He has  been  assured  that it was
 drawn from a very dangerous water serpent.  This
 circumstance does not appear absolutely destitute
 of truth.   Philostratust says that the unextinguish-
 able oil was extracted from a fresh  water  animal,
 resembling  a worm.   In  Japan,  the  inari,  an
 aquatic lizard, black and  venomous, furnishes an
 oil,  which is burned  in  the temples.!  Nothing
 interferes with the  supposition that, in India,  the
 element  of the  unextinguishable fire—an animal
 grease or oil—is united to the naphtha for giving
 more body  to  the incendiary  projectile, and a
 longer duration to its action.   In supposing, more-
 over,  that  Ctesias had incorrectly translated and
 misunderstood the account he received, or that an
 erroneous  account purposely had  been  given to
 him, the fact itself does not remain less probable.
 We again  repeat, that we are too apt to  accuse
 the recitals of the ancients of absurdity.   To con-
 firm  what  they had said  of  the  Greek fire,  Car-
 dan  has  indicated the  method of  preparing fire-
 works endowed with similar properties.§   Prompt
 to refute  Cardan, Scaliger,||  a man more erudite

  * Ctesias in Indie—^Elian, De  Nat. Animal, lib. v., cap. iii.
  t Philostrat, Vit. Apollon., lib. hi., cap. i.—^Elian (De Nat. Ani-
mal, lib. v., cap.  iii.),  quoting Ctesias, also uses the expression
 I,kuXv^, worm; but this worm, which lives in the river Indus, is
seven cubits long and of proportionate breadth.  From the ex-
pression of ^Elian it may be inferred that the oil thus prepared is
kindled without fire, and by the contact alone of  a combustible
Dody.      X Koempfer, Histoire du Japan,  liv. iii., chap, v., p. 53.
  () H. Cardan, De Subtilitate, lib.  ii.
  || J. C. Scaliger, Exoteric ad. Cardan, xiii., no. 3. 
       GUNPOWDER KNOWN  TO  THE  MAGI.    197


than able,  and more  presumptuous  than  erudite,
boldly  ridiculed  those who professed  that they
could produce  physical  compositions which, ex-
posed to the rays  of the sun,  or sprinkled with
water, would ignite.   A student of chemistry would
ridicule Scaliger for  such an opinion, and work,
before his  eyes, two  apparent miracles, which he
had declared to be impossible.
                 CHAPTER X.

Compositions similar to Gunpowder.—Mines worked by it under
  Herod ; by the Christian Priests under the Emperor Julian at
  Jerusalem ; in Syria under the Caliph Motassem ; and by the
  Priests of Delphi, in order to repulse the Persians and Gauls.—
  Antiquity of the Invention of Gunpowder; its probable Origin
  in Hindostan; it has been known from Time immemorial in
  China.—Tartar Army repel led by Artillery.—Priests of India em-
  ployed the same Means  to hurl Thunder upon their Enemies.—
  The Thunder of Jupiter compared to our Firearms.—Many as-
  sumed Miracles explained by the Use of these Arms.—Gunpow-
  der was known in the latter Empire, probably until the Twelfth
  Century.

  Physical phenomena, and the  services   that
science extracts from them, link  the one to the
other.   The examination of the brilliant apparent
miracles  effected  by  spontaneous  inflammations
leads us to a discussion  of the resources that the
Thaumaturgists employed in war to turn fire into
an offensive or defensive weapon.    From the facts
which we have already quoted, we may presume
that very anciently they were in possession of some
inflammable composition more or  less similar to
gunpowder,*  and  that  those tubes which  threw
out  a brilliant fire, with a noise like that of thun-

  * Dutens (p. 194) supposes that they were actually acquainted
with gunpowder.—Ed. 
i98   GUNPOWDER KNOWN TO THE MAGI.

der, may have been the first rough delineations of
our cannons and firearms.*   We  could not then
have been accused of romancing, if we had said
that the ancients  possessed,  by these means, the
power of imitating the most  formidable scourges ;
whether by shaking the earth by  mines they saw
it  open  in  chasms at their  enemies' feet, or  by
sending from  afar bolts as burning, speedy, and
inevitably fatal as lightning.
   Herod descended  into the monument of David
in the hope of finding treasure there.  His cupidity
not being satisfied with what he had already found,
he extended his researches, and caused the vaults
in which the remains of David and Solomon were
laid to be opened.  A fierce  flame suddenly burst
out; two of the king's guards, suffocated and burn-
ed by it, perished.t  Michaelis attributes this prod-
igy to  the gas, which, escaping from the vault, was
kindled by the torches destined to light the work-
men who were employed in clearing an entrance.f
But if such had been the case, these latter would
have been the  first victims, as the expansion of the
gas must have taken place as soon as an opening
had been effected in the vault.  We should rather
think that the priests, who had more than one motive
for hating Herod,  and who looked upon the treas-
ures inclosed in David's monument as the property
of the theocratic  government, being justly indig-
nant at the sacrilegious pillage which the Idumean
prince was committing, sought, by stimulating his
cupidity, to attract him into the interior vault, where
they had  prepared the certain means for  his de-

 * Bacon is inclined to think that the Macedonians had a kind
of magic powder, in its effects approaching to those of gunpowder.
(Encyclop. method Philosophic, vol. i., p. 341, col. 1.
 t Josephus, Aut. Jud., lib. xvi., cap.  iii.
 X Magasin Scientifique de  Gbtlingue,  3e annee, 6e cahier, 1783. 
    EXPLOSIONS  APPARENTLY SUPERNATURAL. 199


struction, if, as  they  expected, he  should  be  the
first to enter it*
  Michaelisf explains, in the same manner, by  the
inflammation  of subterraneous gas,  the  miracle
which interrupted the works ordered by the Em-
peror Julian for the restoration of the Temple of
Jerusalem, and at which the Christians rejoiced so
exceedingly that they  were suspected to have been
the authors of it.  This explanation  seems  to us
even  less  plausible than the  former.   If  in  the
globes of fire which shot out from the midst of the
rubbish,  wounding  and putting  the  workmen to
flight—if in the shaking of the ground, and  the
overthrow of several buildings, we  are not to rec-
ognize the springing of a mine—we ask, what  are
the signs by which the springing of a mine is to be
recognized ]J

  *  The conjecture of Michaelis is much more probable than the
explanation of our author.  In long shut up vaults and caverns,
carbureted  hydrogen gas, fire-damp, as it is termed by miners,
frequently form in large quantities, and is instantly fired on com-
ing  into contact with a torch or any burning body.  Now, as the
torches must have been in the hands of the soldiers, not in those
of the workmen who preceded them, the gas would pass unin-
flamed over the workmen and be ignited only when it reached
those who held the torches.—Ed.
  t  Magasin Scientifique de Gbttingue, loc. cit.
  X  This opinion, so confidently advanced by our author, is not
authorized by the account  of Ammianus Marcellinus, who wit-
nessed the event, and who,  being inimical to the Christians, was
not  likely to conceal the opinion, if it existed, that the explosions
and emissions of fire, which  defeated the intention of Julian to
rebuild the Jewish  temple, were the  result  of art. The Jews,
also, who  were eager for the restoration  of the temple, would
have searched out the artifice and exposed it, had any existed ;
beside, had the cause which forced Alypius to discontinue the
work, been a mine  which  was sprung, although it might  have
overthrown the buildings and killed the laborers, yet, it would
not have been constantly repeated in the manner described by the
historian, who, indeed, evidently ascribes  the event to the ele-
ments in these expressions: " Hocque modo elemento obstinatius
repellente."* And also by his statement that " the victorious ele-
* Ammianus Marcellinus, lib. xxxiii., cap. i. 
200  EXPLOSIONS  APPARENTLY SUPERNATURAL.


   We may observe, that neither the Jews of Jeru-
salem, the Emperor  Julian, nor Ammianus Mar-
cellinus,  who  has  transmitted the  account  of it to
us, were converted to Christianity by this miracle.

ments continuing in this manner obstinately and resolutely bent
in driving them (the  workmen) to a distance, Alypius thought
proper to abandon the enterprise."  Had the materials for spring-
ing several mines been placed in a limited space, and  the erup-
tions confined to one spot, the destruction caused by the first ex-
plosion would have rendered any after-attempts  to produce the
same ineffective.  Again,  were we to admit that new explosive
materials were employed in the  subsequent  explosions, new ex-
cavations must have been made ; but any attempts to effect such
a purpose could not have been carried on unknown to  the Jews
and pagans assembled on the spot; yet the eruptions were con-
stantly renewed as soon as the labor was resumed, until they ef-
fectually constrained  the  abandonment  of the enterprise.  The
Editor has no hesitation in saying, that if these explosions and
earthquakes were not a real  miracle, as he firmly believes they
were, there are no data whatever  for asserting  that they  were
produced by human art, as our author would imply; and, conse-
quently, although they may ever remain otherwise  unexplained,
yet they certainly can not be regarded as the result of the springing
of a mine.  In favor of their being  a real miracle, the prohibition
of our Savior with regard to the restoration of the  temple required
to be fulfilled, and it has  been accomplished up to the present
time: hence we see a  purpose which the miracle was intended
to fulfill; and, in the event, the operation of a power adequate to
the effect.   To borrow the language of Dr. Thomas Brown,  " the
possibility of the occasional direct  operation of the power which
formed the world, in varying the usual course of its events, it would
be in the highest degree unphilosophical to deny; nor even, we
presume, to estimate the degree of its probability, since, in many
cases, of the wide bearings  of which on human happiness we must
be ignorant, it might be the result of the same benevolent motives
which we must suppose to have influenced  the  Divine Mind in
the original act of creation itself."*   Such is also the firm belief
of the Editor; and, in the  events detailed, he perceives no law of
nature violated, and certainly no reason to withhold our faith in
the testimony of the historian of  the event; on the  contrary, we
may rationally suppose that the statement given of it by Ammia-
nus was in opposition to his personal interest.  The phenomena
presented no violation of nature; but, as in every real miracle, it
was an extraordinary event, the result of new and  peculiar cir-
cumstances, and a display intended  to sanction the revelations of
that Being by whom the universe itself was called into existence.
-Ed.

    * An Inquiry into the Relation of Cause and Effect, p. 500, notes. 
EXPLOSIONS APPARENTLY SUPERNATURAL. 201
  If we consult the annals of Greece, we shall find
that the priests of Apollo at Delphi, after having
announced by the voice of the oracle, that their god
knew well how to save his temple, did, in fact,
preserve it from the  invasion of the Persians, and
then from that of the Gauls, by the explosion of
mines placed in the rocks that surrounded it.  The
assailants  were crushed by the fall of innumerable
blocks of  stone, which,  in the midst of devouring
flames,  were  rained upon  them by  an invisible
hand.*
  Pausanias, who attributes  the defeat of the Gauls
to an earthquake and a miraculous storm, thus de-
scribes their effects : " The  lightning not only kill-
ed those who were struck by it, but an inflamma-
ble exhalation was  communicated to  those who
were near, and reduced them to powder."t
   The explosion, however,  of many mines, as vio-
lent as we could imagine, could  not have produced
that total  destruction of the assailants depicted by
the historians.  On  the contrary, we hear of the
same Gauls immediately afterward making a suc-
cessful  incursion  into  Asia.  They had been  re-
pulsed, not exterminated, at Delphi.
   With regard to the cause assigned for their re-
pulsion, would not the construction, it may be ar-
gued, of considerable mines, hollowed in the rocks
of Delphi, have  required the aid of too many co-
operators for the secret to have been so long kept ]
 To  this argument it may  be answered,  that the
more simple  and toilsome  details must have been
 confided  to  rude  workmen,  who  could neither
 dream, guess, nor divulge  the  intention of them;
 and  that these  excavations were probably com-
 menced long beforehand, as in the defensive works
  * Herodot  lib. viii., cap. xxxvii.-xxxix.—Justin., lib. xxiv.,cap.
 viii#       ''              t  Pausanias, Phoc,, cap. xxuu 
202  SUBSTANCES RESEMBLING GUNPOWDER.

of modern strong places, and merely required the
fulminating composition to be deposited in them
when needed.   Historical tradition furnishes us,
however, with a more  decisive answer.   Every
Greek, from Delphi to Thermopylae, was initiated
in the mysteries of the temple of Delphi.*   Their
secrecy, upon every point where silence was com-
manded, was guarantied, therefore, by a fear of
the evils threatened to a  perjured  revelation, and
by a general confession required from each aspi-
rant to this  initiation: a  confession which rather
 caused them to fear the indiscretion of the priests
 than to give  the latter occasion to doubt theirs.
    We may finally  remark, that the god of Delphi,
 so powerful  in  protecting his temple from stran-
 gers, made no attempt to rescue its wealth from
 the hands of the  Phocians.  When  these latter
 drained  its resources,  in  order to  defend their
country against the hypocritical ambition of Philip,
they had probably either obtained or  compelled
the acquiescence of the priests, and no longer fear-
ed  a  destructive  apparent miracle, which could
hardly be effected  without the consent  or the aid
of their chiefs.
   So customary is  it to deem the use of gunpow-
der of a very modern date, that these remarkable
facts have  remained unnoticed, or,  at  least, have
merely led to the  supposition that ancient  nations
were acquainted with some composition almost as
deadly.t   " All that has  been written," says M. Na-
   * Plutarch, De Oracul. Defect.
  t Various explosive substances are as destructive as gunpow-
der, and some of them might  have been known to the ancients.
When a solution of gold in aqua  regia is precipitated by ammo-
nia, and the product washed and dried without heat, it becomes
fulminating gold, it is exploded by the slightest friction, and
even can not be put into a bottle with a glass stopper without the
greatest danger.  It explodes with a loud noise.
  When nitrate of silver is acted  upon by nitric acid and alcohol 
INVENTION  OF  GUNPOWDER.        203
pione,  " by Egidio  Colonna,*  on  instruments of
war employed at the end of the thirteenth century,
gives rise to a suspicion that the invention of gun-
powder is of much more ancient date than we are
accustomed to  believe, and  that  this  formidable
composition was perhaps nothing more than a mod-
ification or perfection  of the Greek  fire, known
many centuries before gunpowder was  invented in
Europe."
   We  have established the fact, that the invention
of the  Greek fire belongs to a remote antiquity;
and we think that Langles was right in placing that
of gunpowder in an equally distant period.   The
following is the substance  of the facts by which he
supports his opinion.t  The Moors in Spain  made
use  of gunpowder  at  the commencement of the
fourteenth century.   From the year 1292, a poet

at the same time, a gray powder is procured, which,being washed
and dried, is fulminating silver.  The explosive force of this pow-
der is great; it detonates with a tremendous noise on being touched
with a glass rod dipped in sulphuric acid.
  When mercury is dissolved in nitric acid, and afterward alcohol
added, effervescence takes place, and a precipitate is thrown down,
which, after being washed and dried with a very gentle heat, forms
detonating mercury. It explodes with the least friction.
  A mixture  of chlorate of potassa and sulphur  detonates with
friction, and even evolves flame.  The noise caused by the explo-
sion of a few grains is equal to that of a musket.
  The chloride of nitrogen, which was discovered by M. Dulong,
in 1812,  is one of the most violent of all detonating substances.
It is procured in the form of an oil, and requires the utmost cau-
tion both to make it and to preserve it.  If a small globule of it be
thrown into olive oil, the  most violent explosion takes place ; and
this also happens when it is brought into contact with phosphorus,
naphtha, volatile oils, and many  other matters.
  All these compounds may have been unknown to the ancients ;
but they are mentioned to show the probability of our ancestors
having an acquaintance  with many detonating powders beside
those which we  possess.—Ed.
  * A Roman monk, who had a share in the education of Philip-
\e-Be\.—Mcmorie delta reale Academia delle Scienze di Torino, tome
xxix.—Revue Encyclopedique, tome xxx., p. 42.
  f Dissertation inserted in the Magasin  Encyclopedique, fourth
year, tome L, pp. 333-338, 
204
INVENTION OF  GUNPOWDER.
 of  Grenada celebrated this  means  of destruction
 in his verses.  There is also some reason for believ-
 ing that the Arabs had made use of it  against the
 fleet of the Crusaders in the  time of St. Louis; and
 in  690 they employed it in the siege of Mecca.
 Missionaries have undeniably proved that gunpow-
 der has been known in China from  time immemo-
 rial.  It was also known in Thibet and in Hindos-
 tan, where fireworks and fireballs have been always
 used in war, and in public rejoicings.   In districts
 of that vast country, where neither Mussulmans nor
 Europeans had  ever penetrated, iron fusees, at-
 tached to a dart,  which carried  them  into  the
 enemy's ranks by the  violence of the powder, have
 been found.  The laws collected in  the code of the
 Gentoos, the antiquity of which is  lost in the ob-
 scurity of the times, forbid  the use of firearms (a
 prohibition which, no  doubt, prevented them from
 becoming common).
   These laws make a distinction between darts of
 fire and those bolts that killed a hundred men at
 once: the latter remind us  of the  effects of our
 own cannon.   The Hindoos, though unacquainted
 with mortars, hollowed out holes in  the rocks, and,
 filling them with  powder, rained down stones upon
 their enemies,  precisely  like the hail which the
 priest of Delphi sent down upon the Persians and
 Gauls.  Finally, a commentator of the Vedas attrib-
 utes the invention of gunpowder to Visvacarma,*
 the artist god,  who is  said to have  manufactured
 arrows which the gods made  use of  when fightino-
 against the evil genii.
  From  this feature of  the Hindoo  mythology,
learned from travelers,  is it not likely, we may ask,

  * If this name has, as we are tempted to believe, furnished the
etymology of a French word (vacarme), but little known, it would
be inaptly translated " burning power," 
INVENTION OF GUNPOWDER.       205
that Milton derived the idea of attributing  to  the
rebel  angels the invention of gunpowder and fire-
arms 1  Langles has omitted to notice this resem-
blance ; and, doubtless, the right of poets to invent
appeared to him to weaken very much the author-
ity of their narrations.  It was, nevertheless, easy
for him to  find, in unexceptionable authorities on
physical facts, the confirmation of his conjectures.
He might have observed that, in China  and in
Hindostan,  the  soil is so impregnated with salt-
peter  that this  salt frequently effloresces  on  the
surface of the earth :  a phenomenon which must
have earlv sup-crested and facilitated the confection
of pyrotechnical compositions;  and, at the same
time,  have rendered the  knowledge of them com-
mon,  in spite of their importance as a part of the
sacred and occult sciences.  It is this, also,  that
has given  to  the Asiatic pyrotechnics  so  great a
preponderance  over the  European, and a  superi-
ority scarcely yet controverted.  Both the one  and
the other advantages have often excited our incre-
dulity, and prevented us from confessing that others
may be able to perform feats  of which we know
nothing.  Fontenelle  says that  in China, according
to the annals  of that  empire, " thousands  of stars
are seen to fall at once from the  heavens into the
sea, with a great noise,  or to  dissolve  away  into
rain.    One star went bursting  toward the east,
like  a fusee, and  always with  a great  noise."*
How  came it that the  ingenious philosopher did
not recognize  the  effects of fusees and firework
bombst in  this  description ]   It  was  well known
  * Fontenelle, De la Pluralite des Mondes, sixieme soir (vers, la
fin).
  t " A very brilliant meteor, as large as the moon,  was seen
finally splitting into sparks, and illuminating the whole valley."
—Ross's Second Voyage to the North Pole, chap, xlviii.  We  might
have thought that the  Chinese tradition related to some fact 
206      INVENTION  OF GUNPOWDER.

that the Chinese excelled in composing both ;  but
Fontenelle  preferred  jesting  on  the pretended
astronomical science of the Chinese.
  With  more  reason  has  a remarkable passage
from  the voyages of  Plancarpinus been  turned
into ridicule.  The Tartars informed this  monk
that Prester-John,  King of Great India (prob-
ably  a chief of Thibet, or of  some nation pro-
fessing the  Lamich religion), when  attacked  by
Tossuch, son of  Tchinggis-Khan, led against  his
assailants figures of bronze mounted on horseback.
In the interior of these figures was fire, and behind
each a  man, who  threw within  them   something
which immediately produced an immense  smoke,
and enabled the enemies of the Tartars to massa-
cre them.*   It is difficult to believe that an intense
smoke would be sufficient to put to flight the com-
panions in arms of Tchinggis.
   It is less repugnant to one's  prejudices to sup-
pose that these  bronze figures might  be either
small swivel guns, or cannon similar to those used
in  China, which,  by being taken to pieces, could
be easily transported  about on horsest—pieces of
artillery, in short, that most certainly emitted some-
thing else beside smoke.   Tossuch's soldiers,  un-
acquainted  with these arms, and having in their
flight  abandoned  their dead and wounded, could
only  tell Plancarpinus of  the  flames and smoke
they had seen ;  but  we can recognize the  real
cause of their defeat, which  was  neither difficult to
understand  nor miraculous.  We know  the inter-
course that  Thibet, and the nations following  the
religion of the Lamas, have always held with China.
similar to that which Ross had observed; but no European had
seen such meteors in China, and every traveler boasts of the fire-
works of that country.
  * Voyage de Plancarpinus, art. v., p. 42.
   X P. Maffei, Hist. Indie, lib. vi., p. 256. 
INVENTION OF GUNPOWDER.       207
Now, a grandson of Tchinggis-Khan, in 1245, had
in his army a body  of Chinese matrosses ;  and,
from the tenth century, they had in China thunder
chariots {chars a foudre), producing, from the same
causes, the  same effects as our cannon.*  Being
unable to fix the period when the use of gunpow-
der, firearms, and artillery was commenced in that
empire, national tradition has ascribed the inven-
tion to the  first king of the  country.t   Now,  as
this prince  was much versed in magic arts,\ it was
not without some reason that we ranked the dis-
covery, of which  he has  the honor, among  the
means employed for working  apparent miracles.
  These affinities strengthen, instead of affecting
the opinion  of Langles, which ascribed the inven-
tion of gunpowder to the Hindoos, from whom
China, no doubt, received her civilization and arts,
as well as her popular religion.
  The Greeks were not ignorant of the formidable
power of the weapons which were prepared in In-
dia by a secret process.   Philostratus describes the
sages who  dwelt between  the  Hyphasis and the
Ganges,  as  lanching forth with redoubled  fury
lightning upon their  enemies, and thus  repelling
the aggressions of Bacchus and  the Egyptian Her-
cules^
  We may  recall to  remembrance the  particular
arrows with which the gods  of Hindostan armed
themselves  against the evil genii.   In the Greek
mythology,  distantly, but decidedly  derived from
the Hindoo, the gods are described  as fighting

  *  Abel Remusat's Memoirs upon the Political Relations of the
Kings of France to the Mongol Emperors.—Asiatic Journal, vol. i.,
p. 137.
  t P. Maffei, Hist. Indie,  loc. cit.
  X  Linschott's Travels in  China, 3d edit., p. 53.
  y Philostrat., Vit. Apollon., lib. ii., cap. xiv.;  lib. iii., cap. iii.—
Themist., Orat. xxvii. 
208       INVENTION OF  GUNPOWDER.
against the  rebellious Titans, and  securing their
victory by similar terrible arms.  The numerous
points of resemblance,  indeed, in  the details of
these battles assimilate the weapons of the king of
the gods and men to modern artillery.  " The Cy-
clops," says the historian Castor,* " assisted Jupiter
against the  Titans  with  dazzling  lightnings and
thunder."   In the  war of the gods against  the
giants, Vulcan, according to Apollodorus, killed
Clytius,t  by  sending  fiery stones  against him.
Typhon, brought forth  by the earth to avenge the
giants, sent fiery stones  flying against the heavens,
while from his mouth issued flames of fire.  " The
brothers  of Saturn," says  Hesiod,| "freed from
their bonds by Jupiter, gave to him the thunder,
the  dazzling  lightnings,  and  thunderbolt, which
had been inclosed in the center of the earth ; and by
these weapons secured to this god his empire over
men and immortals."
   It is from the bosom  of the earth that saltpeter,
sulphur, and bitumen, which most probably com-
posed the fulminating substance of the ancients, are
taken.  Minerva alone, of all the divinities, knew
where the thunder§  was kept; the Cyclops  alone
understood the manufacture  of it;  and  Jupiter
severely punished Apollo for having attempted the
life  of these invaluable  artists.  Now, if we set
aside  the  mythological  ideas  attached to  these
names  and recitals, we  shall fancy  that  we  are
reading the history of a prince, to whom some in-
dividual, from gratitude, had imparted the secret
of fabricating gunpowder, and who  was as jealous
  * Euseb., Chronic. Canon., lib. i., cap. xiii., note.  This im-
portant passage is only found in the Armenian version  published
by Zorhab and Mai.
  t Apollodor., BMiothec, lib. i., cap. v.
  X Hesiod, Theogon., vers. 502-507.
  t) jEschyl., Eumenid., vers. 829-831. 
INVENTION OF GUNPOWDER.      209
of the exclusive possession of it, as the Byzantine
emperors were of reserving to themselves the se-
cret of the Greek fire.
  The resemblance between the effects of thunder
and those  of the inflammable compound we have
noticed is so striking, that it has been recorded in
all the historical and mythological narrations : nor
did it escape the observation of the natives of the
continent  discovered by  Christopher  Columbus,
and conquered by Cortes and Pizarro.  These un-
fortunate  people took  their conquerors  for gods
armed with thunder, until they obtained the knowl-
edge for which  they had paid  dearly, namely, the
right of knowing in their persecutors only malevo-
lent spirits and enemies to humanity.
   This resemblance explains a passage which Pliny
probably borrowed from  some ancient  poet, and
which has been  the torment of his commentators.
In treating of the origin of magic, Pliny expresses
his surprise  that this art had been dispersed  over
Thessaly from the time of the  siege  of Troy, be-
fore which time Mars alone directed  the thunder
[solo Marte fulminante).   Is  there not  a  visible
allusion to the power possessed by the sacred sci-
ence, and which magic,  originating in  the  tem-
ples, aimed at arrogating to itself, the power of pro-
ducing lightning, as well  as that of arming itself
with it in battle, and of producing explosions equal-
ing claps of thunder %
   Finally, it explains  the  death of  Alexander's
soldiers, who, having  penetrated into the  temple
of the Cabira, near Thebes, perished there, struck
by lightning and thunder :*  and also the story of
Porsennat killing, with one stroke of lightning, a
monster which ravaged the lands  of his subjects.
          *  Pausanias, Beetic, cap. xxv.
          t  Plin., Hist. Nat., lib. ii., cap. liii.
     II.                 o 
210       INVENTION OF  GUNPOWDER.
In addition to these, we may mention the presump-
tion  of the Etruscan magicians who,  when Rome
was  threatened with  a siege from Alaric, offered
to repel  the  enemy, by sending down  upon  him
lightning  and thunder;  boasting  that they  had
effected this  miracle at Narnia, a town which did
not,  in fact, fall into the power of the Gothic king.*
   But, it  may be asked, how  came an art which
was known to the Christians of the fourth  century,
to the Etruscan magicians  at the end  of  the fifth,
and preserved until  the ninth century in  Syria, to
fall  into oblivion ]  And why, for instance, did the
historian Ducas describe the falconets used against
Amurat  II.,  by the  defenders  of Belgradej as a
novel invention,  utterly unknown to  his  country-
men 1  In reply, I may inquire, how have so many
other arts perished which  were more widely dis-
persed and  more  immediately useful than those
referred to 1   And, beside, the secret imposed by
severe  laws against  revealing  the composition of
the  Greek fire may  have  existed  as  strictly with
respect to other important  compositions.
   I  may, nevertheless,  venture to affirm  that this
art was not  lost  until a more recent period in the
latter empire.  In the  fifth century, Claudian de-
scribes in verse  fireworks, and particularly the
burning suns.\  Anthemus  of Tralles, the architect,
who, under Justinian, traced out the  designs and
  * Sozomen, Hist. Eccles., lib. ix., cap. vi.   If we may believe
Zozimus (Hist. Rom., lib. v.)  the Bishop of Rome had consented
that  the magicians should  attempt the fulfillment of  their prom-
ises ; but they were sent away, on account of the repugnance of
the people to their proposal, and the town capitulated.
  t Ducas, Hist. Imp. Joann,  tyc,  cap. xxx.
  X    Inque chori speciem spargentes ardua flammas
       Scena rotet:  varios effingat Mulciber orbes,
       Per tabulas impune vagus ; pictaeque citato
       Ludent igne trabes ; et non permissa morari,
       Fida per innocuas  errent incendia turres.
         Claudian, De Mall. Thcodos. consulat.,  vers.  325-329. 
       PHYSICAL SCIENCE AN AID TO S1AGIC.   211

directed the construction of the church of St. So-
phia,* is reported to have sent lightning and thun-
der upon the house adjoining his own.t  Another
learned man points out a process for the manufact-
ure of fire to be sent against the enemy, which re-
minds us of the  composition  of our gunpowder.^
In short, the  same  composition  for making it, and
in the proportions used in the present day, is de-
scribed by  Marcus Grgecus,§  who certainly  did
not live later than the twelfth century, and has
been thought by some to have  existed before the
ninth.  It would, no doubt, be curious to trace out
these  inventions  from the  period when they still
existed in the latter empire to  that in which  they
became spread over Europe.    One obstacle,  diffi-
cult to overcome, is opposed to this investigation,
namely, that ignorance which, disdaining the  sim-
ple truth, and eager after the marvelous, first treat-
ed as miracles, and then rejected as fabulous, the
very histories that might have instructed us.
                 CHAPTER XI.
The Thaumaturgists might have worked pretended Miracles with
  the Air-gun, the Power of Steam, and the Magnet.—The Com-
  pass was probably known to the Phocians, as well-as the Phoe-
  nician Navigators.—The Finns have a Compass of their own ;
  and in China the Compass had been used since the Foundation
  of the Empire.—Other Means of working pretended Miracles-
  Galvanic Phenomena.—Action of Vinegar upon Lime.—Amuse-
  ments of Physics.—Lachryma Batavica, &c.
   We  approach  the  termination  of our  career.
Brilliant as may have been the promises we placed
  * Procop., De JEdific Justiniani, lib. i.,  cap. xxii.
  t Agathias, De Rebus Justiniani, lib. v., cap. iv.
  X Julius Africanus, cap.  xliv.—Veter. Mathem., edit. Pans
p. 303.
  6 Marcus  Graecus, Liber Ignium ad comburendos hostes, edit, de
La Porte du Theil, Paris, 1804. 
212   PHYSICAL SCIENCE AN  AID TO MAGIC.


in the mouth of the Thaumaturgist, we believe we
have proved that it would not  have been  impossi-
ble for him to accomplish many of them.
   The subject  is not yet, however, wholly exhaust-
ed.  We might draw upon the knowledge possessed
by the ancients, as affording  more than one  means
of accounting for many marvels.
   In  speaking of missile  weapons, we  have  not
included those set in  motion by the  elasticity of
compressed air.   Even  in  the  present  day,  the
display  of an   air-gun,  sending  out  some deadly
projectile, without noise or  explosion, would pre-
sent a miraculous  appearance to  men  who were
indifferently educated.    Philo,  of  Byzantium,*
who must have flourished in the third century be-
fore our era, has left  an exact  description  of the
air-gun.   He  does not  claim  the invention ; and
no one  would  dare  to decide how far  it may or
may not have been of ancient  date.t
   Many historians speak of poisoned needles, pro-
jected through a tube by the breath ;| and  in the

  * Revue Encyclopedique, tome xxiii., p. 529. Philo was an ar-
chitect, and  built a dock at Athens.—Ed.
  t The air-gun expels the ball by the sudden expansion of strong-
ly condensed air, in a hollow ball screwed on to the barrel of the
gun immediately under the lock. The bullet is charged with the
air by means of a condensing syringe before it is screwed on the
barrel.  When it is to be used, the  ball  is introduced into the
empty barrel; and the trigger being  pulled, opens a  valve which
admits the condensed air to rush from the hollow ball, and, acting
upon the  bullet, to impel it to  the distance of sixty or seventy
yards, according to the degree of condensation of the discharged
air.  If the condensation be twenty times that of atmospheric air,
the velocity of the bullet will  be equal  to one seventh of that
caused by gunpowder, the elasticity of  the gas formed by the in-
flammation of which is equal to one thousand times that of com-
mon  air.  No noise accompanies  the  expulsion of the  bullet:
hence the astonishment in the mind of a person wholly ignorant
of the nature of the air-gun would be greatly increased.—Ed.
  X Some of the tribes in South America, and on  the coast of
Africa, impel small poisoned arrows through long  tubes in this
manner, and thus kill their prey, or victims, at a considerable dis-
tance.—Ed. 
     PHYSICAL SCtENCE AN AID TO MAGIC.   213

abridgment of Dion Cassius,*  we  find  two  in-
stances of this crime having been committed with
impunity.  The rapidity with which the poison of
these needles  acts must, in particular  cases, have
rendered  their  effects  more  marvelous.   Some
Frenchmen employed in the service of Hyder Ali
and Tippoo Saib saw the prick of poisoned needles
cause death in less than two minutes, neither am-
putation  nor  any other means being of the least
use in  preventing the fatal event.   The  ancients
were acquainted with poisons no less rapid.t   We
repeat once more, therefore,  what  we  have fre-
quently had occasion to say, namely, that with such
a secret,  how easy must it  have  been to work ap-
parent miracles!
  The expansive power of water, when converted
into steam, is an agent, by the  use of which, in the
present day, the aspect of the  mechanical arts has
been completely  changed ; and  which, engrafting
upon them an  ever increasing progress, has  pre-
pared for future generations an aid to industry, the
results of which we are unable to  predict.   We
may inquire, was this  agent absolutely  unknown
to the  ancients 1  Did not Aristotle and Seneca,
when they attributed earthquakes to the action of
water, suddenly vaporized by subterranean heat,
point out  a  principle, the application  of which
alone remained to be tried 1  And did not Hero,
of Alexandria, a hundred  and twenty years before
our era, demonstrate how  steam might be used for
giving to a hollow sphere a rotatory movement ]$

  * Xiphilin in Domitian .... in  Commod.
  t The Gauls impregnated their arrows with so powerful a poi-
son, that the hunters made great haste to cut from the animal
they had hit that part touched by the  arrow, lest the venomous
substances should infect and corrupt the entire mass of flesh
  X Arago, Notice sur les Machines a Vapeur.—Almanach du Bu-
reau des Longitudes, 1829, pp. 147-151. 
214  PHYSICAL  SCIENCE  AN  AID TO MAGIC.

We shall  quote, in conclusion, two remarkable
facts, one of which belongs to Anthemus of Tralles,
a learned  man  of the latter empire, to whom we
have  already referred.  It is related by Agathias,
his cotemporary, that, in order to revenge himself
upon the inhabitant of the house next his own, he
filled several vessels with water,  upon which he
fixed copper tubes, very narrow at  the upper end,
but sufficiently large at the lower extremities to
cover the  vases to which they were hermetically
sealed.  He  applied the upper openings to the
rafters supporting the roof of the house which was
the object of his anger; then,  causing the water to
boil, the steam soon rose in the tubes, expanded,
and affected  the rafters opposing  its escape  with
violent movement.*   The coppers, it may be  said,
would  have  burst a hundred times  before  one
rafter would have been lightly  shaken.   True,—
but, we may ask, were these tubes really copper ]
And  might not  the philosopher of Tralles encour-
age such an erroneous opinion, in order to conceal
and  to preserve to himself the secret of this pro-
ceeding '<   Strange, therefore, as is the explanation
related  by the credulous  Agathias, it clearly  indi-
cates  that Anthemus  was  acquainted  with the
gigantic powers of steam.t
   Another example conducts  us  to the banks of
the Weser, where Busterich received the  homage
of  the  Teutons.   His image  was of metal, and
hollow; it was  filled with water, and the  orifices,
  * Agathias, De Rebus Justiniani, lib. v., cap. iv.
  t  The same historian has also adopted (loc. cit.) an erroneous
explanation of the marvel quoted by us at the conclusion of the
preceding chapter.  According to him, Anthemus had managed it
by means of burning-machines and a concave mirror, the move-
ment of which made the dazzling reflections of the sun to fly here
and there. So slight an artifice would not have persuadid a man,
who was, like Anthemus's enemy, a little instructed, that they
were sending the lightning against his dwelling. 
      PHYSICAL  SCIENCE  AN  AID  TO  MAGIC.   215


or openings for the eyes and the mouth, were closed
with wooden wedges.   When burning coals  were
placed  upon its  head,  the steam  forced  out  the
wedges with an explosion, and escaped in  torrents
of vapors from within*—a  most certain  sign of
the god's anger in the  minds of his rude adorers.
  If,  passing from  a nation  a  little civilized,  we
look into the very infancy of society, we shall  ob-
serve a similarity between the miraculous image
of the Teutonic god and  the  missile weapons used
by  the natives  of New Guinea, the  explosion of
which,  although  they were not muskets.t  was  ac-
companied by smoke;  a fact which seems to indi-
cate their impelling power to have been analogous
to steam.   It would be curious to investigate  fchis

matter!
  Are  we also certain that  we know how far the
ancient  Thaumaturgists made use of the magnet]
Its attractive property was so far understood by
them, that it was employed, it is  said, for suspend-
ing  a statue  from  the vault of a temple.!  This

  * Tollii Epistolm Itinerarim, pp. 34, 35.
  t  Nouvelles Annates des Voyages, tome i., p. 73.
  X Vitruvius (DeArchit., lib. iv.) and Pliny (Hist. Nat.,lib. xxiv.)
say that this marvel was projected, but not executed. Suidas,
Cassiodorus, Isidore of  Seville, and Ausonius, speak positively
of its existence.  According to Ausonius (Eidyllium  x., Mosella,
vers. 314-320), Dinochares, by this means, elevated to the vault of
the temple the image of Arsinoe, the wife  and sister  of Ptolemy
Philadelphus: an iron hidden from sight by the hair of the statue
being  attached to a magnet in the summit of the vault.  Suidas
(verbo Mdyvyc) speaks of a statue of Serapis, which, he says, was
of brass (probably plate copper), and supported by the same arti-
fice.  Cassiodorus (Variar., lib.  i., p. 45) and Isodorus (Origin., lib.
xvi., cap. 4) say that, suspended to the vault of one of the temples
of Diana, was an iron statue (doubtless of very thin  iron plate),
which, according to the first of these writers, was a statue of Cu-
pid.  Isidorus says that it was held there by the power of the
magnet, a particular and important feature in the narrative, which
Cassiodorus passed over in silence.  Vitruvius and Pliny,  being
more ancient, may have been better informed than the writers of
the latter empire; but  in order to show that these may not have 
         216  PHYSICAL SCIENCE  AN AID TO MAGIC


         tradition, whether true or false, shows  that the an-
         cients may probably have taken advantage of mag-
         netic attraction in working pretended miracles.
           The attractive power of the  magnet was not un-
         known to the ancients; but, following the custom
         adopted  for  increasing  the veil  of mystery, they
         affirmed, and attempted to  make it  generally be-
         lieved, that this property belonged to  one species
         of magnet only,  namely, that of Ethiopia.*  We
         are well aware, in  the  present  day, of the effects
         displayed by magnetic  attraction and repulsion in
         the exhibitions of experimental  philosophy; and
         let  us remember that, in  the temples, such per-
         formances would have been looked  upon as mir-
         acles.

           Modern Europe claims the discovery of the prin-
         ciple that regulates the compass ;t but this preten-


         sinned against probability, it will be only sufficient to state that
         the statue may have been  hollow and light, and the magnet very
y        strong.                                                '
          The fable, which is  extensively known, touching the coffin of
         Mohammed, which is said to be suspended to the vault of a mosque,
         furnishes an example of the inclination which men have of natu-
         ralizing among themselves wonders borrowed from a foreign coun-
         try and  religion; nevertheless, a gross  counterfeit does not de-
        stroy the possibility of  a fact, however much it may bear the ap-
        pearance of improbability.
          * Isid., Hispal.  Origin., lib. xvi., cap. iv.
          t For the sake of some of our readers, it may be necessary to
        state that the compass consists of a flat bar of steel, which, being
        repeatedly rubbed with a magnet, and fixed upon a delicate' pivot,
        :akes a direction nearly corresponding to  the meridian.   When
        used  for marine purposes,  the needle is placed on a steel pivot,
        which works in an agate socket let  into the center of the mag-
        netized bar.   A circular card is divided  into thirty-two parts, or
        points, and  these subdivided, so as to  form three  hundred and
        sixty points at the circumference. It is attached to the needle, with
        its point to the North Pole, marked  usually by a kind of fleur-de-
        lis. The whole apparatus is fixed in a circular box, in  such a
        manner that the card and needle are always level, and move freely,
        and yet soas not to be deranged by sudden concussions.  As far as
        regards Europe, the compass was first used at sea by Seig. B. Gi-
        vaia, of Naples, in the thirteenth century.—En. 
      PHYSICAL SCIENCE AN  AID TO MAGIC.  217

 sion may be contested.   A remarkable passage in
 the Odyssey has inspired an English scholar with a
 very ingenious conjecture on this point. Alcinous*
 tells Ulysses that the Phocian vessels are regulated
 and guided by a spirit.   Unlike  common boats,
 they require, says he, no helmsman or pilot; and,
 in spite of the  profound darkness of the night and
 the haze, they traverse the ocean with the greatest
 rapidity, running no risk of being wrecked.  Mr.
 William Cookt explains this passage, by suppos-
 ing that the Phocians  understood the  use  of the
 compass, and that they had learned it from the Phoe-
 nicians.
  Upon this conjecture we shall offer some observa-
 tions :
  1st.  His  author  might rely upon what  Homer
 several timesf says of the swift sailing of the Pho-
 cian vessels.  Directed  at large by  the compass,
 their speed must,  in fact, have appeared  prodi-
 gious to navigators accustomed and forced to coast,
 from the fear of losing sight  of land for too long a
 period.
  2d. The  figurative style characterizing the pas-
 sage quoted belongs to  a secret which the poet
 knew~ only by its results.  Homer thus transforms
 a natural fact into a miracle;  and, when he relates
that Neptune,  unwilling  that the Phocians should
save more strangers from the perils of the sea, had
changed into a rock the vessel which brought back
Ulysses  to his country, adopts this opinion, the
 origin  of which we have already pointed out,§ in
 order to explain that the art which had rendered

  *  Homer, Odyss., lib. viii., vers. 553-563.
  X William Cook, An Inquiry into the Patriarchal and Druidical
 Religion, dec, in 4to., London, 1754, p. 22.
  X  Homer, Odyss., lib. vii-., viii., et xiii,
  §  Refer to chap, iii., vol, i, 
218  PHYSICAL  SCIENCE AN AID TO MAGIC.

navigation so secure was lost from among the sub-
jects of Alcinous.
  3d. That the Phoenicians should have understood
the use of the compass it is not difficult to believe,
particularly when we remember the frequent voy-
ages their navigators made to the British Isles: but
there is nothing to prove  that they communicated
this secret to the inhabitants of Corcyra.   Homer,
who is so exact in collecting all traditions relative
to the communication between the  ancient Greeks
and the East, is silent upon this point.  But he in-
forms us that  the Phocians dwelt  for a long time
near the Cyclops, and had but recently separated
from them;  and, at the same  time, he terms the
Cyclops very ingenious men:*  an appropriate ex-
pression when applied to  artists learned in the do-
cimasic and pyrotechnic arts,  and  who,  for more
than  thirty centuries,  have left  their names  on
the gigantic monuments of architecture in Italy,
Greece, and Asia.  We have elsewhere establish-
ed^ and, perhaps, with some probability, that the
Cyclops,  like the Curetes, belonged to a learned
tribe,  who had  come  from Asia  to civilize  and
govern some of the Pelasgian  nations of Greece.
It is not surprising that the Phocians should  have
profited by the  instructions of this  caste, before be-
coming so tired of its despotism as to have separ-
ated  from it forever.   We can even discern why
their  good fortune or skill  in their voyages ceased
soon after this separation.   The father of Alcinous
had decided upon it, and  under the reign of Al-
cinous the Phocians renounced navigation.  Might
it not have been because the instruments obtained
from  the liberality  of their ancient masters had

  *  Homer, Odyss., lib. vii., vers. 4-8.
  t  Historical and Philosophical Essay upon the Names of Men,
Nations, and Places, $ 81, vol. ii., pp. 161-172. 
      PHYSICAL SCIENCE AN AID TO MAGIC.  219

been  destroyed, and that they were ignorant how
to reconstruct others 1
  It remains only to prove that the Cyclops did
possess so valuable a knowledge—a proof which is
nearly impossible.
  We only know that they came from Lycia* into
Asia; but they might  have only crossed  Lycia,
and have come from some more interior country
of Asia,  like  the hyperborean Olen,  when,  with
hymns and a  religious  faith,  he  brought the ele-
ments of civilization  into Greece.
  It was from the  extremities of Asia also that
there  came  into Greece and Italy that  northern
or Scythian Abaris, said to be endowed by the god
he worshiped with an arrow,  by the assistance  of
which he could overrun the universe.  It has been
poetically said, and repeated by Suidas and Iam-
blichus, that, by  the  virtue of this precious gift,
Abaris traversed the winds.\   This  expression has
been  taken in  its strictest sense; but Iamblichus
adds,  immediately afterward, that "Pythagoras de-
prived Abaris of the  golden arrow  with which  he
steered his course [qua se gubernabat); that, having
thus robbed him, and having hidden the arrow, with-
out which he  was unable to discover the track  he
should follow,  Pythagoras  compelled him  to ex-
plain  its nature.^  If, instead  of the pretended  ar-
row, we  substitute a magnetic needle of the same
form  and large dimensions, gilded  to preserve it
from  rust, instead  of an  absurd fable,  we  shall
have in the narration of Iamblichus a real fact,  re-
lated  by  a man who had not  penetrated its  scien-
tific mystery.

  * Lycia was a Pelasgian settlement.—Er>.
  t Suidas, verbo Abaris.—Iamblich.,Vit. Pythagor., cap. xxviii.
—See also Herodot., lib. iv., § 36.—Diod. Sic, lib. iii., cap. xi.
  t Iamblich,, Ioc. cit. 
 220  PHYSICAL SCIENCE AN  AID TO MAGIC.

   All this, nevertheless, offers us only conjectures
 more or less probable.   Let  us quote a  fact.  The
 Finns possess a compass which could not possibly
 have been given to them by Europeans, and the use
 of which among them  can be traced to ages un-
 known.   It presents this peculiarity: it describes
 the rising and setting of the sun in summer and
 winter, in a manner that could only agree with the
 latitude of 49° 20'.*  This latitude crosses in Asia
 the whole of Tartary, the Scythia of the ancients.
 It is that under which Bailly was led to place the
 nation  which  might be called  " inventors  of the
 sciences ;"t and that, too, in which, as  Volneyf
 has  remarked, the Bounctehesch,  or fundamental
 book of religion of Zoroaster, was written.  If we
 follow it, we are conducted in the East to that por-
 tion of Tartary, the population of which—some-
 times conquerors,  sometimes subjects—were  yet
 intimately connected with the  Chinese Empire.
 Now,  the ancient  existence of the compass in
 China  has been denied by no one ;§ and we can
 not regard as  false the tradition,||   according to
 which a Chinese hero, a long time before our  era,
 successfully made use of the  magnet to guide his
 march in the midst of darkness.
   As the compass was known  at the same time

  * Nouvelles Annates des Voyages, tome xvii., p, 414.
  t Bailly, Lettres sur I'Origine des Sciences.—Lettres sur I'Atlan-
 tide.
  X Volney, GSuvres Completes, tome iv., pp. 202, 203.
  $ The Chinese trace the use of the compass among themselves
 to the reign of Hoang-ti 2600 b.c.  There is mention made of
 magnetic  chariots, or bearers of compasses, in the historical
 memoirs  of Szu-ma-thsian, 1110 B.C.—J. Klaproth,  Letter upon
 the Origin  of the Compass.—Bulletin of the  Geographical Society,
 second series, vol. ii., p. 221.
  |! Abel Remusat, Memoirs  upon the  Political Relations between
 the Kings of France and the Mongol Emperors.—Asiatic Journal, vol.
i., p. 137.  The Hindoos made use of  the  compass,  and there is
nothing to prove that they received it from the Europeans. 
      PHYSICAL  SCIENCE  AN  AID  TO  MAGIC.  221


among the Chinese and the Finns, it is but natural
to recollect that the use of family names, unknown
in Europe for so long a period, but existing from
antiquity in China, seems to have passed from the
latter country to the Samoyedes, the Bashkirs, and
the Laplanders.*  This extension in the dark ages
of so useful and popular  an institution, points out
to us the route which the disciples of the  learned
caste, the possessors of a  secret capable of display-
ing miracles, apparent, useful, and brilliant, might
possibly have taken in emigrating westward. _ It
renders probable an opinion, which  at first might
seem chimerical, that the knowledge of the magnet
came from the latitude beneath which the religion
of Zoroaster sprang,t into  those western countries
of Asia Minor where this religion was already es-
tablished,  and where it had  naturalized the prac-
tice of working apparent miracles peculiar to the

 worshipers of fire.|

   *  Eusebe Salverte, Essai Hislorique et  Philosophique sur les
 Noms d'Hommes, de Peuples,  et de Lieux, § 21, tome i., pp. 35-44.
   \ Isidore de  Seville (Origin., lib. xvi., cap. iv.) says that the
 magnet was first found in India, and consequently received the
 name of lapis indicus; but this  isolated and vague fact does not
 seem a sufficient reason for us  to seek for the origin  of the com-
 pass in Hindostan.
   X The idea suggested by the author, that the knowledge of the
 magnet, consequently of the compass, came from the East, is
 ingenious, and most probably correct.  Both, assuredly, were
 known in China, Japan, and  India, from a period of high an-
 tiquity, although they were-unknown to European nations until
 the twelfth century.  It does not, however, appear that, although
 the Chinese had long before employed the compass on land, it
 was not used by them for maritime purposes until the dynasty ot
 Tsin  which existed in a.d. 419 ; at least there is no direct proof
  that such was the case.  It is stated in the great dictionary, Poi-
  wen-yeu-fou, that "there were then ships directed to the South
  by the needle."  That it was  generally known as a  guide at sea,
  to the Asiatic nations, may be inferred from the following pas-
  sage, contained in a MS. written in 1242, by Banak Kibdjaki, and
  quoted in the  Penny Cyclopaedia (art. History of the Compass) :
  «' The captains who navigate the Syrian Sea, when the night is so
  dark as to conceal from view  the stars which might direct their 
222   PHYSICAL  SCIENCE  AN AID TO  MAGIC.


   We must hasten  to add, in order to forestall ob-
jections,  in which  a natural  partiality would  be
mingled with a just love of truth, that the existence
of particular knowledge in antiquity,  and among

course according to the position of the four cardinal points, take
a basin full of water, which  they shelter  from the wind by
placing it in the interior of the vessel; they then drive a needle
into a wooden peg or a cornstalk, so as to form  the shape of a
cross, and  throw it into the basin of water, on the  surface of
which it floats.  They afterward take a loadstone, of sufficient
size  to  fill the palm of the hand, or even smaller, bring it to the
surface of the water, give to their hands a rotatory motion toward
the right, so that the  needle turns on the  surface of the water;
they then suddenly withdraw  this hand and the magnet, when
the two points of the  needle face north and south.  They gave
me ocular demonstration of this process during our voyage from
Syria to Alexandria in the year 640 (of the Hegira)."  The  use
made of it on land by the Chinese, formerly referred to, is founded
on the following story, connected with the history of a Chinese
hero named Tehi-yeou, the truth of which is admitted to be un-
doubted :—
  " Tehi-yeou bore the name of Kiann; he was related to the
emperors Yan-ti.  He delighted in war and  turmoil.   He made
swords, lances, and large crossbows, to oppress and devastate
the empire.  He called and brought together the chiefs of prov-
inces ; his grasping disposition  and  avarice exceeded all bounds.
Yan-ti-wang, unable any longer to keep him in  check, ordered
him  to withdraw himself to Chae-hao, in order that he might
detain him in the west.  Tehi-yeou, nevertheless, persisted more
and  more in  his perverse  conduct.  He crossed the river Yang-
choui, ascended the Kieounae, and gave battle to the Emperor
Yang-ti at Khoung-sang.   Yan-ti was Hinan-yuan, the proper
name of the emperor.  Houang-ti then collected the forces of the
vassals of the empire, and attacked Tehi-yeou in the plains of
Tehou-lou.  The latter  raised  a  thick  fog, in  order that, by
means of the darkness, he might spread confusion in the enemy's
army.   But Hinan-yuan constructed a chariot  for indicating the
South, in  order to distinguish the four cardinal points,  by means
of which he  pursued Tehi-yeou and  took  him  prisoner."*  It
appears also  that the Chinese used the compass for maritime
purposes in the third century of the Christian  era; it was also, as
stated above, employed on  the coast of Syria before it came into
general use in Europe; and although  the Syrian compass was
of a very rude construction, yet it was sufficient for navigating
their  vessels  at  night. Vasco de Gama, when he  doubled the
cape of Good Hope, found  the Indian pilots expert in the use of
the compass.—Ed.

  * Davies's Early History of the Mariner's Compass.—British Annual,
1837. 
     PHYSICAL SCIENCE  AN AID  TO MAGIC.  223

nations long unknown to us, does not prove that
the Europeans did not in modern times really in-
vent the arts and sciences, the discovery of which
they claim, and which they have  undoubtedly re-
discovered.  The art of typography is as ancient in
Thibet and China  as the histories of these coun-
tries ;  but it is less than  four centuries ago since
Faust, Schoeffer, and Guttenberg enriched Euro-
pean civilization with it.  It is sixteen or  seven-
teen lusters since the progress of science has en-
abled us to recognize in the narrations of antiquity
the art of conducting lightning, rediscovered by
Franklin.   The learned, perplexed in determining
the precise period of the reinvention of the com-
pass and of gunpowder, have no  less difficulty in
stating that the use of either has been known  over
Europe  for not more than five  or six  hundred
years.   The  secrets  of  thaumaturgy must have
been very numerous, since the learned caste stud-
ied the physical sciences only with the  view  of
finding in them, almost with every new discovery,
a fresh means of astonishing, alarming, and govern-
ing the multitude.  If, then, many of these secrets
have irrecoverably perished with the priests and
the temples, there  may be others, the memory  of
which, entombed in  some ancient documents be-
neath  a fabulous covering, will' some day emerge
from their graves, awakened by fortunate events;
in effecting the disinterment of which,  without
doing less honor to the human mind, their authors
will nevertheless be but reinventors.
  We might proffer  some specimens of this kind.
Chance  revealed to  Cotugno the  first phenomena
of galvanism, as accident also afterward  revealed
them to Galvani, who has merited the title of the
discoverer, from having  brought  to perfection,  by
reasoning and investigation, a knowledge  at first 
224   PHYSICAL  SCIENCE  AN  AID  TO  MAGIC.


fortuitous.   If chance had enriched some  ancient
Thaumaturgist with the same discovery, with what
apparent miracles would he not  have  electrified
his admirers, even although he had  merely limited
himself  to  the first principles of galvanism, and to
the experiments  which they  might  place in  his
power  upon  the bodies  of animals  recently de-
prived  of life.*    Even in the eighteenth  century
we have witnessed men who pretended from some

   * Galvanism is a modification of electricity, which is capable
of producing on bodies effects not usually obtained from ordinary
electrical  excitation.  The first display of its power was noticed
by Subzer, a German, who found that when a disk  of lead is
placed under the tongue, and one of silver over the tongue, and
the edges of both metals  are brought into  contact, a peculiar
taste  is perceived ;*  but  he pursued the inquiry no further.
Other  fortuitous  incidents  afterward might have led to the dis-
covery, but, for the reason  stated in the text, Galvani, professor
of anatomy at Bologna, is justly regarded as its discoverer.  It is
unnecessary,  here, to enter upon the general  phenomena pro-
duced, both on organic and  inorganic matter, by galvanism; but,
in order to demonstrate how it might be employed  to excite
astonishment  and even terror, and, consequently, become an in-
strument of power over the ignorant and the  superstitious, in
periods of  less general intellectual cultivation than the present, I
will only mention a few of its physiological  effects.  If a piece
of tinfoil, attached to the extremity of a wire connected with one
pole of a galvanic pile, be placed on the tongue, and the bent ex-
tremity of another wire from the opposite pole  be pressed upon
the inner  corner  of the eye, a flash of light and a sensation of a
blow on the eye  will be immediately perceived by the person
thus treated.  When a current of galvanism is passed along a
nerve to  any muscles of voluntary motion,  these muscles are
thrown into convulsive contraction, even if the  animal has been
dead for a short time, as long as the muscles  retain  their irri-
tability. Aldini operated on the body of a criminal executed at
Newgate: the convulsive movements were such as might  have
excited a belief that the dead man was restored to the power of
sensation ; and, from the terrific expressions of human passion
and agony, that he was enduring the most intense suffering.  I
may again  repeat, what extent of power would such experiments
have, placed in the  hands  of those who aimed to  deceive the
credulous into  the conviction that the whole was the  result of
supernatural agency ;  a deception easily effected  were the instru-
ment concealed, and the wires only brought into view.—En.

                 * Theorie  des Plaisirs. p. 115. 
PHYSICAL SCIENCE  AN  AID TO MAGIC.   225
internal feeling, or by the aid of a divining rod, to
discover the  springs  concealed  in the  earth at
depths more or less considerable.*   Edrisi relates
that a  caravan  traversing Northern  Africa  was
nearly perishing  from  thirst upon  a  barren  and
sandy soil, when one of the travelers, a black Ber-
beri man, taking a little of the earth up and  smell-
ing it, pointed out a spot  where they might dig
and find a spring of water.t  His prediction was
instantly  verified.  Place  a  charlatan in such  a
situation, he would pride himself upon having  per-
formed a miracle, and the gratitude  of his com-
panions in danger would support his pretensions.
   In the month of August,  1808, an  egg was found
upon the altar of the Patriarchal Church at Lisbon,
bearing upon its  shell the sentence  of death of all
the French, although  there did not appear to be
traces of the  writing being the  production  of the
hand of man.   This apparent miracle caused much
anxious excitement among the Portuguese, until
the French  distributed throughout  the town, and
had placed in all the churches, an  immense num-
ber of eggs,  upon the shells of which the  contra-
diction of this lie was written; at  the same  time
proclamations were  everywhere  posted up, ex-

   * The divining rod is a forked branch of hazel, or  even any
 tree which, if carried slowly along, loosely suspended in the
hand is said to dip toward the ground when brought over the
 soot where a mine or a spring is situated.  Compared with other
 divinrtions, this  rod  is of recent  introduction, and demons rates
 that superstitious credence and impudent imposture are not con-
 finedto any age; and humanity is humb ed in beholding men
 Kh considerable 'pretensions to science believers in the powers
 r^rihprl to the divining rod.  Thevenot published a memoir on
 the relation of the Jheifomena of this rod'to those of electricity
 and mametism • an<l Pryce, our countryman, in his work entitled
 MinZSc^mbriensispublished in 1778, has collected accounts
 of many successful experiments which he affirms were performed

   t Edrisi (traduction Francaise),  lib. i, cap. xxii.
      II.                 P 
226  PHYSICAL  SCIENCE  AN  AID  TO MAGIC.

plaining the secret of the supposed miracle, which
consisted in writing upon the shell, when covered
with an oily substance, and then plunging and re-
taining the egg for some  time in an acid.*
   By  the same  method, letters or  hieroglyphics
can be engraved, either grooved or in relief, upon
a  table of  calcareous stone,  leaving behind no
traces of a mortal hand.   Now, the  ancients were
acquainted with the strong action of vinegar upon
such stones, although they have  somewhat exag-
gerated it, by adopting the story which they have
recorded in history of the passage of the Alps by
Hannibal.t
   The area of the base of a vessel compared  with
its height, whatever may be its form, is the measure
of the  pressure of the  liquid it contains.   This
principle, which explains  the powerful  action of
the hydrostatic  press, may  possibly have  been
known  in  the  ancient  temples;  and how  easy
would it not have rendered the execution of many
apparent miracles 1  Indeed, is it not very closely
resembling a miracle, when  the  effect  produced
appears  so greatly disproportioned to its actual
cause ?   What more wonderful than the enormous
pressure which the small quantity of liquid neces-
sary to produce it causes 1\

  * P.  Thiebault, Relation  de VExpedition de  Portugal, pp. 170,
171.
  t Plin., Hist. Nat., lib. xxxiii., cap. i. et ii.—Dion. Cass., lib.
xxxvii., cap. viii. Might not the story this  refers to have its
origin in some manosuver employed by Hannibal to restore  to his
troops that courage which the multiplicity of the obstacles they
had to overcome were depriving them of?
  X Without entering into any explanation of the nature of this
machine, some idea of its power may be given by simply stating
the fact that, in a machine the area of the section of the piston
of  which is sixty-four inches, that of the valve admitting the
water into the cylinder is an eighth of an inch, and the power
of the pump applied  to it is one tun, the pressure effected by it
will he four thousand and ninety-six tuns !—En. 
      PHYSICAL SCIENCE  AN  AID  TO  MAGIC.  227


  Let us descend, however, to the amusements of
experimental philosophy.   Let us suppose that the
ancient Thaumaturgists  were acquainted  with  in-
ventions, the singular effects of which will always
astonish the vulgar—the Lachryma Batavica,* for
instance, or  the  Bologna  matrasses ;t  even  the
games  of children, such as the  kaleidoscope,^ or
those little dolls which, when placed upon musical
tables or instruments, move in time, and  turn one
another round, as in waltzing.§    If it be  possible
to effect wonders by such insignificant  means, are
we not right in concluding that an immense num-
ber of the assumed miracles of antiquity proceeded
from similar causes 1   The means are lost, but the
remembrance of the effects remain.
  We  might multiply  such  suppositions, but we
think we  have said enough to attain  our object.

  *  Tears of glass, which may be struck by a hammer upon
their spherical surface without breaking, but which fall into
powder as soon as  the thread which forms the tail of  the tear is
broken.
  t  Little pear-shaped bottles of unannealed white glass, within
which balls of marble or of ivory may be rolled, without injuring
them; but if a fragment of flint, although no larger than a grain
of hemp seed, fall  into them, they break in the hand  into five or
six  pieces.  These matrasses and Batavian tears are truly in
teresting to curiosity.  They are now seldom manufactured; and
when  the time  arrives, long after they shall have ceased to  be
made, the account of them will appear a fable, and we shall re-
fuse to believe in their wonderful properties.
  X  The  kaleidoscope is a small instrument invented by Sir
David Brewster.  It consists  of a cylindrical  tube,  containing
two reflecting surfaces inclined to each other at any angle which
is an aliquot part of 360°, and  having their edges in  contact, so
as to have the form of a half opened book. When any object is
placed in the tube, so as to be reflected  by the above surfaces,
and the other end  of the tube is applied  to the  eye,  and turned
round, an ever varying succession of splendid tints and beautiful
symmetrical forms are perceived; sometimes vanishing from the
center, sometimes emerging  from  it, and  sometimes  playing
around it in  double and opposite oscillations in the  most pleas-
ing  manner.—En.
  § This game was known, when invented, under the name of
danso-musicomanes. 
228
CONCLUSION.
Setting aside every thing belonging to  sleight of
hand, to imposture, or the illusions of the imagina-
tion, there are none  of  the ancient apparent mir-
acles that may not be  reproduced by any person
well versed in the modern  science, either imme-
diately,  or by  applying himself to penetrate the
mystery, and discover the causes.   Modern science
also affords facility for  operating other apparent
miracles, not less numerous  nor  less brilliant than
those contained in history.
   The observation of what modern  jugglers are
able to  effect, tends, in a great degree,  to explain
many of the magical operations of the ancients.
                 CHAPTER XII.

Conclusion.—Principles followed in the Course of the Discussion.
  —Reply to the Objection that the scientific Acquirements of the
  Ancients are lost.—Democritus alone, among them, occupied
  himself with Observations on Experimental Philosophy.—This
  Philosopher perceived, in the Operations of Magic, the scientific
  Application of the Laws of Nature.—Utility of studying the ap-
  parent Miracles of the Ancients in this Point of View.—The
  Thaumaturgists did not connect together their learned Concep-
  tions by any Theory, which is a Proof that they had received
  theru from a prior Period.—The first Thaumaturgists can not be
  accused of Imposition; but it would be dangerous, in this day,
  to attempt to subjugate a People by apparent Miracles.—Volun-
  tary Obedience to the  Laws is a certain Consequence of the
  Happiness which just Legislation procures to Men.

  We have undertaken to restore  to  ancient  his-
tory that grandeur of which  an  apparent mixture
of puerile fables robbed  it;  and  to demonstrate
that the apparent miracles and the magical opera-
tions of the  ancients were the result of real scien-
tific knowledge, more or less advanced, which the
Thaumaturgists,  for the  most part, had secretly
transmitted  from one period to  another;  at the 
CONCLUSION.
229
same time, with the greatest care, concealing that
knowledge from all other men.
  Two principles have regulated  our conclusions :
  1st. We consider it absurd  to wonder at, or to
refuse to believe, what appears supernatural, when
it can be naturally explained.
  2d. We regard it reasonable to admit that the
physical knowledge proper for the working of ap-
parent miracles was possessed  by  some men, at the
time and in the country where historical tradition
has placed the miracles.
  There must, we maintain, be a plausible motive
for  denying what  has  often been attested by many
authors, and repeated at divers times :  that motive
no longer exists; and the apparent miracle reenters
the class of historical facts, when an explanation,
deduced from the nature of things, has dispelled
the supernatural  appearance  that caused it to be
regarded  as chimerical.
  But, again, how is it that  conceptions of such
high interests have never descended to us 1   His-
tories have been lost over all the world connected
with the  greatest parts of past  times; and  also
much knowledge of every kind, the possession  of
which by the ancients can not be disputed.  To the
general causes of destruction which have occasion-
ed  these immense gaps in the  domain of human in-
telligence are joined two in particular, the  power
of  which we have described: the one is the mys-
tery with which religious and political interests en-
 deavored to envelop free ideas ; the  other is the
 want of a systematic  connection, which alone could
 have established between them an accurate theory,
 a connection without which facts were successively
 lost.   There was also no possibility remaining  for
 those which survived to recover  those which  sank
 gradually into the abyss of oblivion, from the lapse 
230
CONCLUSION.
of  time, from  negligence, fear, superstition, and
ignorance.
   We must not judge ancient conceptions by our
own.    Experimental chemistry,  considered as  a
science, dates from the last century.  It only ex-
isted  before as  a capricious  empiricism, directed
by chance, misled by the dreams  of the  alchemist.
More anciently, the Romans had  copied  the writ-
ings of the Greeks,  who  themselves, without at-
tempting  more  experiments,  copied  what they
found in the most ancient  books,  or in the recitals
of foreign authois, whom  they did  not  always un-
derstand.   Democritus* alone seems to  have felt
the  necessity of observing, of learning, and of
knowing for himself.t He passed his life in making

   * Democritus was born  at Abdera, in Thrace, in  the year 460
B.C.  He received his first instructions  partly from some Magi
that were left by Xerxes at  Abdera, partly from Leucippus, a cele-
brated philosopher of Elea.  He traveled into Egypt, in order to
acquire geometry  from the Egyptian priests;  and  also visited
Persia and Athens for  the purpose of obtaining knowledge, in the
pursuit of which he expended all his patrimony, and returned to
Abdera in a state of indigence.  This rendered him liable to a law
which denied funereal rites in the state to any native who had
spent his patrimony; but having read one of his works, the Dias-
cosmus, aloud to his fellow-citizens, he not  only acquired an ex-
emption from this law, but received a present of, it is said, five
hundred talents; and, at his death, was buried at the public ex-
pense.
  Democritus loved retirement and study; and the tradition runs,
that he put out his eyes that he might not be disturbed from medi-
tation by external objects.  He was, perhaps, on this account ac-
cused of insanity; but Hippocrates declared  that his accusers,
not Democritus, were mad.  His doctrines were of a very singular
character. Thus, he contended for the eternity of the universe ;
that every thing, even mind, was  material; and that the latter
was only different  from material bodies by the arrangements of
its  component atoms.   In morals, he contended that the only
thing needful was a cheerful spirit; and as  he took  every oppor-
tunity of laughing at the follies of mankind, he acquired the ap-
pellation of the Laughing Philosopher. From  the extent of his
acquirements, he was regarded by the ignorant as a magician, es-
pecially in the close of his  life, which extended to one hundred
and four years.  He died in the year 357 b.c.—Ed.
  t Encyclop. Method. Philosophic Ancienne et Moderne, tome i., p. 319. 
CONCLUSION.
231
experiments, in noting down in a book, which treats
of nature, facts  that  he had verified.*  Wc may
ask, to what point had he  conducted  his research-
es, in pursuing which he had probably no theory
to serve him as  a guide 1   It is difficult to conjec-
ture, his works having long since perished.  It is
at least certain,  that in the general  opinion they
had acquired very great authority.   So great was
the weight of his testimony in physics and in natu-
ral history, that works published under his name,
but not written by him, circulated widely, although
filled with ridiculous fables upon the  properties of
minerals,  animals, and plants.t   Pliny, who  often
quotes these pretended works of Democritus, be-
lieved in their authenticity ; but Aulus Gellius has
unveiled the impositions, and is justly indignant at
the outrage made on the memory of so great a man.
  In a passage, unfortunately too concise,  SolinusJ
seems to present Democritus as engaged  in a fre-
quent  contest against  the  Magi, and opposing  to
their impostures phenomena prodigious in appear-
ance, but nevertheless natural, to show them how
far the power of the  hidden properties of bodies
can extend.  "Democritus," says Lucian,§ "be-
lieved in no miracle, persuaded that those which
were effected owed their success to deception ; and
he  applied  himself to discover  the method  by
which they could  deceive : in a word, his philos-
ophy brought him to this conclusion, that magic
(an art well known by him, since the Magi|| were

  * Petron., Satyric.—Vitmv., De Architect., lib. ix., cap. iii.
  t Aul. Gell., Noct. Attic, lib.  x., cap. xii— Columell., De Re
Rustica, lib. vii., cap. v.—Diogen. Laert. in Democrit. vit., sub.
finem.
  X " Accepimus Democritum Abderilem, ostentatione scrupuli hujus
(catochitis lapidis) frequenter usum, ad probandam occuttam natura}
potentiam, in certaminibus qwz contra magos habuit."  (Solin., cap.
U.)   § Lucian, Philopseud.  || Diogen. Laert. in Democrit. vit. 
232               CONCLUSION.
its institutors), was entirely confined to the applica-
tion and the imitation of the laws and the works of
nature."
  This opinion, professed by the first acknowledged
philosopher of antiquity who studied science as  it
ought  to  be, is precisely that which we have
striven to  establish.  If we have  not  labored in
vain, we may be allowed to deduce from this theo-
rem some consequences upon the possible advan-
ces of the knowledge of nature, in reference to the
history of mankind  and the principles  of civiliza-
tion.
   1st. The ancients, until an epoch which we have
not presumed to trace  back, were  so much  occu-
pied with particular facts, that  they did not seek
to arrange and connect them.   The moderns, per-
haps, fall into the opposite excess.  Do they not
neglect too much  to take advantage  of isolated
facts deposited in  books, and  reproduced even in
the laboratories, but which, otherwise, do not direct
our researches to  any immediate  application, nor
display either any affinity or any opposition  to the
existing theories 1
  We have seen that much may be gained to nat-
ural history by the examination and the discussion
of the prodigies related by the  ancients : and we
contend that the study of their apparent miracles
and their magical operations would not be without
advantage to physics and to chemistry.  In attempt-
ing to arrive at the same results as the Thauma-
turgists (and  at  which they have allowed us to
glance), or that can be supposed  to have emanated
from them,  curious, even  useful  discoveries, in
application to the arts, would be obtained ; and  a
great service thus rendered to the  history of the
human mind, as the  important sciences lost  sight
of would be recovered.  The  loss of these among 
CONCLUSION.
233
the Romans and the- Greeks was owing to, or, at
least,  was accelerated  by, the  absolute defect of
method and of theory.
  2d.  The  inevitable consequence of this failure
is, that the magicians and  the  Thaumaturgists
have never been separable from  their books, and
have been merely the slaves of their formularies—
truly  apprentices;  and  indeed, they were only
mechanically acquainted with the processes of theii
art, without even distinguishing how far supersti-
tion, or/the intention of imposing it, had mingled
with superfluous ceremonies.   The most ancient,
as well as the most  recent, present this character-
istic trait.   If they did not, then, invent any thing,
from  whom, it may be asked, did  they procure
their  secrets, their  formularies, their  books, and
their  entire art 1   We  have  to  investigate  this
branch of knowledge, as every other, precipitated
into indeterminate times, when the sciences were
either invented or perfected.   They afterward fell
into decay,  and only were kept  in view by incohe-
rent lights, shed upon the minds of men who re-
tained the employment of them without understand-
ing their nature.  We are here thrown back  into
that antiquity which history points out confusedly,
but which is anterior to history.
  3d. In attempting to  penetrate, by the aid of
some  probable  conjectures, into  that  darkness
which the  course of time renders  progressively
more  profound, a remarkable trait has struck us :
namely, that the opinion which ascribed a celestial
origin to miracles  and to magic was not, in  the
main, the consequence of an imposition, but was
born of that piety  which desired that every kind
of excellence should emanate  from the Divinity.*
  * As far as respects real miracles, no other opinion can be form-
ed ; for what idea can be formed of a miracle if not that published 
 234              CONCLUSION.

 It was maintained  by the figurative  style, which
 naturally amalgamated itself with religious  senti-
 ments.   Thus, among the legislators, who have had
 recourse to this venerated  agent for giving stabil-
 ity to  their operations, the most ancient, at least,
 are not supported by falsehood; they have not pro-
 fessed that  execrable  doctrine, that it is necessary
 to deceive men.  It was in good  faith  that they de-
 clared  themselves inspired, and that they offered
 their marvelous works as  proofs of their mission,
 because they  humbly ascribed their  knowledge,
 their virtues, their  sublime views, and their con-
 ceptions above the  vulgar, to the Divinity.
   These great men,  were they now alive, would
 adopt a  very  different  method.   He  who  would
 seek,  in the  present day, in  the art of work-
 ing apparent miracles, an  instrument for  acting
 upon civilization, would soon fail, because he would
 knowingly  deceive  :  his  dishonesty,  contrary  to
 morality, would be contrary to the spirit of pro-
 gressive civilization, which ever tends to draw aside
 the veil behind which nature  and  truth are often
 concealed.
   Must it then be concluded that, deprived of this
 powerful lever, legislation must be powerless over
 the minds of men, and that to direct  their actions
 it has need  of a perpetual  coercive  force 1   We
 reply, certainly not!  Whatever may be said of
 our own times, it  is not necessary to  deceive men
 when it is intended to conduct them to happiness.
 The  man who deceives  thinks less of serving
those whom he deceives  than  of  upholding  his
own pride, securing  his personal ambition, or satis-
by Dr. Thomas Reid, namely, that it is " an effect that indicates
a power of a higher order than the powers which we are accus-
tomed directly to trace in phenomena more familiar to us, but a
Power whose continued and ever present existence it is Atheism
 only that denies."—Ed. 
CONCLUSION.
235
fying his cupidity.   The desire of being governed
is natural to men, when they become members of
the social state;  it increases among nations in the
ratio of their knowledge  and well-being,  and in
proportion to the reasonable desire of enjoying un-
disturbed the advantages that they possess.   It is
with this sentiment that the politician whose inten-
tions are upright will find a foundation to build
upon, not less solid than that which he would ac-
quire from  an assumed intervention of Divinity—
a foundation which will never give way, nor leave
him  exposed  to the inconveniences   nor  to the
serious  consequences that religious fiction leads
to, and  which will never  threaten to overthrow
what is  founded upon reason,  and  upon the pro-
gress of natural  perceptions.
   " Kings! reign for your people!" and then to
the astonished  observer,  who  shall ask  to  what
illusions their obedience and your power are due,
you can reply, " Here is all our magic; here is the
source of all our apparent miraculous power." 
J 
ILLUSTRATIONS.
UPON DRAGONS AND MONSTROUS SERPENTS, MENTIONED IN
  A GREAT MANY FABULOUS OR HISTORICAL NARRATIONS.

  There are, perhaps, in the empire of the marvelous no
narrations that occur more frequently than those which de-
scribe some winged dragon, or serpent of monstrous dimen-
sions, devouring men and animals, until, by the force of he-
roic valor or some miraculous power, the country which is
exposed to its ravages is delivered.  Dupuis* and M. Alex.
Lenoirt  have imagined these narrations  to be the figura-
tive expressions of the astronomical themes  of Perseus, the
liberator of Andromeda, threatened by a sea monster; of
Orion, the vanquisher of a serpent, emblems in themselves
of the victory of virtue over vice, the principle of good over
the principle of evil.  They regard it also, when divested of
every allegorical veil, as intimating the victory of the spring
sun over the winter sun, and of light over darkness.
  It is under a different aspect that we propose to treat of
the same subject: we shall inquire how it is that an astro-
nomical  emblem  has been so frequently  converted into a
positive subject of history ; what are the causes which have,
in different places, introduced such remarkable  variations
into the legend ;  and, finally, why other myths or other facts
have been added or united to this legend, which  originally
were unconnected with it 1

                         v  I.
OF REPTILES ATTAINING UNCOMMON  GROWTH, WHICH HAVE EX-
  ISTED, AND GIVEN RISE TO, OR  CONFIRMED,  MANY OF THESE
  NARRATIONS.
  We may inquire whether  there ever existed reptiles of
a proportion extraordinary enough, or animals of a form mon-
strous enough, to have given a natural origin to the legends
now under discussion 1

  * Dupuis, Origine de tovs les cultes.
  t A. Lenoir, Du Dragon de Metz, appele CraouiUy, &c.  Memoires de
VAcademic CeUique, tome ii., p. 1-20. 
238
ILLUSTRATIONS.
   Finding, from traditions, that dragons abounded in the de-
partment of Finisterre, and were overcome by supernatural
power, an observer* has  conjectured that  these monsters,
the subjects of so many legends, might have been the croc-
odiles that  formerly infested the rivers of  France,  and the
bones of which have been  found in several parts.   The thing
is not impossible.
   In 1815 a crocodile was killed near Calcutta, which meas-
ured from  seventeen to  eighteen English feet in length,
armed with enormous claws.   " At the-plaee where the head
and body joined was a swelling, from which rose four bony
projections;  and upon  the  back were three other  rows of
similar projections, and four more diverged from  the tail,
the end of which formed a kind of saw, being,  indeed, the
continuation  of these projecting files."t   These swellings
and  these  bony  projections were looked upon as defensive
weapons ; and similar projections were also found upon the
famous Tarasquc  of Tarascon, and many other  dragons or
serpents  represented in  the pictures of different legends.
Here, again,  the fiction may possibly have originated in the
paintings exaggerating a fact actually observed.
   It was rumored several years ago, that a monstrous rep-
tile had been  killed at the foot of Mount Salevus ; and rav-
ages proportioned to its size were attributed to it.   Its car-
cass was examined by naturalists, first at Geneva, and then
at Paris.   It  proved to be  nothing more than an adder of ex-
traordinary growth, but in no respect prodigious. In a less
enlightened age, we may ask, would more have been neces-
sary for furnishing to the  mountaineers of Savoy a  marvel-
ous  narration, which would have been confirmed by  tradi-
tion, and probably enlarged in each succeeding generation 1
   History has perpetuated the memory of the serpent which
Regulus opposed in Africa with engines  of war.  It was
probably a boa constrictor, which had attained to its great-
est degree  of growth.}   Allowing  something  to exaggera-
  * M. de Freminville, Memoires de la Societe' des Antiquaires de France,
torn, xi., p. 8, 9.
  t Biblioth'eque  Universelle (Geneve) Sciences, tome iv., p. 222, 223.
  X The tradition, as Livy relates it, makes this gigantic Numidian Py-
thon one hundred and twenty feet long; and it also stated that, when de-
stroyed, the decomposing carcass of the monster so polluted the air that
the Romans were forced to move their camp.  The skin was  neverthe-
less secured, and sent in triumph to Rome.   This serpent, the African
Python, differs in some of its features from the boa of South  America,
but it resembles  that reptile in its bulk, its muscular strength, and the ab-
sence of poison fangs.  In South America the boa is viewed with horror,
on account of a belief that it exercises a certain influence over the des-
tiny of any one who injures it,  and, sooner or later, he suffers severely 
ILLUSTRATIONS.
239
tion, the natural language of surprise  and fear, it becomes
easy to reconcile the tradition here with truth and probability.
  It is not always necessary to assume much exaggeration.
A modern traveler* assures us that in the mountains of
Galese serpents from thirty to forty feet in length are still to
be met with.  ^Eliant mentions also, in several places, rep-
tiles of an extraordinary size.   Let us recollect that an al-
most religious respect for the lives of certain animal^ must
formerly, particularly in India, have permitted  serpents, by
growing old, to attain  to enormous dimensions.  This re-
spect for serpents was  seconded by a superstition which, in
the temples, consecrated many of the reptiles.   Alexander
admired in one of the Indian temples a serpent which is re-
corded to have been  seventy cubits in  length, t   We know
that sacred dragons were  revered at Babylon, at Melita in
Egypt, in Phrygia,  in  Italy, in Epirus,§ in  Thessaly,l|  in
Boeotia, and in the grotto  of Trophonius.1T
  Finally, we may remark, that  the progress of civilization
has expelled these immense reptiles from countries where
they formerly lived in peace.   There are no longer any boas
in Italy.  Solinus places them in Calabria, and describes
their habits with so much correctness, that we can not sup-
pose he meant  to speak of monstrous adders.   Pliny con-
firms this narration, by mentioning a boa in the body of
which a child was found.  It was killed in the Vatican, in
the reign of  Claudius,  only thirty years,  at the  utmost, be-
fore the period in which Pliny wrote.**
  These positive facts  would  prepare  credulity to confound
with history every legend  in which, for some  other reason,
these monstrous serpents figured.

for his audacity.*   Allowing for exaggeration, it is probable that the Py-
thon referred to in Livy was of unusual size, and hence well calculated
to strike terror into the minds of those unaccustomed to the sight of
enormous serpents.  It seized its victim with its teeth, but, Uke the boa,
destroyed it by pressure within the folds of its powerful body.  The au-
thor of The Seasons describes this Python:
                         From his dark abode,
            Which e'en  Imagination fears to tread,
            At noon, forth issuing, gathers up his train
            In orbs immense.—Thomson.—Ed.
  * Paulin de St. Barth61emi, Voyages, tyc, tome i., p. 479.
  t JElian, De Nat. Anim, passim, et lib. xvi., cap. xxxix.
  X Ibid., lib. xv., cap. xii.
  § Ibid., Mb. xi., cap. xvii.; lib. xii., cap. xxxix.; lib. xi., cap. ccxvi.
  || Aristotle, De Mirabil. Auscult.       If Suidas, verbo Troplumios.
  ** Plin., Hist. Nat., lib. viii., cap. xiv.

                * Smith's Illuur.vinnl of Small Amrriea. 
240
ILLUSTRATIONS.
                          MI-
OTHER LEGENDS FOUNDED ON FIGURATIVE EXPRESSIONS TAKEN
                  IN A PHYSICAL SENSE.
  Winged serpents, the true dragons, could never have ex-
isted ; and the supposed union of two natures so opposite
must have been originally merely hieroglyphic—an emblem.
But poetry, which lives in figures, did not hesitate to possess
itself of the image as well as the expression.   The reptiles
which tore to pieces the sons of Laocoon were called drag-
ons by Q. Calaber ;* Virgil gives them the name of dragons
and serpents by turns.t  The two terms seem  to have been
synonymous in poetical language ; and the wings with which
dragons  have  been endowed are only the emblem of the
promptitude with which the serpent pounces upon its prey,
or, in order to seize it,  raises  itself to the tops of trees.
Here, as in many other circumstances,  the figurative ex-
pressions have taken place of the reality in the belief of the
vulgar, not less ignorant than eager after the marvelous.
   The modern Greek gives the expressive  name of winged
serpents to  the locusts, which, carried on the  wind in vast
swarms, devastate  his harvests.X  This  metaphor is prob-
ably ancient,  and may have originated  many fables  and
narrations respecting the existence of winged serpents.
   But these explanations and those connected with physical
facts are vague, and sometimes purely local.   They can not
be applied to  a precise fact, which is found in every coun-
try and in every  age, related in the same manner,  and with
only slight variations in the principal circumstances.

                          $ III.

MONSTROUS  SERPENTS MAY  BE EMBLEMATIC OF RAVAGES PRO-
                 DUCED BY INUNDATIONS.
   St. Romanus, in 720 or 628, delivered the town of Rouen
from a monstrous dragon.   " This miracle," it is said  in a
dissertation upon the miracle of St. Romaine  and La Gar-
gouille, " is only the emblem of another miracle of St. Roma-
nus, who made the Seine,  which had overflowed its banks,

  * Q. Calaber, De Bello Trojano, lib. xiii. A  Greek poet, who lived in
the third century, and wrote a poem in fourteen books, as a continuation
of the Iliad.—Ed.
  t " Immensis orbibus, angues" (vers. 204).
   " Serpens amplexus vterque" (vers. 214).
   " Ddubra ad summa dracones" (vers. 225).
                                Virgil, Mneid., lib. ii.
  j Pouquevillo.  Voyage dans la  Grece. tome iii., p. 562, OKI. 
ILLUSTRATIONS.
241
and was about to inundate the town, return to its bed.   The
very name given by the people to this  fabulous serpent is
another proof of it:  gargouille is derived from gurges," &c*
  In support of his opinion, the author quoted a strophe from
the hymn of Santeuil:
               " Tangit exundans aqua civitatem;
                Voce Romanus jubet efficaci;
                Audiunt rluctus, docilisque cedit
                        Unda jubenti."
  In Orleans, also, a town frequently exposed to the  rava-
ges of the waters which bathe and  fertilize  its territories, a
ceremony is  celebrated similar to  that which  perpetuates
the miracle of St. Romanus at Rouen.  Indeed, a great num-
ber of traditions might be quoted in support of this conjecture.
  The Island of Batz,  near St. Pol  de Leon, is  said to have
been  desolated by a  frightful  dragon.   St. Pol, who died in
594, by the virtue of his stole and staff precipitated the mon-
ster into the sea.  Cambry,t who relates this tradition, tells
us that the only fountain existing in the Island of Batz is
alternately either exposed or covered by the  tides of the sea.
He then  relates that,  " near the  Castle of  Roche Maurice
and the  ancient River  of Dordoun,  a dragon devoured men
and animals."X
   It seems  but natural to suppose that these two narratives
are emblematical of the ravages committed by  the  sea and
the waters of the Dordoun.
   St. Julian, first Bishop of Mans, in 59  destroyed a horrible
dragon at the village of Artins, near Montoir.$  This dragon,
under the system discussed by us,  should represent the in-
undations of the Loire, which flows  in the vicinity.   It might
be also imaged by a dragon of nine or ten fathoms long, over
which, in a cavern by  the side of a fountainW near Vendome,

  * History of the Town of Rouen, by Servin, 1775, 2 vols. 12mo, vol. ii.,
p. 147.  It is more probable that the fable of the destruction of  the ser-
pent is founded on the  fact of St. Romanus  having destroyed the rem-
nant of idolatry, and leveled with the ground temples of Venus,  Jupiter,
Apollo, and Mercury, which existed in his diocese.  " No traces of this
story,"' says Butler, speaking of the story of the serpent, " are found in
any life of this saint, nor in any writings before the end of the fourteenth
century.   The figure of a serpent, called Gargouille, seems here, as in
some other towns, originally to have been meant to represent symboli-
cally the devil overcome by Christ."—Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, (ec,
October 22.—Ed.
   t Cambry, Travels in the Department of Finisterre, vol. 1., p. 147,148.
   t Id. ibid., vol. i., p. 57.
   S Moreri, Historical Dictionary, art St. Juben. M. Duchemin la Che-
 naye gives the name of La Roche Turpin to the scene of this victory.—
 Memoires de I'Academic Celtiquc, tome iv.,  p. 311.
   || M. Duchemin la Chcnaye, ibid., pages 308 and following. 
242
ILLUSTRATIONS.
the hermit St. Bie or Bienhcure, toward the end of the fourth
century, triumphed.  The  inundations of the  Scarpc might
be represented by the  dragon  who terrified  and  expelled
from an island the holy bishop who had bequeathed his name
to the town of St. Amand ;* those of the Moselle,  by the
Graouilli, the  monstrous serpent which St. Clement over-
came at Metz ;t  and those of Clain by the dragon of Poitiers,
which hid itself near this river, and whose death was a ben-
efit conferred by St. Radegonde, toward the  middle of the
sixth century.X
   In the  same manner may be explained by the inundations
of the Rhone the history of the  monster of Tarascon, which,
in the first century, was bound with the garter of St. Martha,
who  caused  its  death; and the representation of which,
called Tarasque, is still carried  in procession iu  the town on
the morning of the Pentecost.^  The overflowings of the Ga-
ronne would be embleniized by the dragon of Bordeaux, yield-
ing, in the eleventh century, to the virtue of the  Virgin of
St. Martial; and the  dragon of St. Bertrand  de Comminge,
conquered by the Bishop of  St.  Bertrand in 1076.11
   Thus,  also, the dragon  from which St. Marcel delivered
Paris,f and the winged dragon of the Abbey of Fleury,** of-
fer images of the overflowing of the Seine and Loire.
   Thus,  also, at Lima,  on the fete day of St. Francis of As-
sisi, if one observes figuring in the procession an ideal mon-
ster called Terascon,tt  it will recall the fact that Lima, sit-
uated near the  sea, is  watered by  a river which supplies
every house with water.  Thus,  M. Champollion  explains
with  probability the hieroglyphic of the  two serpents, each
with the  human head, seen in the Church of St. Laurence at
Grenoble, by the  proverb " Serpens et draco devorabunt ur-

  * M. Bottin, Traditions des Dragons volans dans It Nord de la France.
Melanges d'Archeologie (8vo, Paris, i831), p. 161-164.
  t A. Lenoir, Du Dragon de Metz, {,-e, Memoires de VAcademic Celtique,
tome ii., p. 1 and following.
    M. Jouyneau-des-Loges, Memoires de VAcademic Celtique, tome v., p. 57.
    Rouviere,  Voyage du Tour de  la France, 12mo, 1713, p. 401, 402.   Du-
laure, Description des principaux Lieitx de la France,  tome i., p. 16, art
Tarascon.  Millin, Voyage dans le Midi de la France, 4 vols. 8vo,  tomo
iii., p. 451-553.   The figure of the Tarasque may be found in the atlas of
the Travels, plate 63; it is not however, very correct.
  || M. Chaudruc, Memoires de V Academic Celtique, tome iv., p. 313.
  If Lives of the Saints for every Day of the Year, 2 vols. 4to, Paris, 1734,
tome ii., p. 84: Life of St. Marcel, 3d of November.  Gregor. Turon., De
Gloria  Confess., cap. lxxxix.  It is  thought St. Marcel occupied the Epis-
copal throne of Paris toward the end of the fourth century.
  ** Da Cange, Glossar., verbo Draco, 2 ... tome ii., p. 1645.
  tt Description of the actual Stnte  of Peru, extracted from the Mercurio
Peruviano.  Annals of Travel, by M. Malte Brun, vol. i., p.'JW. 
ILLUSTRATIONS.
243
bem,"  rendered by the vulgar tongue into these two vers-
es :
                " Lo serpein et lo dragon
                 Metront Grenoble en savon,"
alluding to the situation of the town at the  mouth  of the
Drac (Draco), in the Isere, represented by the serpent, whose
sinewy writhings are pretty well imitated  by the course of
this river.*  The comparison between the windings of a
river and the writhings of a serpent are,.indeed, as frequently
found in common language, and in ordinary names, as in po-
etical metaphors.  Near to Heleno Pole, a town in By thin ia,
flows the River Draco  (Dragon); this name, says Procopi-
us,t  was given to  it from  its numerous  windings,  which
obliged travelers to cross it twenty times together.   It is
doubtless for a similar  reason that a river, which  rises in
Mount Vesuvius and waters the walls of Nuceria (Nocera),
received the name of Dragon.t
  This explanation is strengthened by a confession, the more
remarkable, because the  author, with whom it originated,
had collected and tendered as positive facts all the popular
stories of dragons and monstrous serpents which, at the com-
mencement of the eighteenth century, were broached  in the
interior of Switzerland. . Scheuchzer§ allows that the name
of Drach (Draco) was  frequently given to impetuous tor-
rents, which suddenly burst forth like avalanches.
  The dragon, the multitude would then exclaim, has made
an irruption (Erupit Draco).  The cavity in which the tor-
rent rose, or  that in which the waters were absorbed, were
consequently naturally called the  Dragon's  Hole, or the
Dragon's Marsh, names which we find in many places cele-
brated by some one or other of the legends which have oc-
cupied our attention.   In  spite of the probability  which
many of these affinities present, two grave objections refute
the system they are destined to establish.
  First. If it is as easy for a supernatural power to arrest
the inundations of a river or the sea as to put to death a
monstrous  serpent, such a comparison can not be applied to
the limited strength of an ordinary man.  Now, in these le-
gends  we  shall see figuring  chevaliers, soldiers, banished
men, and obscure malefactors, whom no celestial grace could

  * Dissertation upon a Subterraneous Monument existing in Grenoble, in
4to, ann6e xii.  Encyclopedical Magazine, ixth year, vol. v., p. 442. 443.
  t Procop., De Mdific. Justin., lib.  v., cap. ii.
  t Id.,  Hist. Miscell, lib. i., cap. Iv.
  I Scheuchzer, Itinera per Helvetia. Alpinas Regioncs, tfC, tome iii., p.
377-397. Vide p. 396 et p. 383, 384, 389, 390. 
241
ILLUSTRATIONS.
have  called out to work  miracles.  And who can be per-
suaded  that a single individual, whatever may be his zeal
or his power, would be able to turn back into tluur beds the
Loire and  the  Garonne, widely inundating the plains with
their waters !
   Secondly. The  multitude  of the legends does not allow
us to  supposje that, in times and places so different, it would
have been  agreed to represent by the same emblem events
which, although similar, yet were peculiar to each period.
An emblem always the same, supposes a fact, or rather an
allegory, received in all ages and in all places ; such as that
of the triumph obtained of the principle of good and light over
the principle of evil and darkness represented by the serpent.

                          y IV.

THE LEGEND OF THE SERPENT HAS BEEN TRANSPORTED FROM
   ASTRONOMICAL  PICTURES INTO MYTHOLOGY AND HISTORY.
   We shall not here retrace, in its details, the astronomical
picture  of this triumph so frequently renewed.  Let us only
observe that three  accessory  objects are grouped  almost
always  with the principal  subject:  namely, a virgin, a young
girl, or  a woman; a precipice, a cavern, or a grotto; and the
sea, a river, a fountain, or  a well*   We  find one part of
this legend put into operation, if I  may so express myself,
in the manner in which the sacred dragons of Epirus, Phry-
gia, and Lanuvium received their food.   It was carried to
them  in their cavern by a young  girl, who was exposed to
terrible  punishment if she  was not a virgin, t A woman, also,
the magician, whom the  unfortunate Dido expressed a de-
sire to  consult, presented  the nourishment to the sacred
dragon  which guarded the Hesperides, t
  The Greek mythology is rich in legends, the astronomical
origin of which is not dubious.  Is  it necessary to explain
why a serpent or a dragon  figures so often in the celestial
planisphere 1  In the war of the gods against the giants, an
enormous  serpent  attacked Minerva.  The virgin goddess
seized the  monster and threw it toward the heavens, where
it  became fixed  among  the stars.y  Ceres placed in the
heavens one of the dragons  that drew her chariot.  Triopas
having offended the same divinity, the goddess punished him

  * A. Lenoir, Du Dragon de Metz, t/c., Memoires de VAcadcmie Celtique,
tome ii., p. 5 et 6.
  t jElian, De Nat. Animal^ lib. xi., cap. ii. et xvi.  Propert., lib. iv., Eleg.
viii.                    X Virgil, JEneid, lib. iv., vers. 483-485.
  § Hygin, Poet. Astronom., Serpens. 
ILLUSTRATIONS.
245
first by the torment of an  insatiable  hunger, and then put
him to death by a dragon, which from that time took a place
with her in the heavens.   According  to other mythologists,
Phorbas, the  son of Triopas, merited this honor for having
delivered the  Island of Rhodes from a monstrous serpent.
Some observe  in the constellation of Ophiucus, Hercules
upon the borders of the River Sagaris, vanquishing the ser-
pent which Omphalus had commanded him to combat.*
  Themis, the heavenly  virgin, answered  the  petitions  of
mortals at Delphi.   Python, the monstrous dragop, approach-
ed, and  the oracle  was deserted ; nor did any one dare to
resort to it until Apollo (the sun) had pierced Python with
his irresistible arrows.!  Let us observe that the tradition
in these narrations does not omit the divine nature of the
dragon.   Apollo, after having  destroyed the monster, was
obliged to submit himself to a religious aspiration ; and the
sacred serpents of the Epirus were supposed to have owed
their being to Python.X
  Near  the river in Colchis, Jason, assisted by Medea, who
was yet a virgin, triumphed over the dragon which guarded
the golden fleece.   Hercules and Perseus delivered Hesione
and Andromeda, virgins  who were exposed as prey  to the
voracity of a  sea monster.   A woman learned in the arts of
enchantment saved the inhabitants of Tenos, by destroying
a dragon that threatened to depopulate their island. v
  According to a legend, preserved by the Christian faith in
the figurative sense only,  but adopted literally by painters,
and which has a host of  believers, St. Michael  felled to the
ground, and pinned down with his  lance, a dragon  which
was vomited forth  from the infernal pit,  and which was the
same that, according to Dupuis, in the Apocalypse, pursued
the heavenly virgin.  Half a mile on the  road to Baruth (the
ancient Berythe) is to be seen the cavern where dwelt the
dragon  killed by St. George, at the moment when about to
devour  the daughter  of the king of the  country. ||  Accord-
ing to another legend, it was on the borders of a lake, the
asylum  of this monster, that  St. George saved the king's
daughter and twelve other virgins, whom an oracle had com-
manded to be given up to this horrible dragon.IT

  * Hy"in, Poet. Astronom., Ophiucus.     t Pausanias, Phocic, cap. v.
  1 jElian, Var. Hist., Mb. iii.,  cap. i. fyc.  De Nat. Animal., lib. xi., cap.
ii. Plutarch, De Oracul. Defectu.      § Arist, De Mirabil. Auscult.
  || Voyages de Villamont (1613), liv. iii., p. 561.  Thevenot, Relation d'un
Voyage fait au Levant,  6fC, 4to, Paris, 1668, p. 442.
  ff Memoirs and Observations made by.a Traveler in England (La Haye,
1G98, p. 214-232). This work is attributed to Max. Misson. 
246
ILLUSTRATIONS.
  Almost all mythologies contain, with some variations, the
same legend;  and, we may add, in how many of the Greek
myths may it not  be traced!   Hercules, conqueror of the
dragon of the Garden of Hesperides, a monster whose de-
feat was followed by the discovery of a fountain till then un-
known ; again,  a  dragon  dwelt  in  a gloomy cavern, and
guarded the  fountain of Mars until  killed by Cadmus, who
was himself afterward transformed into a serpent; and it
was a dragon from which Diomedes, on his return from Troy,
delivered the Corcyreans.*   Cenchreus was implored by the
inhabitants of Salamis to be their king, as a reward for his
victory over  a dragon that had devastated their  territories.t
   Upon a monument  discovered in  Thebes, Anubis is rep-
resented as St. Michael and St. George are in Christian paint-
ings, armed  in  a cuirass,  and  having in his hand a lance,
with which he pierces a monster that has the head and tail
of a serpent. X
   In a succession of narrations, the marvelous portions of
which have been principally borrowed by their compilers from
the ancient mythology of Hindostan, we see some monstrous
figures:  now in the form  of enormous serpents ;y then as
  As this celebrated religious hero, St. George, is the patron saint of Eng-
land, it is proper that some account of him should be here given.  He
was born in Cappadocia, of noble Christian parents.  After the death of
his father he went into Palestine with his mother, who had a considera-
ble estate there, which fell to him. He became a soldier, and after having
served as a tribune, he was raised to the rank of a colonel, and afterward
to higher rank, by the Emperor Dioclesian, as a reward for his courage
and conduct  But, being equally strong in his faith, he threw up all his
well-merited honors when that emperor began his persecutions of Christ-
ianity; an act, in conjunction with his reprobation of the emperor's cru-
elties, which cost him his life.  He was thrown  into prison and cruelly
tortured, and on the following day he was beheaded.
  St. George became  the patron saint of military men; and, like all the
other saints of the  Romish calendar, did many wondrous acts and per-
formed many miracles, both during his life and after his death: hence
churches were erected in honor of him in various parts of Europe.  He
was constituted the patron saint of England by our first Norman kings;
and,  under  his name, Edward III. instituted the most noble order of
knighthood in Europe.  The promulgation of the pretended apparition
of St George to Richard I. in his Saracenic expedition had such a ben-
eficial effect on the  spirits of his troops as insured them victory.  He is
usually represented on horseback, slaying a dragon, an emblematical rep-
resentation of his Christian fortitude in overcoming the Devil, the arcn-
dragon.  See Butler's Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, fft.—Ed.
  * Heraclides, fn Politiis.
  t Noel. Dictionnaire de la Fable, art Cenchreus.
  X A. Lenoir,  Du Dragon de Metz, tyc, Memoires de VAcademie  CeUiqiie,
tome ii., p. 11, 12.
  &  The Thousand and One Nights, translation of Ed. Gauthier, 7 vols. 8vo,
Paris, 180-', 1823, vol. v., p. 425, 426. 
ILLUSTRATIONS.
247
gigantic dragons, flapping  their  tails  against their  scaly
sides ;* and having their voracity yearly satiated by young
virgins, but yielding to the  valiant attacks of warriors aided
by supernatural powers, at the very moment when the king's
daughter is about to become their victim.
   Chederles, a hero revered among  the Turks, we  are told,
" killed a monstrous dragon, and  saved the  life of a young
girl exposed to its fury.  After having drunk of the waters
of a river which rendered  him immortal, he traversed  the
world upon  a steed as immortal  as himself."t  The com-
mencement of this recital recalls to mind the Hindoo myths
and fables of Hercules and Perseus. The termination may
be regarded as an emblem of the Sun, the immortal traveler,
who ceases not his revolutions around the earth.
   Among the figures sculptured on a  granite  block, dis-
covered in the deserted town of Palenqui Viejo, was re-
marked a serpent, from the throat of which  issued the head
of a woman.J  One is tempted to  connect  this emblem to
the legends of monstrous  dragons.  It  is, at least, difficult
not to imagine that  the legend  had passed into  the New
 World.   The  Caribbees  believe  that the Supreme  Being
made his Son descend from heaven in order to kill a dragon,
which, by its ravages, desolated the nations of  Guiana.v
The monster succumbed;  and the Caribbees sprung from
the worms generated in the decomposition of its corpse ;  and
on this account they regard all those nations with whom the
cruel monster had formerly waged cruel  war as their ene-
mies.  At first sight this  is but the myth: of Python ;  but
what are we to think of the strange origin that the Caribbees
attribute to themselves 1   We can but suppose that they had
formerly received this tradition  from a  nation  superior to
themselves  in strength, who wished to humiliate and de-
grade  them; and that they had  preserved  it from custom,
and to justify their national hatreds and thirst for conquest.
A no  less singular belief is to be found among the same
people.  The Caribbees of Dominica assert that a monster,
having its retreat in a precipice surrounded by rocks, bore
upon its head a stone as  brilliant  as a carbuncle, from which
issued so bright a light that  the  neighboring rocks were il-
lumined t>y it. ||   Similar legends have for a long time been

   * The Thousand and One Nights, tome vi., p. 303-305, et tome v., p. 423,
 424.                   t Dictionnaire de la Fable, art. Chederles.
   X Revue Encyclopedique, tome xxxi., p. 850.
   ft Noel, Dictionnaire de la Fable, art. Cosmogonie Americaine.
   \\ Rochefort, Histoire Naturelle et Morale des Isles Antilles (Rotterdam,
 1658), p. 21. 
248
ILLUSTRATIONS.
received in countries with which it  is supposed the Carib-
bees could not have had any communication.
  At some period, which chronologists have had pretensions
enough to fix, St. Margaret overcame  a dragon, and  from
the head of the  monster  this virgin, afterward raised to a
heavenly abode,  extracted a ruby, or carbuncle, an  emblem
of the brilliant star of the  northern crown (Margarita), placed
in the heavens near the head of the  Serpent.
  In the history of Dieudonne of Gozon, we find  mention
also of a stone taken from the head of a dragon killed by this
hero at Rhodes,  and preserved, it is said, in his family.  It
was the size of an olive, and displayed many brilliant colors.*
  Two Helvetian traditions describe a serpent offering to a
man a. precious stone, as a token of homage  and gratitude.t
Faithful to these old superstitions, the popular language of
the Jura still designates, under the name of vouivre, a winged
and immortal serpent,  the eye of which is a diamond.X
  Pliny,  Isidorus, and  Soliiiusy speaks of the precious  stone
which the dragon carries in its head.  An Eastern story-teller, II
who describes a miraculous stone, the  real carbuncle that
shines in darkness, states that it  is only to  be found in the
head of the dragon, the hideous inhabitant of the Island of
Serendib (Ceylon).   Philostratus also assures us that in In-
dia a precious stone, concealed in the heads of dragons, was
endowed with a  powerful brilliancy and wonderful  magical
virtues. IT
  That error which, by transforming an astronomical  alle-
gory into a physical fact, decorated  the heads of serpents
with a brilliant stone, had  its rise in a great antiquity.   " Al-
though the  serpent has a ruby in its head, it is, nevertheless,
injurious,"  says a Hindoo  philosopher, who has collected
into his proverbs the precepts of the most ancient times.**
This legend, arising from the figurative expressions of the
relative positions the constellations of Perseus, the Whale,
the Crown, and the Serpent occupy in the heavens, has been,
we have  seen, first connected with the victory of the spring
sun over winter,  and of light over darkness.   The carbuncle,

  * Dictionnaire de Moreri, art Gozon (Dieudonne). Gozon died in 1353.
  t Scheuchzer, Itincrar. per Helvet. Alp. Reg., tome iii., p. 381-383.
  1 Memoires de la Societe des Antiquaires, tome vi., p. 217.
  § Plin., Hist. Nat.,  lib. xxxvii., cap. x.  Isidor., Hispal. Origin., lib. xvi,
cap. xiii.  Solin., cap. xxxiii.
  || Stories of Cheikh el Mohdy, translated from the Arabian by J. J. Mar-
cet 1833.           If Philostrat, De Vit. Apollon., lib. iii., cap. ii.
  ** Proverbs of Barihovcri,  fy;., inserted in the work of Abraham Ro'.'er.
The  Theater of Idolatry; or, the  Door Opened, (&.: a French translation,
1  voL 4to (1760), p. 328. 
ILLUSTRATIONS.
249
or ruby, which there held  its place, and with which  Ovid
decorated the palace of the sun,* was, in fact, consecrated
to that orb from its color of flaming red.t

                           v V.

 THE  SAME LEGEND  CREPT INTO  CHRISTIANITY, ESPECIALLY
             AMONG  THE PEOPLE  OF THE  WEST.
  As long as oppressed Christianity strove in secret against
polytheism, its worship, no less austere than its  code of
morals, only admitted in its ceremonies, still concealed by
the aid of mystery, simple rights unencumbered by  material
representation.   The researches and  cruelties of  persecu-
tors could only tear from the faithful  their holy books and
sacred vases ; they  had few or no images.J
  But public worship could ill dispense with remarkable out-
ward and visible signs ; for, in the midst of a large assem-
bly, words could hardly be conveyed to the ears of all the
audience, but the images would speak  to the eyes of all;
they could awaken the most natural, the most universal in-
clinations.  The multitude, therefore, delight in the  mag-
nificence  of religious acts, and think that it can not multiply
too many images.                           .  .
  This would necessarily happen, even to Christianity, when
(on the ruins of polytheism) it publicly established its tem-
ples and worship.   The progress was  much more rapid, be-
cause the religion of Christ succeeded a religion rich in pomp
and emblems ;  and it feared to repulse, by too rigid a sim-
plicity, men accustomed to see and to touch  what  they be-
lieved in and worshiped.
   Hence  as it was difficult to  destroy and utterly to pro-
scribe the former objects of veneration, the Christians often
nreferred appropriating them to their own faith.  More than
one temple was changed into a church ;  more than the name
of one god  was honored as the name  of  a  saint; and an
  *               Flammasque imitante pyropo.    _
                            Ovid, Metamorph., hb. u., ver. 2.
  t The Cardinal Daillyand Albertus Magnus, bishop of Ratisbon, said
 Carteut of fa Vfflate, distributed the planets among the different religions.
 Kun fell to the lot  of the Christian religion.  It is for that reason we
 t  .TJv, held the sun in singular veneration; that the town of Rome
 KdS'S K ««1 *at the cardinals who reside there  are hah-
  ted in «Tthe color  of the snn.-Critical Thoughts on Mathematics, 1
 vol 12mo  Paris 1752; with permission and approbation.
   t \™i& \l idea, universally prevails that a stone exists in the  head of
 Be"r^dte%XTharymers pretend to extract it from theheadof
 the cobra di capella.—Ed.
   | Encyclop. Method. Thiologie, art.  Images. 
250
ILLUSTRATIONS.
immense number of images and legends passed without diffi-
culty into the new faith, and were preserved by the ancient
respect of the new believers.
   The  legend of a heavenly being overcoming a serpent, the
principle of evil, was conformable to the language, the spirit,
and the origin of Christianity.   It was received, therefore,
and reproduced in the religious paintings and ceremonies of
the early Christians.   St. Michael, the first of the archangels,
was presented to the eyes of the faithful,  piercing the  infer-
nal dragon, the enemy of the human race.*
   In the  fifth eentury in France,t  and rather later in  the
West,  were established the processions known by the  name
of Rogations.X   For three  days  the image  of  a dragon and
winged serpent were presented to  the  observation of the
faithful;  and  his defeat was depicted by the  ignominious
manner in which he was borne about on the third day.y
   The celebration of the Rogation varied according to the
dioceses, from  the first days of Ascension week to the last
days of the week of Pentecost.   It corresponds to  the time

  * This mode of representing the triumph of the faithful over the evil
principle was general over every Christian country in the Middle Ages.
The serpent or dragon, was usually placed in the painting or the sculpture,
under the feet of the saint;  but the populace could  not understand the
allegory; and as it was the interest of the monks to nourish their credu-
lity, a fable or legend was attached to these representations, detailing the
victory  of the saint over a true  dragon or a real serpent.   Thus, the
allegorical representation of the patron saint of England, St George,
destroying the  dragon, is still extensively believed by the multitude as
the record of a real victory over a material dragon; and to prove how
eager the monks were to maintain the  belief, " the monks in  Mount St
Michael, in France, did not hesitate to exhibit, as pious relics,  the  sword
and shield with which St. Michael the archangel combated the dragon of
the Revelations."*—Ed.
  t St. Mammert bishop of Vienne, in Dauphiny, instituted the Rogations
in 468 or 474.—Encyclop. Method. Theologie. art Rogations.
  X The fasts termed Rogations were established by St Mammertus on
the occasion of an assumed miracle, said to have been performed through
the influence of his prayers.  A terrible fire broke out and raged in the
city of Vienne, in Dauphiny, where he was archbishop, in spite of every
effort to extinguish it; but suddenly went out in consequence of the
prayers  of the saint: and the same result followed his supplications on
the occurrence of a second great fire, which alarmed the city more than
the first The worthy prelate then formed the design of instituting an
annual fast and  supplication of three days to appease the Divine wrath,
by fasting, prayers, tears, and the confessions of sins.t  This fast gradu-
ally extended to other churches;  hence we find the Rogations kept in
many other parts besides Vienne ; but why the procession of the dragon
was ingrafted upon those of the Rogations does not appear.—Ed.
  § GuUL Durante  Rationale Divinorum Officiorum, fol., 1479, folio 226
recto.
               * Foreign Quarterly Review, vol. xxxvi.. p. 331,
               t E'aler't LiveiofFathen,p. 
ILLUSTRATIONS.               251
in which, the first half of the spring being passed, the victory
of the sun over winter is fully achieved, even in our cold and
rainy climate.   It is difficult not to perceive an intimate con-
nection between the  legends of the allegorical  dragon and
that period in which its  appearance was each year renewed.
  Other circumstances  increase the strength of this  argu-
ment.  In the sixth century, St. Gregory the  Great ordered
that  St. Mark's day, 25th  Of April, should be  annually cele-
brated by a procession similar to that of the Rogation.  The
origin of this  ceremony was  as follows: Rome was  deso-
lated by an extraordinary inundation.   The Tiber rose like
an immense sea to the upper windows of the temples.   In-
numerable serpents, it is  said, had emerged from the over-
flowing waters of the  river, and finally an immense dragon,*
a new Python, was born  of this new deluge.f   Its breath
infected the air and engendered a pestilential disease,:}: by
which the inhabitants were cut off by thousands.  An  an-
nual procession perpetuated the remembrance of the scourge
and of its cessation, obtained by the  prayers of the pope and
his flock.   The  date  of the 25th of April, less distant than
that of the Rogations from the equinox, is suitable to a coun-
try in which the  spring is always more forward than in Gaul.
  Whether by chance or by calculation, those  people who
transported to Lima under a southern hemisphere the Ta-
rasque, the dragon of a Northern nation, have fixed it on  the
7th of October, the fete day of St. Francis of Assisi.  This
period approaches still nearer to the equinox of the spring.
But  in equatorial  countries, as under the moderate climate
of Lima, the victory of  the sun is not so long undetermined
as in our northern regions, where the first weeks of spring
seem but a prolongation of winter.
  Pliny has spoken of a mysterious egg,y to the possession
of which the Druids attributed great virtues, and which was
formed by the concurrence of all the serpents of a country.
The inhabitants of Sologne,  the  echo of the Druids after
two  thousand years  have passed,  assert, without doubting
the antiquity  of the myth they repeat, that all the serpents
of the country assemble to produce an enormous diamond,
  * Guill. Durant, fol. 225 verso. Sijfredi Presbileri Mimensis.  Epitome,
lib. i., De Miro Prodigio.
  t " Ut Noe  Diluvium renovatum  crederetur.—Platina, De Vitis Mac.
Pontific. in Pelag. II.             ...,„.'  ^
  t " Pestis inguinaria sen infiatnra ingwnum." These are the expres-
sions made use of by the author of the Rationale (loco citato); he adds,
that the Pope Pelagius II., successor to St. Gregory the Great, suddenly
died of the same disease,  with  seventy other persons, while in the midst
of a procession.                V p»n->Hist- NaL< lib- xxix- caP" 3l ■ 
252               ILLUSTRATIONS.

which, superior to the stone of Rhodes, reflects the liveliest
colors of the rainbow.   The day assigned for their miracu-
lous production is the 13th of May,* a day belonging to the
second half of the spring, like the days when the serpent of
the Rogations was  paraded. The epoch of this apparition
furnishes us with a remark which is not devoid of interest.
Its fixedness alone proves contrary to what we have hitherto
advanced, that the  dragon was not the emblem of inunda-
tions, of overflowings of rivers, which could not every where
have taken place on the same day.  How then, it may be
asked, came such an opinion to be established 1  When the
original emblem was lost, the attention would naturally be
arrested by a circumstance occurring in all the legends which
reproduced it, namely, that the scene of action was always
upon the shore of the sea or banks of a river.  The idea of
the cessation of the ravages of the water must have appear-
ed the  more probable,  from the  procession of the dragon
being regularly celebrated at a period of the year when the
rivers, which had been swelled by the fall of snow, or the
equinoctial rains, returned to their usual course.

                          y VI.

ALLEGORICAL EXPLANATIONS OF EMBLEMS IN WHICH THE FIG-
             URE OF THE SERPENT OCCURRED.
   Every church had its dragon.   The emulation of exterior
piety had, in these representations, the effect of making them
excel in a desire to excite  in the spectators sensations of
admiration, astonishment, and  fright.  The visible part of
the worship became soon the most important part of the re-
ligion to men who were solely attentive to that which struck
their  senses: the dragon in the  Rogation processions was
too remarkable not to attract the attention of the populace,
and to usurp a prominent place in their belief.  Each dragon
had soon its peculiar legend, and these legends were mul-
tiplied without end.  To  those who would throw a  doubt
upon  the  probability of this cause we  shall answer by one
fact, that among the lives of the saints revered by the Christ-
ians of the East, who did  not  adopt the institution  of the
Rogations, the victory achieved  by a heavenly being over a
serpent is rarely to be found.
  The word dragon, contracted to that of Drac,  designated
a demon, a malevolent spirit, whom the credulous Provencal

  * Lfigier (du Loiret), Traditions et Usages de la Sologne, Memoire d*
VAcadimie Celtique, tome ii., p. 215, 216. 
ILLUSTRATIONS.
253
supposed to exist beneath the waters of the Rhone, and to
feed upon the flesh of men.  To act the drac was a term sy-
nonymous with  doing as much evil* as the devil himself
could be supposed to desire.   Persons bitten by serpents
were cured as soon as they approached the tomb of St. Pho-
cas, owing to the victory which this Christian hero, by under-
going martyrdom, achieved over the devil, the old serpent. +
When, in the eighth century, it was related that an enormous
serpent had been found in the tomb of Charles Martel,t was
any thing else meant but the insinuation,  that  the demon
had taken possession of this warrior, who, though he saved
France, and probably Europe, from the Mussulman yoke, had
had the misfortune to thwart the ambition of the heads of
the Church, and the cupidity of the monks'?
  It seems, then, reasonable to believe, as the author of the
Rationale^ expressly teaches, that the  serpent, or dragon,
carried in the processions of the Rogations was the emblem
of the  infernal spirit, whose overthrow was supplicated from
heaven r and that this defeat was  attributed to the  saint
more  particularly revered by the  faithful in each  diocese
and parish.  This kind of explanation has been reproduced
under different forms by sensible Christians, who could not
believe, in a physical sense, recitals too often renewed ever
to have been true.
  The demon is vice personified; victories achieved  ovei
vice may then have been figured by the same emblem.  At
Genoa, upon a small spot near the Church of St. Cyr, is to be
seen an ancient well, which, it is stated, formerly concealed
a dragon, the breath of which was destructive to men and
flocks.  St. Cyr exorcised the  monster, and forced him to
come  out  of the well and to throw himself into the  s€a.||
This miracle is still represented in pictures, and is allegoric-
ally interpreted by the  erudite as the victory achieved by
this holy preacher over impiety and libertinism.   The same
interpretation might  be  applied to the triumph of St. Marcel
over the serpent that ravaged Paris, since they say, " This
serpent first appeared outside  the town, near the  tomb of
a woman of quality who had lived an irregular life."f

  * Du Cange, Glossar., verbo Dracus.  Millin, Travels in the Interior of
 France, vol. iii., p. 450, 451.
  t Gregor. Turon., De Miracul., lib. i., cap. 99.
   1 M6zerai, Abrege Chronologique de VHistoire de France, annee 741.
   | Guill. Durant, Rationale Divinorum Officiorum, folio 226 recto.
   || Description of the Beauties of Genoa. 8vo, Genoa, 1781, p. 39-41. Mil-
 lin Travels in Savoy and Piedmont, vol. ii., p. 239.
   II Lives of the Saints for every Day in the Year, vol. u., p. 84. 
254
ILLUSTRATIONS.
  M. Dulaure,* nevertheless, is of opinion that this and many
other legends were emblematical of the triumph of the Christ-
ian faith over the Roman and Druidical  rituals.  Incredu-
lity is, in fact, the worst of all vices in the eyes of the heads
of any faith.  The retreat of the dragon which was van-
quished by St. Juliant was near a temple of Jupiter ; its fall
may have figured that of  polytheism, when,  at the voice of
the apostle of Mans, its worshipers overthrew the altars of
the dethroned god, and left his temple desolate.   Upon the
site of Epidaurus is to be  seen a cavern, which tradition has
sometimes designated as  the retreat of Cadmus when met-
amorphosed into a serpent, but more frequently as the abode
of the serpent of Esculapius.  When St. Jerome related that
at Epidaurus St. Hilary triumphed over a devastating serpent
concealed in that cavern, the  learned seemed to have some
reason  for supposing the recital to be emblematical of the
victory of the preacher of the Gospel over  the worship of
Esculapius.X  A similar  allegory also explains the  miracle
that rendered St. Donat,  bishop of Corinth,  the vanquisher
of a serpent so enormous that  eight yoke of oxen  could
scarcely drag along its corpse.§  The date of the miracle,
in the year 399, is also the period in which paganism fell ir-
revocably beneath  the blow struck  against  it by the com-
mand of the two sons of Theodosius.
   A monstrous  dragon desolated the  neighborhood of Theil,
near Roche aux Fees (Rock of the Fairies), in the depart-
ment of the Isle and Vilaine.   St. Arnel, the apostle of that
country, led it with his stole to the summit of a mountain,
and then commanded it to precipitate itself into the  River
Seiche.   M. Noual de la Houssaye is of opinion that this mir-
acle is emblematical of the victory which this saint achieved
over the  remains of the  Druidical religion, the ceremonies
of which had, till then, been perpetuated on the Rock of the
Fairies.  He  explains in  the  same way the  repetition of a
similar miracle in  the legend of St. Effiam, and in that of
other saints.II   His conjecture may be easily extended to
the  works of a thaumaturgist, who,  before a stone, most
probably  druidical  and  still honored by superstitious rites,
overcame a dragon  which  had  ravaged the territory of

  * Dulaure, Physical, Moral, and Civil History of Paris, 1st edit, p. 161,
162, and ls>5, 186.
  t Memoires de VAcademie Celtique, tome iv., p. 311.
  t Appending Notizie Istorico-critiche suite  Antichita, {fC, de' Raguset,
tome i., p. 30. Pouqueville, Voyage dans la Grcce, tome i., p. 24, 25.
  J. Sigeberti, Chrotiicon, anno 39!).
   [| Memoires de VAcademie Celtique, tome v., p. JT7. 
ILLUSTRATIONS.
255
Neuilly Saint Front skirting Chateau Thierry.*  On a leaden
medal, struck at Amiens in 1552 (doubtless from some more
ancient type), St. Martin is represented as piercing with a
lance the body of a dragon which he tramples under  foot.
This was intended to designate the victories of the saint
over the pagan divinities.!
  Constantine, the overthrower of paganism, loved to have
himself painted armed with a cross, and  striking with his
lance a formidable dragon.X   Thirty years ago, in a town of
Normandy, might be seen an old picture which served as a
sign to a hotel; the costume and figure were those of Louis
XIV., the new St. Michael leveling to the  earth the infernal
dragon.  It was, I presume, as a commemoration of the rev-
ocation of the Edict of Nantes.
  Heresy, indeed, not less than false religion, is reputed to
be the work of the spirit of darkness. y  The bronze dragon,
therefore, which, until  1728,  the  monks of St. Loup, at
Troyes, carried in  the procession of Rogation,II passed for
the emblem of  the victory of St. Loup over the Pelagian
heresy.

                         y VII.

MULTIPLICITY OF FACTS OF THIS NATURE  ADOPTED AS REAL
                         FACTS.
  Allegories are beyond  the comprehension of the ignorant
multitude, who are accustomed to believe whatever they are
told.   The serpent paraded on Rogation day was generally
regarded as the representation of a real serpent, to  the ex-
istence of which they assigned a certain date.  In vain was
the meaning of the allegory revealed to  the  superstitious ;
in vain they were shown, for instance, a picture of St. Veran
loading the evil spirit  with chains ; they persisted in believ-
ing, and in relating that the territory of Aries was formerly
delivered by St. Veran from the ravages of a monstrous ser-
pent ;  and a picture perpetuates  the remembrance of this
victory,IT which, according to the legend, was obtained at
the entrance of a grotto near a fountain.

  * Memoires de la Societe des Antiquaires de France, tome i., p. 426, 427.
  t  Memoires de VAcademie du Departement de la Somme, tome i., p. 699.
  X Euseb. Pamph., De Vita Constantini, lib. iii., cap. iii.
  § The Emperor Sigismond instituted  the order of the Vanquished
Drwon, in celebration of the anathema denounced by the Council of
Constance against the doctrines of John Huss and Jerome of Prague.
The dragon signified heresy overcome.
  || Grosley, Ephemerides, 3e partie, chap, xci., tome ii., p. 222, 225.
  ft I saw these pictures in 1813, in Majore Laa Church, in Aries. 
256
ILLUSTRATIONS.
  Every parish hafl its dragon;  and still, in all the parishes
in Spain, the image of the serpent (Tarasj  is carried in pro-
cession on Corpus Christ i clay.   The history of the monster
varies still more than its forms, as imagination and credulity
attributed to it supernatural deeds.   From dread they passed
to respect.  The dragon of Poitiers* was piously surnamed
the good  St. Vermine;  they prayed to it,  and  they were
eager to obtain chaplets touched by it.   It is difficult to say
whether, as a monument, it remained what  it had formerly
been, an idol, or that it became so by degrees among a su-
perstitious people.
  More commonly the  emblem  was surrounded by signs of
hatred and horror.   Its legendary history justified these sen-
timents.   It had been the curse of the country in which its
image was paraded. Its venom had poisoned the springs,
and its breath infected  the air with contagious  diseases.   It
devoured the flocks, killed men, and chose young girls, vir-
gins consecrated to the Lord, for its victims, while children
disappeared ingulfed in the abyss of its terrible jaws.  The
 Bailla,  a  figure of  a dragon that  was  paraded at Rheims
every Easter day,  had probably this  origin.   The  gilded
dragon that figured in the processions of the Rogation, in
the parish of St. James of Douai, was the emblem of the de-
mon that had devoured the  corn in the ear, and destroyed
the harvest to punish the cultivators of it for having refused
to pay the tithes.t
  At Provence, until 1761, in the parishes  of Notre Dame
and St. Quiriacc, there  was carried in the former, in the pro-
cessions of the Rogation, a winged dragon, and in the latter
a monster termed a lizard, two  animals which had formerly
desolated  the town and its  environs.X  St. Florence went,
we are told, by the  command of God, to establish himself in
a grotto, or cavern, situated on the left bank of the Loire, and
to expel  from it serpents wjth which it was  filled.  Soon
afterward he delivered  the inhabitants of Mar,  now Saumur,
from an enormous serpent which devoured men and animals,
and hid itself in a wood upon the banks of the Yicnne.y
  At Tonnerre, the holy Abbot Johan overcame a  basilisk
which  infected  the waters of  a founlaiii.il  The Yicre  of
Larre, to  which a Burgundian  proverb likened any woman

  *  Notes of the Society of the Antiquaries of France, vol. i., p. 46-1. Not- s
of the Celtic Academy, vol. v., p. 54. 55.
  f  Bottin,  Traditions des Dragons volants; fyr., p. 157, and 160, 161.
  X Ch. Opoix, Histoirc et Description des Pruinns, p. 435, 436.
  § J. J. Rodin, Itcchcrclies Historiqucs sur Saumur it le Ifaut-Anjoit, tome
i., p. 117-122.       II  Greg. Turou.,  De Gloria Confessor., cup. lxxxva. 
ILLUSTRATIONS.
257
accused of beshrewing,* was a serpent hidden near a fount-
ain in the vicinity of a priory of the order of St. Benoit, and
long an object of public terror.  At  Aix, in Provence, the
procession of the Rogations deposits upon a rock, called the
Rock of the Dragon, and near a chapel dedicated to St. An-
drew, the figure of a dragon, killed by the intercession of
this holy apostle.t   No less the source of succor than St.
Andrew and St. George, St. Victor at Marseilles overcame
a  monstrous  reptile.X   St. Theodore  trampled  a serpent
under foot ;y and St. Second, patron of Asti, is represented
on horseback piercing a dragon with his lance. II  We might
quote many other similar legends without pretending to ex-
haust the subject.  Knowing the common origin of all, and
the causes which, since the fifth century, multiplied them
in the East, we are far from being  astonished at their num-
ber ; on the contrary, we are surprised that more do not ex-
ist.
                         y VIIL

VARIATIONS IN THE CIRCUMSTANCES  AND DATES OF THE  NAR-
  RATIONS ;  NEW VESTIGES OF  THE ASTRONOMICAL LEGEND.
  The custom of bearing  the image of the serpent in the
ceremonies of the Rogations ceased very gradually ; and it
may be said, this emblem of the Prince of Darkness yielded
but slowly to the advancement of the light of truth.   Several
churches in France  did not abandon  the  use of it until the
eighteenth century ; in 1771, Grosley found it kept up in full
force in  all the Catholic churches of the Low Countries.^
During so long a lapse of time the narrations must necessa-
rily have varied, and, consequently, the explanations of them.
  To overcome  the Gargouille, the  dragon  of Rouen,  St.
Romans caused himself to be  accompanied by a criminal
condemned to death, whose pardon was obtained by the mir-
acle of the saint.
   The clergy willingly gave credit to  these kinds of tales.
They augmented their power by obtaining for the heads of

  * La Monnoye, Noel Borguignon, 12mo, 1729, p. 399,400.  Vivre, voui-
vre, or guivre, viper, serpent.  The word guivre has still this sense in
the heraldic vocabulary.
  t Fauris Saint Vincent, Mimoire sur I'Ancienne Cite  d'Aix. Magasin
Encyclopedique, year 1812, vol. vi., p. 287.
  t In the Abbey of St. Victor at Marseilles.
  & Dorbessan, Essay upon. Sacred Serpents, Historical and Critical Mis-
cellanies, vol. ii., p. 138.
   || Millie, Travels in Savoy and Piedmont, vol. i., p. 121.
   t[ Grosley, Travels in Holland. Unpublished Works of Qrosley, 3 vols.
8vo, Paris, 1815, vol. iii, p. 336. 
258
ILLUSTRATIONS.
their order the right of pardoning, or, at least, as at Rouen,
that of giving liberty to prisoners.  It was regarded as not
granting too much to the memory of a miracle, of which, by
the will of God, a condemned  criminal became the instru-
ment.
  Still more willingly did the vulgar receive this variation
of the universal legend;  according to them,  no man could
have resolved to undertake so perilous a combat, unless with
the fear of some infamous and cruel  death before him.  In
this manner, a criminal condemned to death robbed St. Rad-
egonde of the honor of having vanquished the Grand gueule,
the terrible dragon of Poitiers, which, issuing  every day
from its  cavern on the banks of the  River Clain, devoured
the virgins of the Lord, the nuns of the Convent of St. Croix.*
Another doomed man was said to have delivered the parish
of Villiers, near Vendame, from the  ravages  of a serpent, f
A third  killed a dragon,  or  a  crocodile, which, hidden be-
neath the waters of the Rhone, was the scourge of the sail-
ors and the inhabitants of the country.:):   A deserted soldier,
in order to obtain his pardon, fought with a dragon that
spread terror into  the environs of Niort.y   He triumphed
but lost his life in the struggle.
  In  discussing the  history  of this pretended soldier,ll M
Eloi-Johanneau remarks  how suspicious it is rendered by
one of the names given to him signifying the vanquisher of
a beast or a monster, and particularly by its date, 1589 or 1692,
a date much too recent for history not to have recorded the
fact.   The date assigned by D. Calmet to the appearance of
the serpent of Luneville is still more  modern.  He places it
a century from the time in which he wrote.IT  Of all the va-
riations which popular traditions are subject to in the course
of time, the  most  common are those which relate  to date.
For such stories  there exist no archives;  and it is in the
nature of man to be forever endeavoring to appropriate to
himself recollections bequeathed to him by the past.  Too
long an interval between them and the time present wearies
his imagination, unable to fill up the  gap;  he therefore en-
deavors to narrow it in proportion as the lapse of time may
demand.  Thus, the dragon  of Niort has been successively
placed in 1589 and in 1692.   That of the Grand'gueule of

  *  Memoires de VAcademie Cehiqut, tome v., p. 52, 53, 55. Memoires de la
Sodtte des Antiquaires de France, tome i., p. 464, 465.
  t Memoires de VAcademie Celtique, tome iv., p. 311.
  t  Id. ibid., tome v., p. 111.       § Id. ibid., p. 58, 60,132,134.
  f|  Id. ibid., p. 59, and 134* 135.
  j\ Journal of Verdun, June, 1751, p, 430. 
ILLUSTRATIONS.
259
Poitiers, when attributed to a condemned criminal,  was
placed at so great a distance from the period in which St.
Radegonde lived, that in 1280 the apparition  of the flying
dragon was also  attributed to that town.*   Although St.
Jerome has described the combat of St. Hilary against the
serpent of Epidaurus, the caverns and remains of which are
still shown to travelers,  its defeat has been  attributed to
himself.t  The tradition which  attributes  the destruction
of the Tarasque to St. Martha is modern compared to that
which gave the honor to sixteen brave men, eight of whom
perished victims to their  courage ; the others founded the
towns of Beaucaire and Tarascon.J
  We might instance several other dates that time has also
disarranged and modernized.  It is, nevertheless, for a dif-
ferent cause that  the death of the heroes of Tarascon and
the soldier of Niort  deserve to be remembered.  In those
myths which  describe the struggle of the  principle of  light
over the principle of darkness, the former  frequently paid
for its victory with its life.  It is thus related of Osiris, of
Bacchus, of Atys, and of Adonis.   In the Scandinavian my-
thology, likewise, at that terrible day when the world  is to
be destroyed  and renewed, the god Thor,  after having ex-
terminated the great  serpent, engendered by the principle of
 evil, is  to perish  himself, stifled by  the venomous  breath
 emitted by the monster.   We are not astonished at  finding
 another vestige of the solar legend, or in seeing several van-
 quishers of enormous serpents falling in the midst of their
 triumphs, or  unable to survive them.
   Ancient Greece offers an example of such generous de-
 votion.   The town of Thespia, by the command of a miracle,
 offered every year a youth to a homicidal  dragon.  Cleos-
 trates was destined  by fate for this horrible sacrifice.  His
 friend, Menestrates, took his place ; and clothed in a cuirass,
 each scale of which bore a hook with the point turned upper-
 most, he delivered himself to the monster, whose death he
 caused, although he himself perished. §
    Toward the end of the fifteenth century, or, according to
 a more ancient tradition, in 1273 (for here the date is varied
 that it  may be brought nearer to our times),  the mountains
 of Neufchatel were ravaged by a serpent, the recollection of

    * Memoires de VAcademie Celtique, tome v., p. 61, 62.
    t Pouquevffle, Voyage dans la Grece, tome i., p. 24, 25.
    t Memoires de la Societe des Antiquaires de France, tome i., p. 423. The
  foundation of Tarascon (or, more properly, the establishment of the Mar-
  seillaise in this town) appears previous to the war of Caesar against Pom-
  r««r                      k Pausanias, Bocenca, cap. xxvi.
  pey. 
260                ILLUSTRATIONS.
which is still maintained by the names of several places in
the environs of the village of Sully.*   Raymond of Sully
fought with the monster, killed it, and died two days after-
ward.
  Such  was also the fate of Belzunce, who delivered  Ba-
yonne from a dragon with several heads ; he perished,  suf-
focated  by the flames and smoke vomited by the monster, t
  Patriotism celebrates with enthusiasm the name of Arnold
Strouthan of Winkelried, who, at the battle of Sampach in
1386, devoted himself for the safety of his countrymen.  The
name of one of his ancestors has a less authentic, but not  less
popular  title to immortality.   Upon the banks of tho River
Meleh,  near Alpenach, in the canton of Underwald, there
appeared in 1250 a dragon, the cave of which is still shown.
Struth de Winkelried, condemned to banishment for having
fought a duel, determined to regain the right of re-entering
his country by delivering it from this scourge ; he succeeded^
but died of his wounds the day after his victory. X  Peter-
mann Eterlin (who in truth wrote two hundred  and fifty
years laterv)  has recorded this fact in his chronicles.  The
hand of the artist has sketched it upon the walls of a chapel
near  the scene of the encounter;  the place has preserved
the name of the Marsh of the Dragon (Drakenried ;) and the
cavern  that of the Dragon's Hole (Drakenlok).   These com-
memorative names, and those of the  same kind existing
near  Sulpy, indicate, perhaps, like  that of the Rock of the
Dragon at Aix, the places where the procession of Rogations
stopped, and where the image of the allegorical dragon was
momentarily  deposited.il  Perhaps  they may also have re-
lated, as we have already suspected,  to the course of some
devastating torrent.

                          y IX.
THIS LEGEND HAS BEEN  APPLIED TO CELEBRATED PERSONAGES,
   AND HISTORY HAS BEEN ALTERED  THAT IT MIGHT SEEM TO
   RELATE THE EVENTS.
  Eterlin, the biographer of Struth of Winkelried, has trans-

  * Roche a la Vuivra; Combe a la Vuivra; Fontaine a la Vuivra (vivra,
vivre, guivre, serpent).  Description des Montagues de Neufchdtcl, Neufcha-
tel, 1776, 12mo, p. 34-37.   t Mcrcure de France, March 29th, 1K17, p. 585.
  X Le Conservateur Suisse, 7 vols. 12mo, Lausanne, 1813-1815, tome vi.,
p. 410, 441.  Mayer, Travels in Switzerland, vol. i., p. 251, seems to attrib-
ute this adventure to Arnold of Winkelried, and places the dragon's cav-
ern near  Stanz.       § W. Coxe, Letters on Switzerland, vol. i., p. 160.
  ||  The mountain nearest to Cologne is called Rocks of the Dragons.—
Memoires de la Societe des Antiquaires d* France, tome ii., p. 139, 140 
ILLUSTRATIONS.
261
ferred to William Tell the adventure of the apple,* which
Saxo Grammaticus, who wrote more than a century before
the birth of Tell, had already related of a Danish archer
named Toko ;t an adventure borrowed, with  precisely the
same  circumstances, from a still more ancient tradition of
Egil, father of the clever smith Wailland, and himself an ex-
pert archer.J  Eterlin seems to have taken pains to impress
with an historical character the  religious myths, and fables
imported from other countries into his own.   He wrote down
all popular beliefs ; and nothing is more usual with the vul-
gar than to apply the histories and fables composing their
documents to personages well known to them.  Winkelried
and Tell are to  the Swiss peasants what Alexander was,
and still is, in the East.   To the name of the King of Mac-
edonia the Asiatics attached a thousand recollections, some
of them anterior to his existence,  and evidently borrowing
from mythology.  The traditions of a devastating dragon,
over which Alexander triumphed,  was in the twelfth cen-
tury still preserved in an island of Western Africa.y  The
Paladine Roland enjoyed the same honor in the West;  and
this is still attested by the names of several places. H  Ari-
osto, when singing of Roland, the vanquisher of the Orca,
a sea monster about to devour a young girl,!T probably did
no  more than copy and embellish a tradition of preceding
ages, as in a thousand other passages of his poem.
  An individual whose existence and fame are in no respect
fabulous has, nevertheless, become, like Roland, the hero of
a fable which renders him a rival of Hercules and Perseus.
The importance which the remembrance of him had acquired
in  a country which was  so long his abode  has  doubtlessly
gained this honor for him.  Petrarch was following Laura
in  the  chase ; they arrived near a cavern where  a dragon,
the terror of the country, was concealed.  Less ravenous

  * W Coxe, Letters on Simtzerland, vol. i., p. 160.  See a writing, entitled
 William TeU, a Danish FabU, by Uriel Freudenberger, a work pubhshed
 at Berne in  1760, by Haller, Jun., 1 vol. 8vo.  Uriel Freudenberger, pastor
 of Glarisse,  Canton of Berne, died in 1768         „ ,™ . i«c_i(!ii
  t Saxo Gramm., Hist. Danic, hb. x., foho, Francofurb, 1576, p. 166-168.
 Saxo died in 1204.  Harold, who plays in history the same part as Gesler,
 fell beneath the blows of Toko in 981.  The fable of the apple being much
 more ancient, it was renewed by the public hatred under the name ot
 Harold, as it has since been reproduced in Switzerland under the odious
 name of Gesler.                                      .„
   t Memoires de la Societe des Antiquatres de France, tome v., p. -S29.
   I L'ile de Mostachiin, Geographic d'Ednsi, tome l, p. 198-200.
   fl La Baume Roland, near Marseilles; la Breche Roland, m. the Pyrenees;
 QC___d'Orlando, three miles from Rimini, &c.
   If Orlando Furioso, canto xi. 
262
ILLUSTRATIONS.
than amorous, the dragon pursued Laura.  Petrarch flew to
the assistance of his mistress, fought with, and stabbed the
monster.  The sovereign pontiff, however, would not allow
the picture of the triumph of love to be placed in any sacred
building.  Simon of Sienna, the friend  of the  poet, evaded
this prohibition by painting  this  adventure under the portal
of the Church of Notre Dame du Don,  at Avignon.   Laura
is depicted in  the  attitude of a suppliant virgin, and Pe-
trarch in the costume of St. George, armed with a poniard
instead of a lance.   Time,  though it has lowered the esti-
mation in which this work was held, has not weakened the
tradition which it perpetuates, and which has been repeated
to me as a real historical fact.*
   In  the examination of traditions, sufficient attention has
not always been paid to that  inclination which induces the
ignorant man to find in every thing the myths occupying
the first place in his belief;   To arrive at such a result, he
perverts his recollections,  either by attributing to some  in-
dividual events that have never happened to him, or by in-
troducing into  history the incredible  parts of a fable.  The
story in which  Petrarch figures is an example of the first
kind of alteration; we shall  find one  of the  second kind
without diverging from our  subject.
  A Swedish princet  had nurtured up near his daughter,
named Thora, two  serpents to be  the guardians of her vir-
ginity.  Grown to an immense size, these monsters spread
terror and death around them,  chiefly  by their pestilential
breath.  The  king, in despair,  promised  the  hand of his
daughter to the hero who should kill the serpents.  Regner
Lodbrog, a prince, a scald, and a warrior, achieved this per-
ilous  adventure,  and  became  the  husband of the beautiful
Thora.   That is the fable; but, according to  the Ragnara
Lodbrog's  Saga,t the history is as follows.   It was not to
two serpents, but to one of his  vassals, the  possessor of a
strong castle, that  the king had confided the charge of  his
daughter; the guardian becoming enamored  of the princess,
refused to restore her;  and the king, after vain attempts to
compel him, promised that Thora  should espouse her liber-
ator.   Regner Lodbrog was this happy  individual.

  * In 1813.  I observed that in recitals concerning Laura at Avignon or
at Vaucluse, she is always respectfully called Madame Laura.
  t Saxo Grammat, Hist. Dan., lib. ix., p. 153.  Olaus Magnus, Hist. Sept.
Gentium Brev., lib. v., cap. 17.
  X Quoted in the work of Biorner, entitled Kampedater (Stockholm,
1737), and by Graberg of HemsOe, Saggio Istorico Sugli Caldi, 8vo, Pisa,
1811, p. 217. 
ILLUSTRATIONS.
263
  In an incursion upon the coasts of Northumberland, how-
ever, Regner was conquered, made prisoner, and thrown into
a subterranean dungeon  filled with  serpents:  their bites
proved fatal.   This is said to have occurred about the year
866.   The story is related by every historian ;* perpetuated,
also, in the Dirge which has been attributed to Regner himself.
I, nevertheless, suspect that, in the nature of his punishment,
an attempt was made to connect it with the legend of which
this hero was already the object.  The  same  spirit which
had altered the history of his hymeneals, so as to recall or
emblemize  the struggle in which the principle of good tri-
umphed over the principle  of evil, intended, perhaps, that
this tragical end should also recall the death suffered by the
principle of good in the allegorical combats.  The name of
the vanquisher, Regna Hella, favors this supposition;  the
Scandinavians  can discern in it the name of Hela, goddess
of Death, like the great serpent, the offspring of the principle
of evil.  What sanctions my conjecture, is the  great  im-
portance accorded in Scandinavian mythology to the great
serpent; it is never described as perishing, except it draws
after it, into annihilation, the god with whom it fought.   In
this manner, serpents and dragons reappear more than once
in the Scandinavian annals.  I find  that,  both before and
after Regner, the general myth is interwoven, in two different
places, into the individual history.  Frotho I., ninth king of
Denmark, t requiring money to pay his soldiers, attacked, in
a  desert isle,  a dragon,  the guardian of a treasure, and
killed it at the very entrance of its cavern.   Harold,t exiled
from Norway, took refuge in Byzance.  Having been guilty
of homicide, he was exposed  to  the fury of a monstrous
dragon.  More fortunate than Regner, he overcame it,  and
returned to occupy the throne of Norway, and to annoy the
nephew of Canute the  Great, who was then seated upon the
throne of Denmark.

  * Saxo Grammar,., Hist. Dan., lib. ix., p. 159. Olaus Magnus, loc. cit
Ragnara Lodbrog's Saga.
  t 761 years before Christ. Saxo Grammar.., Hist. Dan., lib. ii., p. 18, 19.
  X In the 11th century. Saxo Grammat., Hist. Dan., lib. ii., p. 185, 186.
I translate the word antrum into cavern.  The ditch in which Regner
Lodbrog perished seems to me to correspond with the caverns of almost
all the legends quoted. 
264                ILLUSTRATIONS.
                          yX.

PHYSICAL OBJECTS AND MONUMENTS, IN WHICH THE VULGAR
  FIND AGAIN THE PICTURE OF  THE DESTRUCTION OF A MON-
  STROUS SERPENT.
  That which daily strikes the senses has an influence upon
the belief of uneducated men, at least as much as the recol-
lections which are engraved on the  memory; physical ob-
jects, paintings, and  sculpture, like history, aid the imagi-
nation to discover every where legends that favor credulity.
  In the Abbey of St. Victor, at Marseilles, in the Hospital
of Lyons,* and in a church at Ragusa, the skin of a croco-
dile is shown to travelers.   It is pointed out as the skin of
a monster, the hero of legends, belonging to these different
places ; and, nevertheless, at Ragusa, for example, it is not
unknown that it is a skin which was brought from Egypt by
Ragusan sailors.t  These kind of relics, intended for keep-
ing up and confirming faith, when they do not originate it,
have never appeared misplaced in our temples, into which,
probably, they were first introduced in the quality of votive
offerings.  This was the opinion passed by Millint upon the
skin of a cayman,y suspended from the roof of a church at
Cimiers, in the province of Nice.  It did not appear that any
history was  attached to it; whether it was from the lapse
of time the legend has fallen into oblivion, or that the ex voto
was too recent to presume to apply any legend to it.
  Another monument of this kind, the existence of which,
however,  is  less certain, is the head of the dragon which
was so miraculously conquered by Dieudonne of Gozon.  It
was preserved at Rhodes.   The Turks, when they became
masters of Rhodes,  respected it.   The  traveler Thevenot
saw it toward the middle of the  17th century, and the  de-
scription which he gives of it would  lead it to be regarded
as  belonging rather  to a hippopotamus than to a serpent. II
Will  it be considered too bold to think that this head, like
the cayman  of Cimiers, like  the crocodiles of Ragusa, of
Lyons, and of Marseilles, was first exposed by public piety
  * Memoires de VAcademie Celtique, vol. v., p. 111.
  t  Pouqucville, Voyage dans la Grece, tome i., p. 24, 25.
  t Millin, Voyage en Savoie, en Piemont, a Nices, a Genes, tome ii., p. 121.
  5 The cayman, Crocodilus Palpebresus  (Cuvier), is a native of Surinam
and Guiana.  It does not attain to as large a size as the other species of
crocodiles ; nor will it attack a man either on land or in the water, as
long as he keeps his legs and arms in motion.  This species of crocodile
has never been found in the old continent; hence it is not to be seen in
any of the ancient temples.—Ed.
  || Thivenot,  Relation dun Voyage fait au Levant, fy;., p. 223, 
ILLUSTRATIONS.               265
or by interest;  and that, constantly attracting the observa-
tions of the multitude, it furnished an occasion for applying,
at a later period, the legend of the hero who conquered the
dragon to a celebrated cavalier, a grand-master of the order 1
  At Wasmes, near Mons, on Pentecost Tuesday, and on
Trinity day, the head of a crocodile is carried in procession.
In the eyes of a credulous population, it represents the head
of the  dragon which, in the  12th century, ravaged the en-
virons of Wasmes, and which, when about to devour a young
girl in his cavern, fell under the blows of Gilles, lord of Chin.*
A tradition, carefully preserved in the country, attributes to
the father of Chin, who died in 1137, the most striking traits
of an exploit, the honor of which, two centuries later, was
given to Dieudonne of Gozon, namely, the difficulty of ob-
taining permission to combat the dragon, the care with which
a figure resembling it was  manufactured a  long time pre-
viously, for the purpose of training the horses and the dogs
gradually to attack it fearlessly, and the precaution of being
followed by devoted servants to the place of combat.   Here
is another example of the facility with which they applied to
persons known at one period and in one country the myths
borrowed from another country, and from an anterior epoch.
  A direct interest is not always requisite for changing an
astronomical myth into local history.   There is at Clagen-
furt, placed upon a fountain, an antique group, found at Saal
or Zolfeld,  the ancient  Colmiar Sohensis,  representing  a
dragon of a prodigious size, and a Hercules armed with  a
club.  The people believe it to be a poor peasant who had
formerly delivered the country from the ravages of a dragon,
the image of which they conceive is properly placed by the
side of his own.f
  Upon  a cross in the cemetery of Dommarie, a commune
of the department of the Meurthe (of which the forest of
Thorey is a dependence), is sculptured the figure of a winged
dragon.   Calmet, deceived by this emblem, has related that a
winged dragon was formerly the terror of this country. X
   The inhabitants of Trebizonde relate, that in 1204 Alexis
 Comnenes overthrew with his own hands a monstrous drag-
 on.   In memory of this exploit, he caused a fountain, which
 he called the Fountain of the Dragon, to be constructed in the

  *  Recherches Historiques sur Gilles, Seigneur de Chin, et le Dragon, Mons,
  1825. Revue Encyclopedique, vol. xxviii, p. 192,193. M. Bottin, Traditions
  des Dragons Volants,  SfC, p. 165,173.
   t Ed. Brown, Narrative of many Voyages.              ,.,.«■,
   X  Bottin, Traditions, <$«., p. 156,157. Journal de Verdun, Jum, 1751, p.
  454. 
266               ILLUSTRATIONS.
town.  This monument remains;  the mouth of the  pipe,
whence the water issues, representing the head of the fab-
ulous animal.*  This figure of the spout has given to the
fountain the name which it bears, and, consequently, is the
origin of the legend.
  Augustus Caesar, wishing to immortalize the remembrance
of his conquest, and the submission of Egypt, gave as a type
for the medals of a colony which he had just founded in Gaul,
a crocodile tied to a palm-tree.   The town in which the colony
settled  had for  several  centuries recognized Nemausus,
whose name  it bore, and who was its founder, as its  local
divinity ;  and this name could not fail to figure upon its med-
als.   Very soon, and  notwithstanding that  the palm-tree
never grew on the soil of Nismes (the ancient Nemausus),
the crocodile became one of those monsters in all the different
legends, which stated  that the imitators of Hercules, holy
men, or those worthy of being regarded as such, had  over-
come.  This  terrible animal poisoned the waters of a fount-
ain, and desolated the country.   The  hero had triumphed
over it; and  he thus received, and transmitted to the  town
which he founded near the fountain, the name of Nemausus,
which still recalls that he alone had performed what none had
dared to attempt. t
  Here, at least, a real representation, although badly inter-
preted, had attracted  observation and excused the error.
According to a received tradition at Pisa, Nino Orlandi, in
1109, succeeded in confining an enormous and dangerous
serpent in an iron cage, and paraded it thus into the middle
of the town.   How can we doubt of the truth of the  fact 1
A bas-relievo, placed in the Campo Santo, represented it; an
inscription  attested it.   Observant eyes have, in our  time,
examined these two monuments ; the inscription was placed
in 1777 ; the bas-relief, a fragment in Paros marble, does not
portray a single object that can relate to Orlandi's pretended
victory.}

  *  Prottiers, Itineraire de Tifiis a Constantinople (Brussels, 1829),  p. 206.
  f Nemo Ausus. M.l'Abbfi Simil, Memoires sur la. Maison carree. No-
tices sur les travaux de VAcademie du Gard of 1812-1H22, let part, p. 329,
330.  Eusebe Salverte, Essai sur Us Noms d'Hommes, de Peuples et deLicuz,
tome ii., p. 279, 280.
  X See the Moniteur Universel of Monday, July 2,1812. 
ILLUSTRATIONS.
267
                          y XI.
COATS OF  ARMS AND  MILITARY  ENSIGNS GIVE PLACE TO NEW
       APPLICATIONS OF THE ASTRONOMICAL LEGEND.
  Greedy of glory and of power, it was natural for the nobles
and the warriors to wish to share with the demi-gods of pa-
ganism, with the favored of heaven, the honor of those tri-
umphs which would secure immortal claims on the gratitude
of the people.  After the Scandinavian heroes, after Struth
of Winkelried, Belzunce, and Dieudonne of Gozon, we can
refer to a young noble who accompanied St. Pol when he
wished to destroy the dragon of the Isle of Batz ;* and also
St. Bertrand, the conqueror of the dragon of Comminges, a
bishop who belonged to an  illustrious race ; for he was the
son of a Count of Toulouse.f
  We might also quote the pretended origin of the praenomen
of the Nompar of Caumont.  Reviving for themselves the
fabulous history of the founder of Nismes, they relate that
this praenomen was transmitted to them by one of their an-
cestors, who, in fact, showed himself sans pair (non par) in
giving death to a monstrous dragon whose ravages desolated
his territory.
  But to avoid tedious repetitions, we shall confine ourselves
to remarking how much this pretension on the part of the
nobles was favored by the figures with which each of them
ornamented his helmet or his shield, and which, from them,
have passed into coats of arms.
  Ubert was the first who, among the Milanese, fulfilled the
functions  delegated to the  Counts (Comites) of the Lower
Empire, and of the Empire of Charlemagne.   He adopted,
in consequence, the  surname  of viscount, which he trans-
mitted  to  his descendants.   At Milan, in that place where
the very  ancient Church of St. Denis  rears itself, there
was a deep cavern, the  dwelling of an ever-hungry dragon,
whose breath spread death to a great distance.   Ubert fought
it and killed it; and he wished its image to figure in the
coats of arms of the Visconti.J  According to Paul Jove,
Othon, one of the  first  viscounts, distinguished himself in
the army of Godfrey  of Bouillon :  a Saracen chief, whom he
slew in single combat, bore upon his  helmet the figure of a
serpent devouring an infant; the conqueror placed it in his
coa"t of arms, and left to his posterity this monument of his

  * Cambry, Voyage dans le Departement du Finisterre, tome i., p. 147,148.
  f Dictionnaire de Moreri, art. Saint Bertrand.
  % Carlo Torre, Ritratto di Milano. p. 273. 
268
ILLUSTRATIONS.
glory.*  The recital of Paul Jove, if it is not as true as the
other, is at least as probable.
  Aymon, count of Corbeil, bore upon his shield a dragon
with two heads.   In a street of Corbeil there may be seen a
covered drain, which terminates at the River of Etampes :
according to popular tradition, this was formerly the den of
a dragon with two heads, the terror of the ■country; the
Count Aymon had the honor of conquering it.t
  The  family Dragon of Ramillies  had as its arms a gold
dragon in an azure field.  This family traces the origin of
its  name, and of its coat of arms, to a victory obtained by
John, lord of Ramillies, over a dragon which desolated the
neighboring territory of Escaut, and which the intrepid baron
combated even in the cavern into which the monster enticed
its  victims.}:
  The lion, being the  symbol of strength, generally deco-
rated the tombs  of the  knights.  Upon the tomb of Gouffier
of  Lascours a  serpent is added to it, as the symbol of pru-
dence.  In these representations one may perceive an evi-
dent allusion to a marvelous adventure  related by the chron-
icles, in which this warrior had delivered a lion from an
enormous  dragon by which it was pursued.  The grateful
animal attached himself to his benefactor,  and followed him
every where like a faithful dog.y   We may observe that
this is precisely the adventure that the author of the Mor-
gante ascribes to Renaud ofMontauban.il  But the invention
does  not belong to him; the  same  story is  found again in
the poetical  romance of Chrestein of Troyes, entitled the
Knight of the Lion.1T
  Similar recitals have arisen from similar causes, before the
invention of chivalrous  emblems and coats of arms.
  A warrior always desires to present to his adversaries
objects capable of striking them with terror. The serpent
is the emblem of a  prudent and  dangerous enemy; tho
winged serpent, or dragon, is the presage of rapid and inev-
itable destruction.  These signs found  their place upon the
banners, as well  as upon the  face of the shields, and upon
the  tops of the  helmets.  The dragon  figured also  among
the  military ensigns of  the Assyrians ;  and Cyrus, the con-
queror of the Assyrians, caused it to be  adopted by the Per-

 *  Paul Jove, in Vit. duod. Vicecom. Medial. Princip., Prafalio.
 t Millin, Antiquites Nationales, tome ii., art. Saint Spire de Corbeil.
 X  Bottin, Traditions, tfC, p. 164, 165.
 \  N. Dailou, Monumens des diffirens Ages obscrvis dans le Departement
de la Haute Vienne, p. 359.      || Morgante, Conk iv., ottav. 7, et seq.
 IT  Manuscr. de la Bibliotheque du Roi, No. 7535, folio 16 verso, colouneS. 
ILLUSTRATIONS.
269
sians and by the Medes.*   Under the Roman emperors, and
under the emperors of Byzantium, every cohort, or centurion,
bore a dragon as its ensign.}  Grosley affirms (but without
bearing out his assertion by decisive proofs) that the dragons,
from being military ensigns, which were the objects of the
worship of the Roman soldier, passed into the churches, and
figured in the processions of the Rogations as trophies ac-
quired by the conquests of religion.}
  We must admit, also, that  similar signs have more than
once recalled the remembrance of astronomic myths;  and
when it is  known that  in  religious ceremonies  the  image
of the dragon was carried by the side of that of St. George,
before the  Emperor of Constantinople,^ we are  tempted to
believe  that  St. George owes to this  custom  the legend
which has placed him in the same rank as St. Michael.
   Uther, the first king of England, the father of the famous
King Arthur, imitated in battle the example of the Assyrians
and the Persians, and hoisted a dragon with a golden head
as an ensign.  In consequence of this transaction,  he re-
ceived the surname of Pen-dragon (Dragon-head), a surname
which gave rise to many marvelous recitals.  For instance,
it  is related that he saw in the skies a star which had the
form of a fiery  dragon, and which foretold his elevation to
the throne. II  The astronomical origin  of the  primitive le-
gend had not been forgotten.

                         v XII.
ANCIENT MYTHOLOGY ALTERED  FOR THE PURPOSE OF FINDING
           IN IT THE LEGEND OF THE SERPENT.
  After having corrupted history;  after having mistaken the
origin of physical representations;  forgotten the significa-
tion of monuments; and even having read and seen upon
them what  had never existed,  the desire of discovering every
where a myth which had been familiarized required but one
step more  : it only remained  to sacrifice  objects of ancient
credulity, and to disfigure a preceding mythology, in order to
bend it  to  the recitals of a new mythology.  The following
is a fact of this species, which, without being positive, is not
  * Georg. Coding Curop. de Official. Palat. Constant.....FerUe qua in Pa-
latio solent, fyc.
  t Modestus, De  Vocabul. Rci Milit. Flav. Veget, De Re Militari, lib. ii.,
cap. 13.  Georg. Codin, Curop., loc.  cit.
  t Grosley,  Ephemerides, iiie. partie, chap, ix., tome ii., p. 222-225.
  § Georg. Codin, Curop.  de Official. Palat. Cons., loc. cit.   " Cantata
igitur liturgid ... aliud (Flammcotum) quodfert sanctum Georgium equi-
tem, aliud draconteum," frc.        || Ducange, Glossar., verbo Draco. 
270
ILLUSTRATIONS.
 devoid of probability.   It  is attached to a memorial suffi-
 ciently famous to render excusable the  details upon which
 we are forced to enter.
   In explaining a medal which appeared to belong to the
 fifteenth century, and which, on the reverse of the head of
 Geoffrey of Lusignan, says, Geoffrey a la grand'deut, dis-
 played the head of a fantastic monster.   Millin* relates that
 Geoffrey was invited  to combat a monster which  had al-
 ready devoured an English knight.   When prepared to at-
 tempt the adventure, Geoffrey died of sickness.  The head
 drawn upon  the medal is,  he adds, that  of the monster,
 " which  Geoffrey would certainly have  conquered, had not
 death prevented him."   But a medal would never have been
 struck out to immortalize what had never occurred.-  it must
 then have been that tradition in the family of Lusignan, to
 which Millin attributes the manufacture of the medal, and
 which related that the brave count, like  so  many saints and
 heroes who have passed in review before us, was the van-
 quisher of the monster.
   Let  us remember, first, that  Geoffrey was  the son, or,
 rather, the  descendant of the famous Mellusine  or Merlu-
 sine,t Melesendis, who transformed herself every Saturday
 into a serpent;  secondly, that the  Sassenages,  who con-

   *  Voyage au Midi de la  France, tome iv., p. 707, 708.  Geoffrey a la
 grand'deut died about the year 1250.
   t I shall not contest with M. Mazet, quoted by Millin (Voyage au Midi
 de la France, tome iv., p. 706), whether the mother of Geoffrey  was en-
 titled Melicendis, Melesindis (Melisende), and that this name may have
 been confounded with that of Mellusine. But, far from admitting that it
 has produced it, it is my opinion that the confusion arose because the
 name of Mellusine was already celebrated.  Still less easily shall I adopt
 another etymology, according to which the  Lady of MelU, bearing this
 lordship as her dower to the Sieur de Lusignan, the two names united
 and formed that of Mellusine.—(Memoires de la Sociitt des Antiquaires de
 France, tome iii., p. 279, 280).  At the commencement of the thirteenth
 century women  did not join their names to  that of their husband's do-
 minions.  I do not even think that they commonly bore the name of
 their own possessions. In pronouncing it Merlusin with Brantome (Vies
 des Hommes Illustres, 6fC, tome viii., p. 322)  and with the people, more
 certain guides than the learned upon the pronunciation of names handed
 down in ancient stories, I draw near to the orthography of the family
 name of Geoffrey, thus written upon the medal before mentioned, Gode-
 fridus de Lusinem.  You have only to place mdre (mater) before the lust
word to reproduce the name of Merlusine, and to prove that it was noth-
ing more than the simple title of Mother of Lusignan (Mere des Lusignan),
applie'd by the people to the woman-serpent, to the fairy from whom this
family claimed or adduced  their descent.  Our etymology  is the less
probable from the fact that Jean  d'Arras, the first author who compiled
the history of Merluzine, wrote in the reign of Jean, in the fourteenth cen-
tury, when the family name of tho Lusignans had been  long fixed and
 become celebrated. 
ILLUSTRATIONS.
271
sidered  Geoffrey of the great tooth (a la  grand'dent)  as
among their ancestors, had sculptured upon the exterior door
of their castle a figure Mellusine,* that is to say, half woman,
half serpent.
  Merlusine was  a benevolent fairy; it seemed, therefore,
natural to rank one of her descendants among the number
of hero-destroyers of the deadly serpent, and when  applying
to him the universal and common legend,  to ascribe to him
a victory perpetuated by the medal, of which an explanation
has been attempted by Millin.
  But where, in  the marshes of  Poitou, could a being half
woman, half serpent, or alternately the one or  the other,
have originated 1
  A tradition, preserved to the present  day, informs us that
Merlusine transformed herself into a fish, and not into a ser-
pent.}   This is the key to the enigma, which belongs to a
high antiquity.   The image of the mermaid, which the mod-
erns deemed a siren, although  all the ancient writings and
monuments depict the sirens as bird and woman,}  this im-
age, so common  in the  time of Horace, that the poet cited
it as the  type  of absurdityy—this  image, that the Greeks
applied  to Eurynome, one of the wives of the God of the
  *  Millin, Mdgasin Encyclopedique, 1811, tome  vi, p. 108-112. _
  t Memoires de la Societe des Antiquaires de France, tome iii., p. 320.
Scarron was not ignorant of this tradition, for in  his  third satire he makes
a fop declare that he will make
                            " The infant Mellusine;
             The heroine will be half woman, half fish,'1
appear on the stage.
  Let us  observe, the most generally received -tradition very nearly ap-
proaches this in placing Mellusine in an  immense basin, the blows of her
tail forcing the water up to the vaulted roof of the chamber.—Bulletin de
la Societe cfrAgriculture de Poitiers, 1828,  p. 214, 215.
  J In a  wall of the interior court of the Museum of Paris is incrusted
an ancient  alto-relievo of white marble, a bird-woman, a siren.  Mount-
faucon saw similar  figures of sirens in red marble in the town of Aldo-
brandino (Diarium Italicum, 170, p. 190, 191).   At Stymphales, upon the
borders of Argolis and Arcadia, marble statues represent young girls hav-
ing the legs of birds (Pausanias, Arcad., cap. xxii.).  In the ruins of the
ancient temples of the Island of Java, several figures of birds having the
heads of  girls have been discovered, and one was remarked as having the
head of an aged man (Description of Java, by Marchal, 4to, Brussels, 1824).
This proves the antiquity of the myth relative  to the siren, but does not
indicate the origin of it.  Plato, assisted, perhaps, by the traditions of an-
cient India, placed a siren on each  of the eight circles of the heavens,
who sung while following the periodical revolution (Plat., De Repub., lib.
x.)   Menephylle, in Plutarch, rejects this idea, because the sirens, he says,
are malevolent genii; but Ammonius justifies Plato.
  §                          Turpiter atrum
             Deeinit in piscem mulier formosa superne.
                                           Horat., De Art. Poet. 
272               ILLUSTRATIONS.
Sea, is that  under which the Syrians  and Phoenicians in-
voked Astarte, or Atergatis, the Celestial Virgin. *  It may
be found in the Egyptian planisphere, where it represents
the sign of the fishes united to that of the Virgin.   It is per-
petuated in the religions of Japan} and Hindostan,} and pre-
served in the ancient mythology of the Island of Java.$
  It has even penetrated into Kamtschatka, doubtless with
the Lamich religion.  In the lortes (iourtes) of the northern
Kamtschatdales  one sees  the idol Khan-tai  represented
with a human body as  far  as the  chest, the  remainder re-
sembling the tail of a fish.   A fresh image is fabricated every
year, and the number of these point out the number of years
the  Iourt had been constructed.il   This peculiarity proves
that the idol Khan-tai, like the mermaid of the Egyptian
planisphere,  is of an astronomical origin,  since it has re-
mained the symbol of the renewal  of the year.
  We are  not able  to speak so decidedly of  the Mother of
the Water,  a  malevolent divinity half fish, half woman, who,
according to  the natives of Guiana, delights in attracting the
fishermen to the open sea, and then sinking their frail ves-
sels.  This fable, it  is  said, was spread over America be-
fore the arrival of the Europeans.1T
  Could a symbol so frequently reproduced  reach  Gaull
Could  time modify it sufficiently to have  changed the ex-
tremity of a fish into that of a serpent 1
  1. To the  first question I answer, that  this symbol still
exists  in one of the most ancient towns of France, namely,
at Marseilles.  Upon an angle of the Fort St. John can be
distinguished the gigantic figure of a monster half woman,
half fish.  If it has been thus reproduced in the construction
of Fort St. John, it  was most probably because it existed
long before as a national monument.  Its name, the same as
that of the town, Marseilles, indicates that it represented the
local divinity, the  town itself  deified.  The Phocians, in
adopting a symbol so suitable for characterizing a large mar-
itime  city, would not have had occasion to borrow from
Tyre, Sidon,  or Carthage.   They had founded their colony
under  the auspices of the Great Diana of Ephesus, the heav-
enly virgin who was adored in this form  not only in Asia, but
even in Greece ;  for the statue, half woman, half fish, hon-

  * According to the scholiast of Germanicus (Arattea Phenomena Virgo),
the celestial virgin is identical with Atergatis.  Hyginus recognizes Venus
in the sign Pisces.                 t Canon, Japanese Divinity.
  X Third Aratcr of Vishnu.               §  Description of Java.
  || Krach6ninnikow, Description of Kamtschatka, first part, chap. iv.
  IT  Barhe Marbois. Journal  cVun Dlportt, tome ii., p. 134. 
ILLUSTRATIONS.
273
ored at Phigalia, was frequently regarded as a statue of Di-
ana.*
  2. Almost all the Tartar princes trace their genealogy to
a celestial virgin, impregnated by a sunbeam or some equally
marvelous means.}  In other language, the mythology which
serves as the starting-point of their annals belongs to the
age in which the sign of the Virgin was used for denoting
the summer solstice.
  The Greeks deduced the origin of the Scythians from a
virgin, half woman, half serpent, who had intercourse with
Jupiter or Hercules,} both emblems of the generating sun.
If, as it is allowable to suppose, the two  origins are synony-
mous,  the Greeks,  in the image of the national divinity of
the Celestial Virgin, from whom the Scythians and Tartars
pretended to derive their descent, will have mistaken or not
recognized the  form of the lower part, but in place of the
extremity of a fish  have seen that of a serpent.  Now, in
order to fix upon the banks of the Sevre  both the  ancient
symbol and the  alteration by which it has  been disfigured,
I need not refer to the Druids, who honored a virgin who
was to bring forth children—the Celestial Virgin, who, every
year shining in the highest heavens, should at midnight re-
store to the earth the child-god,  the sun, born of the winter
solstice.   It  does not appear that the Druids ever offered
physical representations to the veneration of  our ancestors,
or, at  least, not  until the times when communication with
other nations induced them, by degrees, to imitate their idol-
atry.  But Pytheas, who had coasted  along the  western
shores of Gaul, could not  assuredly have been the only one
among the Marseillaise navigators ;y nor could  the  Phoeni-
cians and Carthaginians, in their researches after tin in  the
Cassiterides  islands, have omitted landing  upon  the coasts
  * Pausanias, Arcad.,  cap. 41.  A priestess of Diana, at Ephesus, had
followed the Phoceans to Marseilles, bearing with her a statue of the di-
vinity, and these latter instituted the worship of Diana, as they had re-
ceived it from their ancestors, in every town they founded in Gaul, as,
for instance, at Agde.—Strabo, lib. iv.
  t Eukxnum of Moukden, p. 13, and 221-22o.   Alankava, or Alancoua, a
Mongol princess, experienced three times successively that a celestial
light had penetrated her bosom, and she confidently announced that she
should bring forth to the world three male children.  Her prediction was
verified. Of her three sons, called children of the light, one became the
father of the Kap-Giaks Tartars; another the ancestor of the Selgink,or
SeMonkrdes ■  and from the third Genghis and Tamerlane were descend-
ed.—Petis de la Croix, History of Genghis Khan, p. 11-13. D'Herbelot,
BMioth. Orientale, art. Alankava.
  } Herodot., lib. iv., cap. 9.-Diod. Sic, lib. n., cap. 20.
  \ The Marseillaise established the worship ot Diana of Ephesus in
every town they founded.—Strabo, lib. iv. 
274
ILLUSTRATIONS.
of Brittany and Poictiers.   One of these nations may have
brought the worship of the mermaid into Western Gaul;  for
under the name of Onvana or Anvana, the Gauls adored the
figure of a woman, having the tail of a fish.*  A Gallic chief,
as jealous as the Tartars of ascribing to himself a supernat-
ural origin, may have pretended to have been descended from
this divinity, and would therefore select the image as  his
distinctive emblem.  The  progress of Christianity would
have the effect of making the goddess regarded as a woman
only, yet endowed like a fairy with supernatural powers, but
not of abolishing her memory or  effacing her image.  Time
and the imperfection of sculpture would, rather later, occa-
sion an error similar to that which the Greeks had already
committed ; the  tail of a fish would pass for the extremity
of a serpent.  Founded upon this mistake, the new tradition
would prevail with greater ease, because, as we have already
seen, from the fifth to the fifteenth century, serpents held a
prominent part in the popular superstitions of the West;  and
thus the form given to Merlusine, and the exploit attributed
to her descendant, would be the consequences of the sacrifice
of  an ancient belief to one more recently and  generally
adopted.

                         y XIII.

              RECAPITULATION, OR SUMMARY.
 . The discussion of this conjecture, which we submit to the
decision of archaeologists, has not caused us to diverge from
our subject.  We had proposed seeing how a narration, ev-
idently  absurd, false, and impossible, could be spread, and,
multiplying itself under a thousand different forms, univer-
sally meet with an equal and constant credulity.
  Metaphorical  expressions of real  facts may sometimes
have  given  rise to it, but not have the effect of sending it
beyond  the  narrow circle where  the one was observed and
the other put in practice.
  An accident, as local and variable as the overflowing of
a river, could not have  been universally represented by the

  *  Martin, Religion of the Gauls, vol. ii., p. 110.  Toland, History,of the
Druids, p. 137. Among the  descriptions discovered upon the ancient
wall at Bourdeaux, the following was remarked :
                " Cuius Julius Florus onvavje."
(Memoire de VAcademie de Bourdeaux, Meeting of 16th of June, 1829, p.
182, and shelf 3, No.  52.) I think onrava is the dative of the same noun
as onvana, either the inscription may have been copied incorrectly, or
the  workman may have made a mistake in transcribing a strange name. 
ILLUSTRATIONS.
275
  same allegory, which elsewhere could be but very imperfect-
  ly applied.
    The pretended fact is, in its origin, nothing more than the
* representation of an astronomical picture,  adopted by the
  greater part of the mythologies of antiquity.   When the tra-
  dition  of this dogma of polytheism  ceded to the progress
  of Christianity, an outward  ceremony, perpetuated in this
  religion, created as many repetitions of the original myth as
  the Western  Church  could number  congregations  of the
  faithful.   In vain they attempted to draw the attention of
  the vulgar to the allegory expressed by the ceremony ; their
  minds and looks remained fixed on the physical representa-
  tion.   Their habits getting  the better of their piety, they
  looked not for their deliveries among the inhabitants of the
  heavens alone, but recognized them among men, particularly
  when conformable with a point of the astronomical allegory ;
  the victor was supposed to have lost his life in the bosom
  of victory.  The names of celebrated personages, those of
  nobles whose  power had been feared, or courage admired,
  were unceasingly reproduced.  Historical remains were fal-
  sified  for this  end; every  physical  representation which
  might  recall it renewed the  recital; and it was sought out
  among emblems and monuments utterly foreign to it, and
  even  in  signs invented by glory or military pride.   They
  even went so far  (if our last conjecture is not too rash) as
  to alter the symbols and beliefs of a mythology prior to it, in
  order to appropriate them to it.   Singular progress of an in-
  credulity not only blind and easy, but greedy and  insatiable.
  Does it  not merit  being signalized  by the meditations of a
  philosopher 1  The history of credulity is the most extensive
  branch, and certainly one of the most important in the moral
  history of the human race.
           ON THE STATUE OF MEMNON.

Notices and Inscriptions attesting the Vocal Property of the Statue ; some
  of them mention even the particular Words pronounced.—Explanations
  pronounced.—Explanations Proposed by various Authors, but little con-
  clusive.—According to Langles, the Sounds occasionally uttered by the
  Statue correspond to the Seven Vowels, emblematical of the Seven
  Planets.—The Oracle delivered by the Statue of Memnon.—Refutation
  of the System  of M. Letronne.—The apparent Miracles most probably
  the Result of Chicanery.—The Impossibility of arriving at a satisfactory
  Solution of the Problem.

  In  the vicinity of the ancient Thebes stood two colossal
figures, each consisting of a single stone, the secret inclo- 
276               ILLUSTRATIONS.
sure of which bore the name  of Mciunonia.  This word,
employed in the Egyptian language to signify " a place sa-
cred to the memory of the dead,"* suggested to the memory
of the Greeks one of  their heroes, celebrated by  Homer.
With a vanity ever ready to appropriate and attach to their
own traditions whatever  might be borrowed from the my-
thology or the history of a people more ancient than them-
selves, they regarded one of these colossal figures as con-
secrated to Memnon, and  representing the son of Aurora, a
warrior who  fell  in the Trojan war, invested at  an earlier
period than the remotest date of Grecian history.  This was
the statue famed  for the peculiarity of emitting,  on the rising
of the sun, sounds which,  to the enthusiast, appeared to con-
vey a salutation addressed to Aurora or to the sun.}
   The upper part of the statue was broken at  a period not
correctly ascertained;  but the miraculous sounds continued
to be heard, appearing to arise  from the lower part.  M. Le-
tronne believes the colossus to have been  restored in the
third century of  our era,  large masses of gray stone  being
substituted for that part of the original monolithe, the frag-
ments of which covered the ground.
   When Juvenal saw this colossus, in the reign of Adrian,
it was broken ; Lucian, under Marcus Aurelius, and Philos-
tratus, under Servius, describe it as entire.   It is true, that
Lucian mentions it in a satirical work ; but his raillery is di-
rected against the exaggeration of a witness to the assumed
miracle, and does not  refer to the statue, whether  in  its
mutilated or  restored condition.  Philostratus, by a palpable
anachronism, causes a cotemporary of Domitian to  speak
of it.  This  license, which could not be the effect of  igno-
rance, tends  to prove that the  restoration was not recent;
for no one could  place an event which had just taken place
in a past century.
   The witnesses who attested the vocal nature of the statue
cease with the reign of Caracalla.   We are ignorant at what
period and by what means the restored statue was  again
broken, and equally so as to the time at which its lower part,
long siient, ceased to reveal its ancient glory, except by the
inscriptions by which it is covered.
  Before discussing the  various explanations which  have
been offered of this apparent  prodigy, let us call to  mind

  * M. Letronne, La Statue Vocale de Memnon, 1 vol. 4to.  We shall have
occasion more than  once to quote this erudite work, though we do not
adopt the system it advocates.
  1 The sound was said to resemble the snapping asunder of a musical
string, when the first beam of the morning sun fell upon it.—Ed. 
ILLUSTRATIONS.               277
what has been said regarding it by the Greeks and Romans,
the only people from whom we derive direct testimony.
  The Egyptians accused Cambyses of having broken and
overturned the statue of Memnon, with the same impious
fury that led him to insult or to destroy other sacred monu-
ments* in the land of Osiris.  Their well-founded detesta-
tion for the memory of a barbarous conqueror induced them
to impute to him the result of a natural catastrophe, if it be
true, as related by Strabo, that  the fall of the colossus was
occasioned by an earthquake, the date of which is given by
this writer.
  But for what reason, it may be asked, did Cambyses limit
the work of destruction to one of these sacred images 1  This
inquiry, which  at first sight appears to weaken the gener-
ally received tradition, tends, on the contrary, to strengthen
it, if we admit that the  miraculous sound proceeding from
this image only made  it the marked object of religious ven-
eration to the natives, while it  attracted to it the  fanatic
hatred of the fire-worshipers.
  Manethon, as quoted by Eusebius, by Josephus, and also
by St. Jerome, affirms  that the colossal statue of Amenophis
was  identical with the vocal statue of Memnon.  Had not
its authority been contested, the testimony given by Ptolemy
Philadelphus, an Egyptian priest, of great research into the
antiquities of his country, would be of much importance.
  Dionysius  Periegetest  describes in verse "the  ancient
Thebes, where the sonorous Memnon hails the rising of Au-
rora."  It is generally supposed that the poetical geographer
wrote shortly after Egypt had been reduced to the condition
of a Roman  province ; from which it would follow that the
miracle,  as well as the fabulous condition connected with it
by the Greeks and Romans, was at that time, and had long
been known and celebrated.  But the critic is left at liberty
to fix the epoch at which Dionysius flourished: in the reign
of Augustus, of Severus, or of Caracalla.
   In speaking of Memnon, " There were," says Strabo, " two
colossal statues, each composed of a single  stone, and stand-
ing near one another.  One of them remains entire.   It is
said that the upper part of the other was overturned by an
earthquake ; and it is also believed that a sound resembling
that produced by a slight blow proceeds from the base, and

  * Justin., lib. i., cap. 9.
  t Dionys. Perieget., vers. 249, 250.  This Dionysius was a writer of the
Augustan  age. He singularly enough wrote a geographical treatise in
Greek hexameters ; consequently, he occasionally sacrifices truth to hia
poetical imaginings.—Ed. 
278               ILLUSTRATIONS.
from that part of the colossus resting on it.  I myself, in
company with iElius Gallus, and a number of his soldiers,
heard it toward the dawn of day.  But whether, in reality, it
proceeded from the  base or the colossus, or was produced
by connivance, I can not decide.  In uncertainty of the real
cause, it is better to believe any thing, than to admit that a
sound can issue from stones similarly disposed."*
  During his travels in Egypt, Germanicus was struck with
admiration at the stone image of Memnon, which, as soon
as the rays of the sun fell upon it, emitted a sound resem-
bling that of a human voice (vocalem sonum).   It is thus that
Tacitus  expresses himself, an historian so much the more
worthy of credit, that he had in his youth  learned various
important details  respecting Germanicus from several old
men, cotemporaries  of that prince.}
   " At Thebes," says  Pliny, " in the Temple of Serapis,
stands the image said to be consecrated to Memnon, which
daily is heard to emit a sound when the first rays of the sun
fall upon it."}
   Juvenal, who resided in, or was banished to, Upper Egypt,
not far from the district which owes its  fame to the monu-
ments of Memnonium, notices the statue in  these words:
" There," said he, " the magic chords of the mutilated Mem-
non may be heard."$
   "I admired this colossus much," says Pausanias.II  "It
is  a sitting  statue,  which appears to represent  the  sun;
many people call it the statue of Memnon, but the Thebans
deny this.   It was destroyed (literally broken in two)  by
Cambyses.   At the  present  day, the upper part, from  the
crown of the head to the middle of the body, lies neglected
on the ground.  The other part still remains in a sitting pos-
ture ;  and  every day at sunrise it gives out a sound  re-
sembling that produced by the strings of a guitar, or of a lyre,
when they break at the instant they are screwed up."
  From the times of Lucian, the fame of this colossus at-
tracted the curious into Egypt.  In the dialogue upon friend-
ship (Toxaris), it is  related by Lucian that  "the philoso-
pher Demetrius traveled  into Egypt in order to see Mem-
non, having heard that the statue caused its voice to  be
heard at the rising of the sun (podv).  I set out for Coptos,"
he caused Eucrete to say, in the Philopseude, " to see Mem-

  *  Strabo, lib. xvii.
  t Tacit, Annul., lib. ii., cap. 61, et lib. iii., cap. 17.
  X Plin., Hist. Nat., lib. xxxvi., cap. 7, N.  Dion Chrysostom (Orat. xxxi.)
speaks of the statue of Memnon as of the image of a divinity.
  § Juvenal, Sat., xv., verse 5.      || Pausanias, Attic, cap. 42. 
ILLUSTRATIONS.
279
non, and to hear the miraculous sound which issues from it
at day-dawn.  I did hear it, and not, like many others, pro-
ducing an uncertain sound: Memnon himself, opening his
mouth, addressed to me an oracle in seven lines, which, were
it not superfluous, I would repeat to you."
  Philostratus says, that " the statue of Memnon, which is
turned toward the east, is heard to speak as soon as a ray
of the sun falls upon its mouth."*
  At a period when this assumed miracle had undoubtedly
ceased, Himerius, a cotemporary of Ammianus Marcellinus,
again asserted that the colossus spoke to the sun with a hu-
man voice.}   But on consideration of the dates, we find that
his testimony, as well as that of Callistratus,} merely attests
the existence of a tradition which these authors notice with-
out further discussion.
  Two unedited works of Juvenal,  and the erudite Eusta-
thius, inform us of the modifications that the tradition had
undergone in subsequent times.
  According to the  first,y "the statue of Memnon, the son
of Aurora, was so contrived by mechanical artifice that it
addressed a  greeting both to the sun and to the king, with
a voice apparently human.  In order to ascertain the source
of the apparent miracle, Cambyses caused the statue to be
cut in two :  after which it continued to salute the sun, but
addressed the king no longer.  Thence the poet has adopted
the ephithet  Dimidio (of which there remained only the half)."
  The other scholiast strangely alters the generally received
tradition.il   It  says "that a statue in brass, representing
Memnon, and holding a guitar, was heard to sing at  partic-
ular hours of the day.  Cambyses caused it to be opened,
on the supposition that mechanism was concealed within the
statue.   But, notwithstanding its mutilation, the statue hav-
ing received a magical consecration, still produced the same
sounds at the customary hours.  It is on this  account that
Juvenal  applies to Memnon the epithet  Dimidius, open, or
divided into two parts."
  In commenting on verses 249, 250 of Dionysius Periege-
tes, Eustathius notices, first, that the colossus represented
the Day, the son of Aurora.  " It was," he adds, " the statue
of a man, from which, by means of a particular mechanism,
a voice  appeared to issue, and seemed  to salute the day,
  * Philostrat, De Vit. Apollon., lib.  vi., cap. 6.
  t Himerius, Orat. viii. et xvi.  Photii, Bibl. Cod., 243.
  i Callistrat, Exercit. de Memnon.
  \ Scholiaste inedit de Juvenal, cit6 par Vandale, Casselius et Douza.
  [j Scholiaste inedit cite par Vandale. 
280
ILLUSTRATIONS.
and to render it homage from an inward spontaneous emo-
tion."
  Numerous Greek and  Latin inscriptions  engraved upon
the colossus testify that various  persons, attracted by mo-
tives of religion or curiosity, had heard the miraculous voice.
Monsieur Letronne* made a collection of them to the num-
ber of seventy-two, and  has  restored and explained them.
In preserving his enumeration, I shall  quote such of them
only as seem to throw some  new light on my subject.
  Six  inscriptions  (Nos.  x., xii.,  xvii., xx.,  xxxvj., and
xxxvii.) affirm that it had spoken to the sun twice on the
same day.  Another, No. xix., that the voice had been heard
three times  in the presence of the Emperor Adrian, who
looked on this miracle as a pledge of the favor of the gods.
  The author of the seventeenth asserts that Memnon spoke
to him, addressing him in a friendly manner.
  The following, according to Jablonskif and several other
learned men, is a translation of the twelfth inscription.
  "Memnon, the son of Tithon and Aurora,  up  to this date,
had merely permitted us to hear his voice ; to-day he greeted
us as his allies and friends.  I caught  the meaning of the
words as they issued from the  stone.  They were inspired
by Nature, the creator of all things."   M. Letronne  thinks
that for this last phrase the following should be substituted:
" Did Nature, the creator of all things, inspire this stone with
a voice and understanding 1"  Without  entering into a dis-
cussion on these words, we may observe that in reality the
correction is of less importance than at first sight it appears
to be.
  The marked distinction between the unnecessary sound
which generally issued from the  statue, and the particular
friendly salutation, appears to me to prove that the authors,
both of this inscription and of the seventeenth, have heard
distinct words, which they entirely believe to proceed from
the sacred stone.
  On comparing  these various testimonies, we find that,
toward the dawn of day, a sound similar to that produced by
a lute or copper instrument usually proceeded from the
statue  (inscr. xix.).  This  apparent  miracle was repeated
two and even three times in a day ; at last, increasing in pro-
portion to the credulity of the witnesses, the statue arrived
at the pronunciation of consecutive words, and the delivery
of complete sentences.
  This last prodigy calls to remembrance the  inscriptions
* La Statue Vocale de Memnon, tfC.
t Jablonski. 
ILLUSTRATIONS.
281
and traditions preserved by Homer and Philostratus, and in
the Philopseude of Lucian, and  is apparently the least ad-
missible of any; yet I believe it to be  the most easily ex-
plained.
  It was  not exclusively confined to Memnon:  at Daphne,
near Antioch, stood the Temple of Apollo, where at noonday
the image of that god was heard  to chant a melodious hymn
to the admiration of his worshipers.*
  If the reader bears in mind what has been already said
(c. xii.) concerning the vocal statues celebrated by Pindar,
the speaking heads, the uses of ventriloquism, and the ad-
vantages derived from the science of acoustics by the thau-
maturgists, the impossibility of the account disappears ;  all
depends on the choice of the moment and the absence of in-
convenient spectators.  We may even conclude, that while
believing that he repeated an absurd falsehood, Lucian has
related a real fact, an apparent miracle, that under advan-
tageous circumstances might again be performed in the pres-
ence of enthusiasts, who are generally as incapable of pene-
trating an artifice as of conceiving a doubt or raising an ob-
jection.
  It is not impossible even that we may recover the oracle
in seven lines, heard by Philopseude, which he regarded as
an inspiration of " Nature, the creator of all things !"   The
following oracle, composed of a similar number of lines, and
transmitted to us by Eusebius,}  appears  to answer this
question:
" Invoke Mercury, the Sun, and in the same manner
 The day of the Sun; and the Moon when her day
 Arrives; and Saturn's ; and Venus' in her turn;
 By means of the ineffable invocations, discovered by the most skillful of
   the Magi}
 King  of the seven times resounding, known to a great number of men;
     *      *       *       *      *       *      *
 And invoke always, much, and in secret, the gods of the sevenfold voice."
  The text itself indicates that a verse is wanting, as may
be concluded by the omission of the names of Mars and of
Jupiter; this verse was the  first, the  third, or the fourth,
rather than the  sixth, completing the oracle, both as to the
sense and the number of lines.  Having no meaning in the
position of the  sixth, where  it was placed by the inadvert-

  * Libanius, Monodia super Daphn. Apallvn.
  t Euseb., Prcepar. Evangel., lib. iv.
  X This  expression does not specify Zoroaster. The Greeks have fre-
quently given the title of Magi to the Chaldean and even to the Egyptian
priest; they signified by it a person consecrated to a particular goddess,
inspired by her, and superior to other men in science and wisdom. 
282
ILLUSTRATIONS.
ence of a copyist, it would have been totally omitted at a
later period.
  The oracle  prescribes the addressing of  invocations to
planets, as well as the observance of days particularly con-
secrated to each.   Notwithstanding the loss of the line, it is
very clear that the  invocations must have  been seven in
number, in accordance with the days tof the week and the
number of the planets.  He who instituted this  form of
worship was the king (director) of the seven times resounding,
a name which appears to indicate a machine or statue ca-
pable of producing  seven  intonations.  It is subsequently
commanded to address continual  invocations to the god of
the sevenfold voice.   Compared with the title, seven times re-
sounding, it appears that this was the god  to whom the ma-
chine was consecrated, or of whom the statue was the im-
sge ; even the sun, recognized by the ancients as  the king
Df the celestial world.  The statue of Memnon was that of
ihe sun, according to Pausanias.
  Other observations concur to support our conjecture.
  In the earlier ages of Christianity, a religious signification
was attached to the seven vowels.  Eusebius observes, that,
oy a wonderful mystery, the ineffable name of God, in the four
grammatical modifications to which it submits, comprehends
the  seven vowels.*   This religious signification serves,
also, to explain an inscription composed of seven lines, each
Df which presents the seven Greek vowels under a different
combination.}  Gruter and his editor regard the inscription
as apocryphal; but Edward Holten has seen the seven vow-
els sculptured on a stone in a similar arrangement.}   "All
the mystery which they contain," says he, " consists in the
name of Jehovah, composed of seven letters, and seven times
repeated."  With sufficient plausibility, he attributes  in-
scriptions of this nature to the Basilidians, who, like many
other sectarians in the earlier ages of the Church, were only
theurgists, who grafted on Christianity the rites and super-
stitious initiations of a more ancient religion.
  From Egypt was borrowed, among others, this superstition
relative to vowels.   The Egyptian priests chanted the seven
vowels as a hymn addressed to Serapis. $   In an inscription
preserved by Eusebius.ll Serapis declares to his worshipers:

  * Prop. Evangel., lib, vi., cap. 6.
  t Jan. Gruter, Corp. Inscript., tome ii., p. 21.       } Ibid., p. 346.
  6 Dionys. Halicarn.
  j] Euseb., Prop. Evangel.  Scaliger, Animadvers, Euseb., No. 1730. Let
us observe that the vowels were retained to a comparatively late period
in the mystic allegories relative to the solar system.  The modern writers, 
ILLUSTRATIONS. '
283
« The seven vowels glorify me, the great and immortal God,
the unwearied Father of all things."  Is it necessary to call
to mind that, in divination, Serapis  stood as one of the em-
blems of the solar system, and that  Pliny assigns to Serapis
the temple with which the statue  of Memnon was conse-
crated 1
  The mystery  attached to this mode of adoration explains
the application to  the invocations of the epithet ineffable, as
well as the  silence which Eucrates observes respecting the
substance of the oracle in seven lines which he pretends to
have heard.  Thus, in the religion of the Hindoos,  of the
Parsees, and even of Islam, certain syllables are consecrated,
the pronunciation of which is equivalent to a prayer, and
whose sacred efficacy must not be revealed.*
  Whatever weight we may attach or refuse to these  con-
jectures with regard to particular occasions, it may be read-
ily admitted that, where the operations of the thaumatur-
gists were  unrestrained  by enlightened curiosity, the ma-
chinery employed for animating  an automaton, or perhaps
mere ventriloquism, would suffice to produce the words and
the oracles^ attributed to  Memnon.
   It is not so easy to explain the repetition of the apparent
miracle every morning.
   The idea of an artifice that might lend its aid to the co-
lossus appears to have struck Strabo.  His language  is that
of a man who is on his guard  respecting any deception that
might be practiced on him, rather than to admit that the
sound could really issue from the stone.   Otherwise, he ad-
duces no fact in support  of his conjecture.
   The  term Of which Juvenal makes use appears to indi-
cate that, in his opinion, the miracle was the result of magic-
al art, that is to say, of  an ingenious and concealed mech-
anism.   Eustathius} positively affirms it, as well as the two

probably more faithful echoes of the ancients, because they do not fully
comprehend them, have preserved the tradition that connects the seven
vowels with the idea of the planets.  In the sixteenth century, Belot, cu-
rate of Milmont, asserted in his Chiromancie (chap, xviii.) that the seven
vowels are consecrated to the seven principal planets.
  * The great mystical word in the Hindoo faith is O'M, applied to the
Supreme Being.  It occurs in many of the hymns in the Vestas; as, for
example, in the following passage translated from them by Sir William
Jones: " God, who is perfect wisdom and perfect happiness, is  the final
refuge of the man who has liberally bestowed his wealth, who has been
firm in virtue, and who knows and adores that great one I"
          " Remember me,  O'M, Thou divine spirit!"—Ed.
  t Eustathius was archbishop of  Thessalonia in the twelfth  century.
He was a man of great ambition, and distinguished as a commentator on
Homer.  His annotations abound with historical and philological descrip-
tions.—Ed. 
284               ILLUSTRATIONS.
scholiastes of the Latin satirist.  One of them even alludes
to a  magical consecration of the statue;  but he is in the
habit of taking so  much  license with history and with re-
ceived tradition that his testimony is almost without value.
  The learned Langles adopted a similar  explanation.  To
render it plausible, he sets out from the supposition that
Memnon repeated  the seven intonations in the hymn of the
Egyptian priests.  To produce these required only a suc-
cession of hammers, ranged along a key-board, and striking
on sonorous stones, such  as  from time immemorial have
served as instruments of music in China.*
   If we could credit the assertion of Philostratus, that the
colossus, facing the east, emitted a sound on the rays of the
sun  falling upon it, and at the very moment when they fell
on its mouth, we might easily conceive that this miraculous
mechanism was put in motion by some secret familiar  to
the  ancients.   A  strong and  sudden heat, produced by the
concentration of the solar rays, would  be sufficient to ex-
pand one or more metallic rods, which, in lengthening, might
act on the key-board, the existence of which is presumed  by
Langles. Thus would have been derived from the sun itself
the  power by which the statue greeted the return of the god
to whom it was consecrated, and of whom it was emblemat-
ical.
   But, notwithstanding this  plausible explanation, what
grounds exist for  the supposition that seven successive in-
tonations proceeded habitually from the  colossus'!  If,  in
certain very rare  cases, the  skill of the priest was  able  to
produce something similar to this, the historical testimonies,
or the inscriptions, attest in general the emission of but one
single sound.  Moreover,  the miracle was discovered  long
before the restoration of the statue, and at a time when the
head, lying  in the sand, no longer communicated with the
lower part, whence the sounds appeared to proceed; and
again, no researches have been able to discover in the colos-
sus  a cavity capable of containing the musical mechanism
supposed by Langles.
   This last remark refutes also the conjecture of Vandale,
which suggests that in this colossus, as well as in several
other statues, a cavity was contrived for the introduction  of
priests,} whose office it was to lend the assistance of their
voice to the divinity.

   * Langles, Dissertation sur la Statue Vocale de Memnon.  At the end of
the Voyages de Nordm, tome ii., p. 157,256.
   t Vandale, De Oraculis, p. 207-209. 
ILLUSTRATIONS.
285
  The explanation proposed by Dussault is not more ad-
missible.  "The statue  being  hollow," says he, "the  air
which it contains became affected by the heat of the sun,
and in escaping by some passage, produced a sound which
could be interpreted as best suited to the interests of the
priests."*  I may ask, what testimony has ever been given
that  the statue was hollow 1 and, moreover, has not Dus-
sault ascribed to the elevation of temperature an unnatural
consequence 1  To  arrive at the interior air, the sun must
have penetrated a layer of stone of great thickness, and that
almost instantaneously, and when the  disk of the sun was
scarcely risen above the horizon.
  In the immense apartments constructed entirely of blocks
of granite, which are concealed among the ruins of Carnac,
the celebrated sounds  emitted  from the stones have been
heard at the rising of- the sun by French artists.   " The
sounds  appear to issue from enormous stones  which roof
in the apartments, and  are threatening to fall: the phenom-
enon undoubtedly proceeds from the sudden change of tem-
perature on the rising of the  sun."}  I am rather inclined
to think that the sounds  were produced  by the creaking
of one of these blocks,  apparently about to fall.   Masses of
red granite, when struck by a hammer, sound  like a bell.}
In short, if we admit this explanation, we must also grant
that the statue of Memnon could never have ceased to be
sonorous ; and we must believe that the ceilings, the walls,
the colossal figures, the obelisks of granite, raised in such
numbers in Egypt, also rendered sounds at the rising of the
sun.   Allow this, and the miracle disappears ; the sonorous
stones claim no more attention than any other simple fact,
as common as the course of a stream or the noise of a tem-
pest.   But we know that the colossus of Memnon alone en-
joys the prerogative ;  and since that peculiarity has  disap-
peared, its exposure to the sun and the temperature of the
climate have not been subjected to the slightest  alteration-^
  The assertion on which this explanation is founded is
otherwise destitute of probability.   Could the  successive
change of temperature, such as is supposed, cause a sono-
rous  body to  sound ?  I reply, No.  There is no direct ex-
periment on record which can authorize us to credit the as-
sertion.  A bell, or tam-tam, would remain silent if exposed
to it; no sound proceeds from the aeolian harp, though the
  * Dussault, Traduction de Juvenal, 2« 6dit., tome ii., p. 452, note 5.
  t Description de VEgypte, tome i., p. 234.
  t Magasin Encyclop., 1816, tome ii., p. 29.
  \ Revue Encyclop., 1821, tome ix., p. 592. 
286
ILLUSTRATIONS.
coolness of night is  succeeded by a temperature very per-
ceptibly higher ;  and yet the strings of this harp readily pro-
cure lengthened chords on meeting with the slightest breath
of air.
  Sir A. Smith, an English traveler, asserts that he has vis-
ited the statue of Memnon, and that, accompanied by a nu-
merous escort, he heard very distinctly, about six o'clock in
the morning, the sounds which rendered this image so cele-
brated in antiquity.  He conceives the mysterious sound to
issue from the pedestal, not from the statue ;  and believes
it to arise from the percussion of air  on the stones of this
part, which are so disposed as to produce this singular effect.
Bui what can this disposition mean, since the base and lower
part of the colossus have always consisted of, and  do still
form, but one piece 1   And how could it produce the result
indicated 1   This the traveler does not explain.  In conclu-
sion, it may  be asked, how he alone, of all modern specta-
tors, should have heard the  colossus wrhose voice has  been
for centuries  silent ?  How could such an important phenom-
enon have escaped the observation of the French, who re-
mained several years in Egypt, and who pushed their learned
investigations to a great length 1   In all  probability, Sir A.
Smith was deceived by a crashing  noise similar to that heard
by the French artists at Carnac.
  Such was the state of the question when M.  Letronne at-
tempted to resolve it definitely by a new hypothesis, which
he  supports with profound erudition and more logical mean-
ing.*
  The  silence of Herodotus and  Diodorus  of Sicily re-
specting the existence of this apparent miracle, and also in
reference to the  tradition which imputes  the destruction of
the monument to Cambyses, induces him to reject it; while
he fixes the period at which the statue of Memnon was first
heard to have been some  centuries later.  He puts aside,
as an interpolation, the important passage from Manethon  ;
and sets out,  from the assertion of Strabo, comparing it with
the notice by Eusebius, of a  great earthquake which caused
many disasters in Egypt, twenty-seven years before our era.}
This brings him to the conclusion, that at that time the co-
lossus  was one among many other monuments that were
broken; and that, by its mutilation, it acquired a vocal power,
which previously it had not enjoyed.
  This new property appeared at first of little importance to
the surrounding population.  At  a  subsequent period, the
  *  De la Statue Vocale de Memnon, tfc.      t Euseb., Chronicon. 
ILLUSTRATIONS.
287
Greeks and Romans recognized it as a miracle ; but its re-
nown did not become universal or widely spread before the
reign of Nero.  It was then the traveler commenced to in-
scribe on the columns the reverential admiration he had ex-
perienced.  None of these inscriptions are of Egpptian au-
thorship ; a proof that it excites in the natives neither en-
thusiasm  nor admiration.   Tacitus, in relating the travels
of Germanicus in Egypt, has spoken of the statue of Mem-
non as  it is  described by Domitian and Trajan: he  erred
in substituting for the  opinions of an earlier century the
ideas conceived regarding it in his own times.   The fame of
the assumed miracle increased continually, and in the reign
of Adrian it reached its height.   It had suffered no diminu-
tion when Septimus Severus* conceived and executed the
project  of restoring the colossus, by substituting blocks of
gray stone for that portion  of the  original mass which had
been broken by the fall.  The statue then became mute ; the
last inscriptions  alluding to its  vocal power do not extend
after  the simultaneous reign of  Severus and of Caracalla;
after this reign, also, no writer speaks of the miracle in the
character of a witness.
  M. Letronne adopts the conjecture, which refers the sounds
proceeding from the ruins remaining in their place after the
fall of the anterior portion of the statue, to the sudden dif-
ference of temperature between night and day.  The mass-

  * Lucius Septimus Severus, who acquired the imperial purple by pro-
claiming himself emperor when he commanded the Roman forces sta-
tioned against the Barbarians on the borders of Dlyrium ; to secure his
aim, he joined Albinus, who commanded in Britain, as his partner in the
empire.  His first object was to  depose Didius Julianus, who had pur-
chased the government, and who, being soon deserted by his dependents,
was assassinated by his own soldiers.  At this time, however, another
rival for the purple existed in Pesuntius Niger; but, after many battles,
he also was defeated, and Severus left with no other rival than his part-
ner, who, however, soon fell beneath  his  fortunate sword at the plains
of Gaul, and he thus became sole master of the empire.
  It was this emperor who built the wall across the northern parts of
our island, to defend his territory in Britain from the frequent invasions
of the Caledonians.
  As a monarch he was tyrannical and cruel; and having risen by am-
bition, he maintained his power by severity, and by the unhesitating de-
struction of every one whom he thought likely, in any manner, to oppose
his inclination.
  The restoration of the statue of Memnon, mentioned in the text, was
attempted during a progress made by Severus into the East with his
sons.  He was recalled by a revolt in Britain, which he soon reduced;
but his triumph was sullied by an attempt of his son Caracalla to murder
him; an event which so much depressed his spirit, and added so cruelly
to his bodily sufferings from gout, that he died at York, AD. 210, after
a reign of less than eighteen years.—Ed. 
288               ILLUSTRATIONS.
ive blocks with which, at a later period, it was  loaded,
forced it, by their weight, to resist this influence.   This pre-
tended miracle, therefore, thus confined in duration within
the limits of two centuries, he considers was not the result
of fraud, as the  Egyptian priests did not attempt to-attach
to it a religious importance.
  This system is plausible ;  sufficiently so, indeed, to tempt
one, on a cursory glance, to regard the problem as defini-
tively solved : on  reflection, however, several grave objec-
tions present themselves.
  First.  The silence of Herodotus and of Diodorus furnish,
it is confessed,  an argument of apparent weight; but it is
one of a negative character only.  To make it conclusive, it
must be shown that, if the fact were true, these authors
could not have avoided making mention of it.   But, in ex-
ploring a foreign country, some things may escape the at
tention of the observer; and, still more possibly, some ol
those things which he has seen or been informed of may be
omitted in description.   The learned of modern times have
had proof of this in Egypt itself, when they visited that coun-
try with works of their predecessors in their hands.   Fur-
ther, it was a history, not a description, that was written by
Herodotus.  This distinction is important:  description can
not be too complete, while history, passing by even interest-
ing details, gives prominency only to the principal features.
   We will not take advantage of the  exaggerated accusa-
tion with which Josephus stigmatizes Herodotus, as having,
through ignorance, disfigured the history of the Egyptians.*
But Herodotus himself, in his journey to Memphis,} to He-
liopolis, and to Thebes, mentions that, from what he had been
able to learn, he intended merely to notice the names of the
divinities. When an author thus fixes beforehand the limits
of the information he proposes to give, what argument can
be drawn by the critic  from his silence respecting facts of
which he has declared his determination not to speak 1
   The plan of Diodorus, being on a still more comprehensive
scale than that of Herodotus, allows still less of detail.   We
may observe, also, that this writer, who flourished in the
reign of Augustus, just concludes his work at the period
when, according to M. Letronne, the vocal powers of the
statue were well attested.   He has not, however, spoken of
it.  Is it fair to conclude, from his silence, something against
the reality of a lately  ascertained fact, sufficiently singu-
lar to attract his attention 1   Certainly not; as his silence

    * Joseph., Adv. Apian., lib. i.        t Herodot, lib. ii., cap. 3. 
ILLUSTRATIONS.
289
proves nothing against the real existence of the ancient and
well-known apparent miracle.
  Secondly.  M. Letronne looks on the passage from Mane-
thon,  quoted  by Eusebius, as an interpolation, merely be-
cause Josephus has omitted quoting it from the text of the
Egyptian priests ;* yet, in a quotation otherwise exact, an
incidental phrase is frequently suppressed, if it do not bear
on the subject treated of, or if it tend to distract the read-
er's attention from the point on which it is desirable to fix
it.  Josephus had  no concern in the identity of the  stat-
ues of Amenophis and of Memnon; and as irrelevant to the
Jewish history, he has passed over these particulars in si-
lence.  In fact, he expressly says, at the close of the quo-
tation, that for the sake of brevity he purposely omits many
things.  This acknowledgment  is sufficient to overturn M
Letronne's argument.  The passage  of Manethon exists as
it was quoted by Eusebius, who could  have no object in
altering it.  The vooal powers of the colossus and its  form
were then facts known in the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus ;
thence they might  be referred to a much earlier time,  even
to the reign of Cambyses.
  Thirdly. The mutilation of the colossus, falsely ascribed
to the Persian king, was, according to Strabo, the effect of
an earthquake; the same which, says M. Letronne, in the
twenty-seventh year of our era, overturned the whole of
Thebes.  The Greek text of Eusebius confirms this opinion  ;
but the Armenian version corrects the exaggeration of the
extent of this disaster, limiting its effects to the suburbs.
  An earthquake has at all times been a rare phenomenon
in Egypt; a circumstance proved by the number of ancient
edifices that, after the lapse of so many centuries, remain
standing in that country.  The Egyptians, therefore,  were
not likely to  forget a catastrophe so fatal to their ancient
capital, and to a monument which was the object of national
veneration.   Yet the terms are very vague in which the tes-
timony by Strabo respecting it is addressed.   His words are,
" It is said that the upper part was overthrown."
  The consideration which has been supposed to supplant
the theory which I combat, namely, that Strabo must have
witnessed the earthquake in the year 27 B.C.,} mentioned
by Eusebius, does  not make his language the less  extraor-
dinary.  The expedition of ^Elius Gallus into Arabia took
place in the year 24 B.C., according to Dion  Cassius ; and
  *  Joseph., Adv. Apion., lib. i.
  t The Armenian versions of Eusebius place this event three years later,
the year 24 B.C.
    II.                    T 
290               ILLUSTRATIONS.
we must  assign the same date to the journey of Strabo
when he  visited Thebes in company with  that  general.
Would, we may inquire, such a judicious writer have ex-
pressed himself so  incorrectly respecting a cotemporary
event; or one the traces of which must still have  been ob-
vious after the interval of only two or three years 1
   Again, how can we admit that, five hundred years after
the death of Cambyses, the mutilation of the colossus could
have been attributed to that prince, if it were really the ef-
fect of an earthquake, of which all Egypt must have been
aware, and must long have retained in their remembrance 1
Would the cotemporaries of Charles VII. have attributed the
fall of an edifice  crumbling away before  their eyes to the
ravages of the Normans, to whom Charles the Simple yielded
Neustria?  The coincidence between  the passages of Eu-
sebius and of Strabo is an hypothesis contrary to all probabil-
ity, and  supported by no certain indication ;  yet this forms
the foundation of M. Letronne's theory.
   What, I would ask, is the testimony of Strabo 1  He visits
the statue, hears  the miraculous voice, and  quits  the  spot
without further research, convinced that it is better to believe
any thing, than to admit that stones so disposed were capable
of producing sound !  This is the language of a witness too
prejudiced to allow of consideration for his opinions.
   M. Letronne concludes that the vocal statue did not yet
bear the name of  Memnon, because Strabo does not give it
that title.  I do not think so absolute a conclusion may be
drawn from so simple an omission.  It is  already answered
in the passage from Manethon.
   Fifth.  M. Letronne believes that he can fix the epoch when
the miracle acquires celebrity  by the date  of the earliest in-
scriptions engraved on the colossus.   We may consent to
his rejecting the authority of Dionysius Periegetes, by taking
advantage of the uncertainty respecting the  time  at which
the poetical  geographer wrote.  But we  can not  go along
with him in  supposing that an historian such as Tacitus,*
a man who, in his youth, had conversed with the cotempo-
raries of Pison and  of Germanicus, would,  in relating the
travels of that prince, insert facts which could not have been
observed  till forty years  afterward.  In order to establish
the existence of so strange an inconsistency,  it were neces-
sary to produce positive  proofs; but none are brought for-
ward by M. Letronne.
   Sixth.  Shall we conclude, with M. Letronne, that the mi-
* Tacit., Annal., ii., cap. 61, and iii, cap. 16. 
ILLUSTRATIONS.
291
raculous  sound was not heard by Germanicus, because we
do not find the name of that prince inscribed upon the co-
lossus ?  JElius Gallus and Strabo both heard it, yet did not
engrave their names on the stone as witnesses.
  Seventh. M. Letronne has rendered valuable  services to
science, in collecting and deciphering the existing inscrip-
tions ; but does he not go too far in saying that the  appa-
rent miracle had no religious interest attached to it, for the
natives, owing to the inscriptions being all Greek or Roman,
could not decipher them 1 and again, in supposing that their
dates fixed the duration of the sonorous property between
the reign of Nero and that of Septimus Severus 1
  Was it possible that a phenomenon, to say the least of it,
surprising in itself, could either have existed for ages or been
suddenly discovered within the observation of the most su-
perstitious people in the world, and yet not have been sought
out and turned to advantage by those who traded in the cre-
dulity of men 1  This, indeed, would be a miracle without a
precedent in history,  and, in its own way, no less  aston-
ishing than the existence of a speaking stone.  We have
traced the priest in every country to be the inventor of as-
sumed miracles, or having dignified with this name natural
facts often in themselves scarcely extraordinary. Wherever
the populace imagined they could discern the work of a god,
privileged men  were not long in appearing to receive in the
name of that god the tributes of admiration and of gratitude.
The Egyptian priests were not  likely  to prove exceptions
where so singular a phenomena  as the vocal statue invited
them to profit  by it,  even though by the  Greeks and  Ro-
mans it was revered under a name they did not acknowl-
edge, and which  did not impart an idea of their own my-
thology to the credulous stranger.  Thanks to the daily ap-
parent miracle, which could be produced in no other temple,
they were entitled to receive offerings on their altars and to
entertain respect for themselves.
   But, it may be argued, they have celebrated it by no in-
scription.  In Egypt,  the walls of the temples, and even the
bodies of the statues, were loaded with hieroglyphics, the
sense of which is as yet imperfectly revealed to us.  Can
we confidently affirm that none of the mysterious inscriptions
in the Memnonia make mention of the vocal properties of
the statue ?
   Men not belonging to the sacerdotal order would not pre-
sume to supply the silence of the  priests.  The usurpation
of such  a right was incompatible with the sentiment of re- 
292                 ILLUSTRATIONS.

ligious veneration, if we may judge ancient by modern man-
ners.   The devotees might fill the  temple of the saint, to
whom they believed themselves indebted for some benefits,
with their vows ;  but to write on the statue itself, far from
being a testimony of their gratitude,  would be a sacrilegious
profanation.
  The Ptolemies  introduced the worship of Saturn and of
Serapis into Egypt without  being  able to obtain permission
to erect temples in the interior of cities, either to one or the
other.*  But whether  from policy or superstition,  and far
from carrying this attempt on the national faith, the Lagidest
adopted both their worship and their traditions.  The priests
then remained, as formerly, the guardians of the images of
the gods, and preserved them from the injury they might re-
ceive from indiscreet  admiration.  It was only under Au-
gustus that the assumed miracles of Egypt were revealed to
the disciples of a foreign  religion, to whom they were then
for the first time entirely subjected.  The first travelers who
visited Memnon abstained, nevertheless, from an act which
the natives, too recently subdued, would have regarded as
an outrage.   The Greeks and the  Romans thronging to the
shores of the Nile,  gradually familiarized the people with
their  propensity to recognize their own divinities in every
country.  They pretended to remember Memnon ; they had
heard him, and among them inscriptions were as allowable
to private individuals as to the priesthood.  The inscriptions
multiplied, sometimes  owing to superstition, sometimes to
the pleasure of confirming the existence of a peculiar phe-
nomenon which might be doubted by those who were  not
themselves able  to  verify it.   Vanity also  played its part.
No one could have been  in Upper Egypt without boasting
of having heard Memnon.  These motives were gradually
  * Macrob., Saturn., lib. i., cap. 7.
  t The Ptolemies were named Lagides, from the surname Lagus being
imposed on the first of their race, owing to  the following tradition  con-
nected with his  birth. Arsinffi, the daughter of Meleager, having had a
disgraceful intercourse with Philip of Macedon, was, in order to cover
her disgrace, married to Lagus, a Macedonian of low birth, but opulent.
Lagus, as soon as the child was born, exposed it in the woods, where, says
the tradition, an eagle sheltered him under  her wings and fed him with
her prey.  Lagus, having had this prodigy divulged to him, adopted the
infant and called him Ptolemy, from an idea that, having been  so mirac-
ulously preserved and nurtured, he would become a great and powerful
man. The supposition became true; for, after the death of Alexander,
one of whose generals Ptolemy had been, at the general division of the
Macedonian empire, the government of Egypt and Libya fell to the share
of Ptolemy, who, after he had ascended the Egyptian throne, preferred
the title, of Lagides to every other  appellation ; and it was transmitted to
all his descendants anterior  to the reign of Cleopatra.—Ed. 
ILLUSTRATIONS.
293
weakened by the number of visitors.   The difficulty of being
raised  sufficiently high to find a space for the  reception of
new inscriptions* caused this custom also to cease after the
death of Severus and of Caracalla ; and other causes, inde-
pendent of the duration of the miracle, may have contribu-
ted to the same effect.  To presume a necessary connection
between that duration and the date of the latest inscriptions
is to suppose that every witness  must have written on the
colossus, and, consequently, that the number of witnesses
was not greater  than that of the names preserved in the
seventy-two  inscriptions  collected by M. Letronne, which
are inadmissible consequences, and proofs that the principle
itself is erroneous.
  History is silent respecting the restoration of the colossus,
and, consequently, it  does not indicate the date.   The fact
is established by the existence of the remains of the blocks
placed  upon  the ancient  base; and it appears that Lucian
and  Philostratus were acquainted with it, as they express
themselves to the effect that, in their times, the statue was
entire.  Let  us only  remark, that in admitting their testi-
mony,  we must not mutilate it; the miraculous voice of the
colossus  is  mentioned by both;  thus, contrary to M. Le-
tronne's opinion, the apparent miracles must have continued
after the restoration of the sacred image.
  Lucian  died in the reign of Marcus Aurelius, and Juvenal
in that of Adrian ; the restoration of the statue, consequent-
ly, must be placed between these two epochs ; and it must
have been the work of Adrian or of Antoninus.
  This opinion M. Letronne will not admit to be correct, for,
according to his theory, Severus must have been the  author
of the restoration, in order to make  the silence of the god
coincide with the date of the last inscriptions.  But, how-
ever little weight we may attach to the testimony of Phi-
lostratus, it certainly refutes this hypothesis.  In addressing
a tale, or rather a legend, to a superstitious empress, would
Philostratus have placed the restoration of the colossus,  an
act not only eminently religious, but executed by the reigning
emperor, in  the times of Domitian or of Titus 1  Would the
author of a  work dedicated to Queen Anne of Austria have
  * The height of the statue was about thirty feet;  and on the legs of it
 only the inscriptions, in Latin and Greek, were engraven.'  Most of them
 belong to the period of the early Roman emperors. There is a copy of
 this statue in the British Museum, but it does not exceed nine feet six
 inches  and a half in height.  The head of the colossal Memnon, also in
 the British. Museum, is not that of the vocal Memnon.  There were, in-
 deed, many colossal statues called Memnonian in Egypt, but only  one
 celebrated vocal Memnon.—Ed. 
294               ILLUSTRATIONS.
conducted a cotemporary of Francis I. or of Henry II. to the
celebrated procession of the vow of Louis XIII. 1
  In default of historical testimonies to the effect that the
restoration took place under  Septimus Severus, or in the
absence of  the hieroglyphical scrolls where it  might be
registered, M. Letronne asserts that, in  imitation of Spar-
tian, the Emperor Severus avoided inscribing his name on
the monuments which he raised.   But this assertion seems
only applicable to Roman monuments.   M. Letronne  him-
self instances  certain Egyptian monuments on which Se-
verus had inscribed his own and the names of his children.
It is not, therefore, probable that  he would  omit  placing it
on the colossus restored by his care.
   M. Letronne conjectures that the unlooked-for  silence of
the restored Memnon was the motive which prevented the
dedication by an inscription of this act of piety and vanity.
This suggestion lays too much stress on the  silence of Spar-
tian,* Herodotus, and Diodorus respecting a fact so notorious
as the restoration of the colossus, especially in an account
of that prince's travels in Egypt, and his visit to  the statue
of Memnon.  So  strange a silence would astonish us much
more if the cessation of a prodigy so long admired had im-
mediately succeeded the restoration of the statue.  Would
not these writers have spoken of it were it only as a  fatal
presage 1  It would have been so natural for superstition to
connect with it the rapid extinction of the race of Septimus
 Severus!
   In conclusion, I believe we may consider it as  fully dem-
onstrated, that if the voeal statue was  overturned by  an
earthquake (and not by the fury  of Cambyses),  it was not
the earthquake which Eusebius places as having occurred
in the year twenty-seven or twenty-four before our era ;  and,
consequently, that M. Letronne's theory is raised  upon  a de-
 fective foundation.
   Secondly. That the hypothesis of the restoration of the
 statue having been effected by Severus is supported neither
 by proofs nor by historical indication.
   Thirdly.  That it is not demonstrated that the statue of
 Memnon became silent immediately after  the commence-
 ment of the reign of Severus and Caracalla; and if the pe-
 riod at which the  assumed miracle commenced is unknown,
 we are equally ignorant of the still more recent period at
 which it ceased.

   * .filius Spartianus, a Latin historian; but he is not esteemed either as
 a historian or a biographer.—Ed. 
ILLUSTRATIONS.
295
  The cause of the prodigy remains in equal obscurity.  M.
Letronne, as we have seen, adopts the explanation founded
on the expansion caused by the sudden change of tempera-
ture.  To the  objections we have  already offered, we may
add the following:
  First. That this variation of temperature could not recur
in a degree adequate to insure the sounds on several dif-
ferent occasions during the day, while it must be admitted
that the voice of Memnon has been heard two and even three
times at different periods of the same day.
  Second. It appears to me a gratuitous supposition that the
weight of the blocks that were placed on the base at the res-
toration of the colossus became the cause of its  sudden si-
lence.  The immense blocks of granite, the  creaking of
which was  heard at Carnac, supported masses  of greater
weight than the stones which must have served for the res-
toration of the colossus; and their almost spontaneous
sounding is beyond a doubt.   As a general fact, the imposi-
tion of even a considerable weight, though it may arrest the
vibrations of a body at the moment when it is actually sound-
ing, yet does not destroy the  power of producing  sound, but
generally changes its quality.  The  change becomes less
perceptible  if the substance  imposed forms one  body with
the original, and if it is of the same nature.  Now, the blocks,
vestiges of which are still to be seen, are of a stone identical
with that of which the base of the statue is composed,* and
they are almost equally sonorous.
  Lastly, these blocks having been  almost  entirely over-
turned, and the colossus being nearly in the same state as
at the period of its first mutilation, would it not have re-
covered the voice which, in its restoration, it had lost 1
  Was the  apparent miracle, we may now inquire, produced
by fraud 1  I conceive that it was the result of a  deception.
M. Letronne absolutely denies it.   He concludes it impos-
$ible that a subterraneous passage or cavity should have been
formed in the base of the statue several centuries after its
erection.  The objection supposes that the apparent miracle
was not coeval with the erection of the  statue ; yet the at-
tempt to prove this has failed.  Why, adds M. Letronne, did
not Memnon cause  himself to be heard  every time that he
was visited !   I reply, because  to  deny  occasionally, or to
defer  the assumed miracle, excited a more lively curiosity,
and struck superstition with deeper awe,  and inspired a more

  * Moniteur, Mardi, 9 Octobre, 1838, Lettre de M. Nestor VHote a M. Le-
tronne. 
296
ILLUSTRATIONS.
profound respect than it would have done had it become fa-
miliar and of every-day occurrence.
  At Naples, has not the pretended miracle of St. Januarius
been frequently deferred in ordar to serve the passions, the
caprice, or the interest  of the priest 1
  Mr. Wilkinson, an  English traveler, has recently discov-
ered a sonorous stone situated under the knees of the colos-
sus.  Behind this  he discovered a cavity, which he con-
ceives to have been purposely made for the reception of the
man whose function it was to  strike the stone and perform
the  miracle.   M. Nestor  l'Hote, a French  traveler, ascer-
tained the existence of this hannonious stone under the kroee
of the statue.*  It is of the same nature as the stone  em-
ployed in its reconstruction,  and produced, on percussion, a
sound similar to that of melted metal.   The cavity behind
it is nothing  more than an enormous fissure that rends the
seat of the  statue from top to bottom.  We are authorized
in concluding that it has not been made by design, and that
the  sonorous stone was only one of the materials employed
in restoring it.
  This fair conclusion, while it overthrows  the  hypothesis
of Vandale, which we have already rejected, proves nothing
in favor of M. Letronne.  Many other modes of performing
the pretended miracle might  be found.t
  If we inquire when  the vocal  properties of the statue
ceased, we  find the thread of history broken.  In the midst
of the disorders and dissensions that distracted the empire,
even after  the accession of  Constantine, the annalists had
few opportunities of reverting to an isolated prodigy, foreign
to the new religion whose tenets then began to predominate.
It was even with difficulty that the assumed miracle could
be renewed, and it was destined shortly to cease altogether;
as, by the succession of controversies arising between the
Christians and the Polytheists, religious  frauds were often
brought to light, and when, at a later period, the  dispersant
pagan priests, reduced  to indigence, and exposed to perse-
cution, abandoned their temples and their  images,  all was
thenceforward deprived of the veneration of the people.
  As too often happens  at the end of the most conscientious
researches,  wre are constrained to acknowledge our igno-

  * Moniteur,  No. de Mardi, 9 Octobre, 1838, Lettre de M. Nestor VHote a
M. Letronne.
  t In whatever manner the sounds were produced, it is probable that,
as the priests were aware of the sounds still heard at Curnac from the
rocks on the east bank of the  Kil<\ they would take advantage of that
phenomenon to produce similar sounds from the colossal statue.—Ed. 
ILLUSTRATIONS.
297
ranee, being neither able to deny the  existence of the as-
sumed miracle, to fix its duration, nor to give such  an ex-
planation of it as would defy all objections.
  The numerous  examples of apparent  miracles produced
by means of the science of acoustics authorize us to ascribe
this one to the skill of the priests, who never allowed  a
singular fact to  escape them without seizing on it and turn-
ing it to advantage.  But of what nature was their interven-
tion here 1  How shall we explain a fraud, varied in certain
cases  to render the miracle more imposing, but generally
performed in  one way, in the light of  the  sun, in the open
air, and in the midst of witnesses, who presented themselves
in crowds to observe its effect, and which, nevertheless, was
never discovered 1  This, the real question, remains yet to
be solved. 
. - -  --fc 
GENERAL   INDEX.
Abaris, the son of Seuthes, ii, 107
Abbagumba, or Erkoom, i., 92.
Abracadabra, a word employed to
  cure agues, i., 20L
Abraxas, i., 190.
Abunde, who was also called Hera,
  i., 230.
Academy, St. Petersburgh, aerolites
  sent to, i., 48.
--------of Sciences at Paris, phe-
  nomenon  vouched for by the, i.,
  48.
Achilles, the blows of, i., 52.
------- Tatius, i.,  67.
-------, inconsistency of the spirit
  of, i., 264.
Achro, sacrifices made to the god, i.,
  107.
Acosta, Joseph, miracle mentioned
  by,  i., 276.
Adam, Peak of;  at Ceylon, i., 56.
Adonis, the river of, and blood of, i.,
  53.
JEetes, her reputation preserved as
  an invincible  magician, i., 142.
jElian supposed a  casual  phenome-
  non to be constant, i., 63.
------accused of having exagger
  ated, L, 61.
Aerohtes sent to St. Petersburgh, L,
  48.
--------, falling of, frequent occur-
  rence, i., 103.
--------, nature of, i.,46.
       -, sought for by the Kicahans,
Agnus Dei, sent to the Emperor of
  Constantinople, i., 199.
Agrigentum, a rock near, i., 56.
Ainos of the Kourila Islands, i., 90.
Air rendered pestilential, ii., 133,134.
Alamoot, account of, ii., 27.
Albania, men described in, i., 89.
Albertus Magnus, account of, i., 250,
  251.
Alchemy arose from  ignorance of
  true science, i., 192.
Alexander  the Great  employed the
  Greek fire, ii., 195.
           death of,  attributed to
  ii., 102.
Esculapius invoked in his temple, i.,
  145.
----------, note on, worshiped as a
  deity, ii, 90.
Africa, a parasol imported into, i.,
  73.
Agamede, Theocritus's account of, 1,
  211.
--------, what it signifies in the lan-
  guage of Homer, i., 141.
Agamemnon, dedicated a vessel of
  stone, i., 54.
Agaric of the olive tree, i., 63,
 poison, ii., 114.
-------, cause of the destruction
 of his soldiers at Thebes, ii., 209.
         the flowing of a spring in
the tent of, considered as a miracle,
i., 102.
         excited to deadly anger
  by songs, ii., 73, 74.
Ah, a miracle ascribed to him, i., 122.
Alladas, Sylvius, imitated the noise of
  thunder, ii, 157.
Almanacs used to instruct the igno-
  rant to read, i., 83.
Almond, the bitter, described, i., 69.
Alphourians or Haraforas of Borneo
  and the Malay Islands, L, 90.
Althaea Cannabina of Linnaeus, i., 62.
Amalekites inured to magic, i., 118.
Amanita  Muscaria is the  Mucha-
  more, ii., 19, 20.
Ambliopia, or double images, ii., 38.
Amethyst, a precious stone, i., 78.
--------, figurative description of,
   i.,78.
Ammianus Marcellinus flourished in
  the reign of Constantine, Julian,
  and Valens, ii., 164.
                      his  account
  of the failure to rebuild the Tem-
  ple of Jerusalem, ii., 199.
Ammon, Jupiter, account  of  the
  temple of, i., 233.
Amulet, definition of the term, i, 198.
Anamarana, ii., 29.
Anaxilaus of Larisaa, i., 278. 
300
GENERAL  INDEX.
Anaximander, what he  foretold, ii.,'Arieni,  traditions  concerning  the
  140.                             |  prophet of the, L, 117.
Anchurus, son of Midas, fable re- Aristeus  of  Proconesus describes
  lating to, i., 87.                   |  pigmies, i., 89.
Adronicus,   Emperor,   threatened Arius, death of, ii., 121.
  with an earthquake, ii., 136.
Androides, i., 24y.
Arouates, some account of, ii., 76.
Arsacides, a rock in the land of, i., 54.
---------,  art  of   constructing, Asbestos, the art of spinning and
  known to the ancients, i., 253.
Andros, miraculous  fountain in, i.,
  280.
Animals, history  of,  filled with  de-
  tails apparently chimerical, i., 92
Anis, the oil of, i., 306.
Annius  Manlius Torquatus, &c, ac-
  count of, i., 241.
Anthropophagi, i., 72.
Ants, described  by Herodotus  as
  larger than foxes,  i., 66.
Aornos, where stood the sanctuary
  of, i., 263.
Apollo,  endemic diseases termed the
  arrows of, i., 55.
------,  water from  the grotto of, i.,
  171.
------,  the priests of, i., 56.
Apollonius of Tyana denied that he
  was one of the magicians, i., 116.
---------, his miracles admitted by
  Justin, i, 142, 143.
          , account of, as an assumed
  weaving the, i., 304.
Asclepiades, ii, 110.
Asclepiodotus, i., 190, 284.
Ashes that spontaneously inflamed,
  ii., 184, 185.
Asp, may be tamed, account of, i., 321.
Assassins, what tribe so named, ii,
  26.
Assisi, St. Francis of, i., 75.
Atalanta, fable of, i., 79.
Atesch-gah of Bakhou, ii., 175.
Athar'vana,  character of, ii., 172.
Atmospheric  phenomena,  ancient
  use of, ii., 143.
Aubletia, verbena, i, 62.
Aulus Gellius treats some narrations
  as fables, i, 89, 256, 257.
Aurora, son of, i., 52.
Avernus, the Lake of, described by
  ancient writers, i, 64.
       •, formerly exhaled pestilen-
  magician, i, 133.
---------, note on, i, 243,
---------, he called a girl to life, ii,
  111.
Apparition of the  goddess-mother,
  i, 259.
----------of Cleonice, i., 265.
Apparitions of the dead, i, 260.
----------produced in smoke and
  air, i, 278.
Apple of Sodom,  described by Jose-
  phus, i, 63.
Apuleius, Lucius, account of, i, 178,
Aqua de Toffana, ii, 118.
Arabs,  gave themselves  up to the
  study of magic, i, 224.
Arcadia, tradition that Minerva was
  born in, i, 107.
Arcadian colony, carried the wor
  ship of Hercules to Rome, i, 108.
Arcadians  of  Herea, joined in  the
  worship  of Myagrus, i, 107,
Archelaus, the tower raised by, i, 304
Archimedes, i, 257,
Archytas, i, 244.
Argippeans are recognized as Mon
  gols, i, 91.
Argos in Achaia, i, 71.
  tial vapors, i, 64.

Baal-zebud or Belzebuth, origin of
  the name, i, 106.
Baaras, or Cynospastos, i, 185.
Babylonish numbers, i, 195.
Bacchus, note on, i, 78.
Bactria, founded by Nimrod, i, 117.
Baden, hot mineral springs of, i, 101.
Bailla, the, a figure of a  dragon, ii.,
  256.
Bakhou, in  Georgia,  the  perpetual
  fires near, i, 97.
-------, naphtha, spring of, at, ii, 176.
Baldwin's phosphorus, ii., 178.
Bambouk, the gold there collected by
  washing, i, 68.
Barnacle goose, account of, i, 77.
Barochebus, Son of the Btar, i, 295,
  296.
Barvas, or prophets of the Billhs, i,
  170.'
Baschkirs, their faith in the Black
  Book, i, 133.
Basil, Emperor, i, 267.
Basle, a wine cultivated near, i, 71.
Bathenians, the chief of the, i, 140.
Baths employed in initiation, i, 293.
Batz, dragon of, ii, 241.
Baylc, a  philosopher  who has  ren- 
GENERAL INDEX.
301
  dered the greatest service to the
  human intellect, i, 97.
Bedley, burning spring near, H, 182.
Belladonna, its soporific  power, ii.,
  11, 12.
----------, its juice  gained  Mac-
  beth's victory, ii, 12.
Belus, monument of, i, 281.
Belzebuth, a god worshiped in Phoe-
  nicia, i, 106.
Bendje,  a preparation of hyoscya-
  inus, ii, 23.
Bethlehem offered a  striking ex-
  ample of natural objects converted
  into prodigies, i, 59.
Beverages, preparation of, ii, 8
Beyruss, Professor, anecdote of,  i,
  285.
Bezoar, miraculous powers of, ii, 102
  103.
Bishop of St. George, act of his in
  sane son, ii, 82, 83.
Black Books, generally descended by
  inheritance, i, 133.
Blood of Nessus, ii:, 187.
-----, marks of, preserved for cen-
  turies, i, 147.
-----of St. Magdalene, i, 286.
-------the Swiss, i, 71.
--------bulls caused  the death of
  Midas, i, 71.
-----, what it indicated on the al-
  tars of temples, i, 286.
-----of the bones of St Nicholas, i,
  288.
--------the bones of St. Thomas, i,
  288.
—;-----St. Januarius, i, 287.
--------St. Lawrence, i, 286.
--------St. Pantaleon, i, 287.
-------- the  relics of St John the
  Baptist, i, 288.
Blue Sea, a favor attributed to the
  spirit of the, i, 102.
Boa constrictor,  once common  in
  Italy, ii, 239.
--------------, bites of it not ven-
  omous, i, 74.
Bohemians, gipsies so named, ii, 185.
Bochart's assertions, i, 70.
Bones, composition of, i., 189.
-----of St Nicholas, i, 288.
-----of St. Thomas Aquinas, i, 288.
 Boutan, i, 90.
 Bradley, unextinguishable fire of, ii,
   182.
 Bramah, the adoration of, i, 204.
 Brahmins, magical ceremonies per-
   mitted among them, i, 119-
Branchides, the oracle of, i, 171.
Brazil, the gold-washers of, i, 68.
Brocken, spectre of the, ii, 66, 67.
Brownies, description of the, i, 139.
Brichtains, the  Russians in Kamt-
  schatka are called, i, 72.
Buffon, quotation from, i, 187.
  ----allows the possibility of the
  existence of steel mirrors for the
  purpose of seeing vessels at a dis-
  tance, i, 272.
Bukaw, the natives of, i, 90.
Bulimia, well known among the an-
  cients, account of, i, 112.
Bull's blood, those who died in con-
  sequence of drinking it, i, 71.
            in the East, a poisonous
  beverage called by this name, i, 71.
  ---eye, a small cloud so called, ii,
  142.
Burkout, wonderful stories related
  of the, i, 61.
Bushmen of South Africa may be re-
  garded as a race of pigmies, i, 90.
Byblos, an inhabitant of, explains the
  phenomenon of the blood of Ado-
  nis, i, 53.

Cabbala, ii, 178.
Cadet, M, of Metz, prediction of, ii,
  139.
Cseculus assumes  to be the son of
  Vulcan, ii, 179.
        , explanation of a magical
  trick of, ii, 179,180.
Calaber, Q, i, 55.
Calchas, a prophet, note on, i, 162,
  163.
Caligula,  power of, against the ele-
  ments, ii, 157.
         shot hghtning against the
  gods, ii, 157.
Callinicus knew the composition of
  the Greek fire, ii, 194.
          of Heliopolis invented the
  Greek fire, ii, 194.
Cambyses, his brother was supposed
  to have died from drinking bull's
  blood, i, 71.
Camera obscura, i, 270.
Canaan, inhabitants of, incurred the
  divine wrath by their use of en-
  chantments, i, 118.
Candolle, M. de, note regarding him,
  i, 98.
Cantharides, used in love philters, ii,
  41.
Canton, the province of, i, 77.
Cape of Good Hope, storms at, ii, 142. 
302
GENERAL  INDEX.
Caracalla, death of, predicted, i, 307.
Carbuncle, legend respecting, ii, 247,
  248.
Cardan  indicated the mode of mak-
  ing fireworks, ii, 196.
Caribbees, legend of the, respecting
  dragons, ii, 247, 248.
Carolina, the marshes of that place
  described, i, 64.
Casciorolus, Vincentius, discovered
  the Bologna stone, ii, 178.
Caspian, well of naphtha near, ii, 176.
Cassia, i, 307.
Cassidorus, note on, i, 240, 241
Catharine,  St, body of, laid  on a
  stone, i, 57.
Cat-mint, note on, i, 305.
--------, influence of, i, 305.
Cato, what he prescribed for disloca-
  tions, ii, 101.
Catopleba, what it was, i,  93.
Cave of Trophonius, i, 242.
Cedron, Brook,  a  rock rising from
  the middle of, i, 57.
Ceres, remains of the temple of, i,
  243.
Ceylon, Peak of Adam at, i, 56.
Chaeremon, taught the art of invok-
  ing the gods, i, 134.
-----------, his instructions how to
  command the genii, i, 177.
Chaldaic oracles, ii, 170.
Chaldea, the cradle of astronomy, i,
  206.
Chaldeans, the magic of the, i, 146.
Charlemagne,  proscribed  the Tem-
  pestarii, ii, 146.
Chartomi, derivation of the word, i,
  142.
Charybdis, whirlpool of, i, 62.
Chederles,  an account  of him, ii,
  247.
Chevreuse, Duke of, confirmed Mme.
  de Guyon's fraud, ii, 71.
Child, birth of an acephalous, not im-
  possible, i, 91.
China, gunpowder long known in, i,
  205.
-----, guns used in, ii, 205,206.
-----, thunder chariots used in, ii,
  207.
Chiapa,  Bishop of, i, 277.
Chong or Rice Wine, account of, i,
  289.
Christ, the impression of the hand of,
  i, 58.
Cicero, remarks attributed to, i, 212.
Circe, her  mysterious arts repre-
  sented as purely natural, i, 142.
Circe, Agamede described as the ri-
  val of, i, 142.
-----, account of her, ii, 14.
Citron, how efficacious, i, 308.
Clapperton, anecdote by, i, 202.
Clare, St, miracle attributed to her,
  i, 75.
        -, account of her, i, 75.
Claros, the oracles of the Colopho-
  nians at, i, 171.
Cleonice, apparition of, i, 265.
Clerks, professors of medicine for-
  merly, ii, 96.
Clitheroe, anecdotes of some girls at,
  ii, 78.
Coals, walking on burning, i, 296.
Cloud, a picturesque designation giv-
  en by the Africans to a parasol, i,
  73.
Ccelius Rhodiginus, quotation from,
  i, 76.
Colophonians, the oracle of the, i,
  171.
Comnenus, Manuel, knew the  com-
  position of the Greek fire, ii, 192.
---------, Anna,  speaks  of fire-
  arms, ii, 192.
           Alexis,  employed  the
Greek fire, ii, 192.
       -, Anna, her account of the
 Greek fire, ii, 192, 193.
---------, Alexis, how he ascertain-
 ed whether he should attack the
 Comanes, i, 157.
        -, Manuel, died as a monk,
  ii, 192.
Compass, mariner's, ii, 216,217.
--------, long  known  to the  an-
  cients, ii, 220.
Comus, the juggler called, i,  154.
Condor, the American, i, 60.
Corfu, rock near the island of, i, 54.
-----, rock near the vessel which
  brought Ulysses back, i, 54
Cos, Temple of, ii, 92.
Cotugno discovered  galvanism, ii,
  223.
Cratisthenes, how spoken of by Athe-
  nseus, i, 276.
            described  as  merely
  being a skillful adept, i, 276.
Creusa killed by a poisoned robe, ii,
  190.
Crickets, in Esthonia, not allowed to
  be destroyed, i, 174.
Crocodile, large one killed near Cal-
  cutta, ii, 238.
        >, how one should be tamed,
i, 315. 
GENERAL  INDEX.                * 303
Crocodile, tamed, i, 316.
--------, sacred, i, 317.
Croesus, indication of the oracle of
  Delphi concerning, i, 159.
Crusaders described by the Greeks
  as men of brass whose eyes flashed
  fire, i, 72.
Ctesias, saw experiments on  light-
  ning in Persia, ii, 173.
------speaks of a fountain in In-
  dia filled annually with liquid gold,
  i, 67.
        his accounts correct, but not
rDiana, priestesses of, i, 296.
[Dion Cassius, account of, i, 44, 45.
Dionysius of Halicarnassus imitated
  lightning, ii, 157,1.38.
Diorama, effect produced by  a, i,
  258.
Dioscurus, the apparition of, i, 57.
Distillation, art  of, introduced into
  Asia Minor, &c, i, 291.
Distilling, art of, known to the Thau-
  maturgists, i, 288.
         practiced in Hindostan, Ne-
  his expressions, i, 67.
Cumin, how employed, i, 306.
Cyclops made lightning and thunder
  for Jupiter, ii, 208.
Cynocephali of Ctesias, i, 90.
Cyprus, the art of working iron car
  ried into the islands of, i, 128.
Cyrus the Younger, i, 209.
  .                             -D
Daedalus and Icarus, story of, i, 245.
Damascius, the expressions of, i, 189
---------, account of, i, 192.
---------, who, i, 270.
Danaides, punishment of, i, 281.
Dance, St. Vitus's, ii, 80.
Darius, son of Hystaspes, i, 247.
Datura, its poison, ii, 12.
David, King,  explosion at his monu-
  ment ii, 198.
Deacon Poppon, i, 301.
Dead, apparitions of the, i, 260.
-----,  art of questioning the, i, 262.
-----, invocations of the, i, 266.
-----,  power of recalling the, ii. 111.
-----  Sea, the valleys  of the, i, 63.
Death, the Valley of, account of the,
  in Java, i,  65.
Dejanira, nature  of her poisoned tu-
  nic, ii, 187, 188.
--------, note on, ii, 187.
Delphi, explosion at, ii, 201.
------, oracles of, i, 159.
Democrites  devoted his life to ob-
  serving Nature, i., 74.
Demons of the Mine, account  of,  i,
  110.
Demosthenes,  the first author who
  noticed the existence of sorcerers,
  i, 208.
Devil appeared to Zoroaster, ii, 163,
Deviniere, La, i, 58.
Dews, power of the, i, 124.
Diana, divers names for, i, 230.
-----, goddess, i, 54
  paul, Sue., i, 288.
 -------, how received by the Na-
  gals, i, 289.
Divining rod; note on, i, 197.
Divination, the  gift  bestowed  by
  Apollo, i, 161.
Dodona, oracles proceeded from the
  oaks of, i, 168.
Dogs, influence of harsh sounds on,
  i, 312.
Douarnanez, marine ruins in the bay
  of, i, 105.
Drac, its meaning, ii, 252, 253.
Dragon, one  destroyed by St Ju-
  lian, ii, 241.
         of St George, legend con-
 cerning the, ii, 245, 246.
------, legend of the,  crept into
 Christianity, ii, 249.
        every parish had one, ii.
-, that of Poitiers canonized,
256.
  ii, 256.
 ------ of Thespia,  annual sacri-
  fices to, ii, 259.
Dragons, winged, i, 51;  ii, 237.
        •, notes upon, ii, 237-275.
         are mere emblems of in-
undations, ii, 242.
     -, legend of the Caribbees re-
garding, ii, 247, 248.
        stones  taken from  their
heads, ii, 248.
        often overcome  by con-
  demned men, ii, 257, 258.
Drugs, preparation of, ii, 8.
Druidesses of'Sena, pretended to al-
  lay storms, ii, 144.
---------, art attributed  to the, i.
   -, endemic diseases termed the   ii, 56,
arrows of, i, 55.                I
.  275.
Druidical fire, ii, 179,180.
Druids, magic known to the, i, 119.
Duergar, traditions concerning the,
  i, 140.
Dyer,  Mrs, accused of witchcraft, 
304*
GENERAL INDEX.
Earthquake, a rare phenomenon in
  Egypt, ii, 289.
Ecstasy, account of, ii, 72.
Eddystone, rock of, in the land of
  Arsacides, i, 54.
Egyptian priests sole possessors of
  the complete knowledge of hiero
  glyphics, i, 183.
Egyptians little affected at the sight
  of balloons, i, 38.
Elijah, Coelius Rhodiginus attempts
  to  explain  his  translation  into
  heaven, i, 76.
Elis, miracle performed in, i, 280.
Elysius of Therina, i, 265.
Emblems,  figure of the  serpent in
  ii, 252.
Empedocles, what happened to, ii.
  93,94.
Endor, the witch of, i, 187.
Engastrimythes, why this name was
  given to the Pythiae, i, 167.
Epimenides, stories related of, ii, 107,
Eresicthon, story of, i, 112.
Erick-le-bon, who, ii, 73, 74.
Eternal City, advice given to travel-
  ers in the vicinity of, i, 76.
Etna, substances thrown up by it in
  flame spontaneously, ii, 186.
Etruscans instructed by theLydians
  i, 177, :i7H.
Eunue, account of, i, 295.
Euthymus, combat of, with  Lybas,
  i, 148.
Euryale, one of the Gorgons, ii, 165
Eustathius, note on, i, 275.
Evander raised an altar to the god
  of Meroe, i, 108.
--------, account of, i, 178.
Exhalations, deleterious, from  a sa
  cred grotto, i, 285.
Experience  has proved  that the
  blood  of bulls contains no delete-
  rious property, i, 71.
Eymeric, his work, ii., 31.

Fancourt, Miss, cured of a spine dis
  ease by prayer, ii, 81.
Fairies, derivation of the word, de
  scription of, i, 138.
Falsehoods and prodigies joined to
  impropriety of  expression more
  striking when proceeding from an
  cient authors, i, 66.  ,
Fates  would not permit Troy to be
  taken, i, 79.
.-----consulted at Venice, i, 79,
-----consulted by Tarquin, i, 159,
  100.
Fez, a little hill in the kingdom of, i,
  76.
Fifes or Fairies, famed as excelling
  in the art of working metals, i, 137.
Figurative style clothes facts in su-
  pernatural coloring, i, 73.
Fins acquainted with the treatment
  of metals, i, 129.
Fire-worshipers at Bakhou, ii, 175.
                of Pietramala, i, 97.
Fire, Greek,  Langles's  account of,
  ii, 204.
----, perpetual, at Atesch-gah, i, 97.
----, trials by, endured by Zoroaster,
  i, 293.
----, eating burning, i, 295.
----darts and balls, ii, 204.
Firmus, how, escaped crocodiles, i,
  308.
Flamen, the  gods to whom he  ap-
  pealed, i, 137.
Flies, the presence  of, in Phoenicia,
  amounts almost to a plague, i, 106.
----, Myagrus, god  of, Jupiter Apo-
  myios, god of, i, 106.
Forbes, anecdote related by, i, 322.
Forespoken water, ii, 52.
Fountain, water of which coagulates,
  ii, 18.
--------, miraculous, in Andros, L,
  280.
         miraculous, at Rome,  i.
 280.
-----of Hero, i, 281.
     ■ of Wieres, ii, 125.
Francis,  St,  of  Assisi, account of
  him, i, 75.

Gaffarel, the collection of, i, 203.
Galvani, account of, ii, 224.
Ganges, crocodile of the, account of
  i, 309.
Gargouille, the dragon of Rouen, ii,
  257.
Gassendi, sagacity of, i, 175.
Gelatophyllis, perhaps a datura, ii,
  17.
Genghis Khan, Tartar hordes led on
  by, i, 156.
             -, where  he flourished,
  i, 273.
Genii, ii, 64.
  —, who were the evil, i, 121.
  ---, some conjured in  the  Egyp-
  tian, others in the Persian  lan-
  guage, i, 136.
  —, their habitations, i, 181.
  --- of the earth, air, and fire, i,
  218. 
GENERAL INDEX.
305
Genii, the care of the parts of the
  body divided among, ii, 91.
----metamorphosed into serpents,
  i, 321.
Genius of the empire  appeared to
  Brutus, ii, 64.
Gerbert his construction of a brazen
  head, i, 251.
Germain, account of him, i, 75.
Ghelongs, heads of the, closely shav-
  ed, i, 91.
Giambatista Porta, account of, i, 249,
  250.
Gimbernat, Mr, remarks on the Zoo-
  gene, i, 101.
Gipsies, ii, 212.
Gitanos, what people so  called, i,
  150; ii, 186.
Gleditsch, saw the ghost of Mauper-
  tuis, ii, 84.
Glycas, speaks of a shower of quick-
  silver in the reign of Aurelian, i,
  44, 45.
------, very little known of him, i, 45.
Gnomes, description of the, i, 139.
Gnoo, described by jElian, i, 93.
-----, brindled, inhabitant of South-
  ern Africa, i, 93.
Gold legend,  i, 67.
---- of  Bambouk,  tempered  with
  iron and emery powder, i, 68.
Gorgons, who they were, ii, 165.
--------, supposed to be ships, ii,
  165.
Gothic women, account of, i, 119.
Gout, spring brings  periodical  re-
  turns of, i, 65.
Gralon, King, tradition how he was
  saved, i, 105.
Grangu6, near sandy mountains con-
  taining gold dust i, 67.
Greatracks, an Irish quack, ii, 80, 81.
-----------,  Flamstead touched  by
  him, ii.
Guinea worm, account of it, i, 66.
Gunpowder,  compositions similar
  to, ii, 197.
            invention of, ascribed
to Visvacarma, ii, 204.
          known to the magi, ii.
long known in China,
197.
  ii, 204.
Guyon,  Madame de, confession  of,
  ii, 70.
Gypaetus  barbatus, bearded griffon
  of the Alps, i, 60.

Hagiographers, miracle promulgated
  by them, i, 104.
Hagno, fountain of, ii, 143.
Hail-storms, securities  against,  ii,
  148,149.
Halleh or Hhuleh, a town on the Eu-
  phrates, i, 51.
Halliatoris, used in Persia to enliven
  a feast, i, 68.
          -, able to  counteract the ef-
         •, Lady Conway a believer
  in, ii, 80.
Greece, attached itself to African tra
  ditions only, i, 107.
Greek fire, ii, 191,192,195.
.---------invented by Callinicus, ii,
  194.
  feet of wine, i, (
Harz Mountains, spectre of the, ii.,
  66.
Haschiche> a preparation of hemp, ii,
  21.
Hay-ricks, how spontaneously con-
  sumed, ii, 180.
Healing springs, ii, 93.
Heat, the  agency  of, to  what it be-
  longs, i, 284.
Heaven, translation of Elijah into, i,
  76.
Hebrew, in this language  the word
  milk signified a somniferous drink,
  i, 69.
Hecate, the statue of, i, 278.
Hellebore, its cure, ii, 88.
Hemp, its intoxicating quality, ii, 21.
Herbattlicum, the cause of its being
  swallowed up, i, 104.
Hercules,  passage of cattle conduct-
  ed by, i, 56.
--------, death of, ii, 187.
        , composition  of  the  fire
          supposed to be gunpow
  der, ii, 203.
Grignoncourt  devastated by a vio
•  lent hail-storm, i, 46.
------------  Neufchateau,  in the
  department  of the Vosges, i, 46.
Gryphus, great vulture of the Andes,
  i, 60.
     II                         U
which killed him, ii, 188.
     -, the blood in which his ar-
rows were dipped, i, 71.
       invoked the god Myagrus,
i, 106.
the Serpent, i, 106.
          -, the  constella-
tion of the equinox represented by,
i, 107.
       surnamed Iatricos, or the
able physician, ii, 93. 
306
GENERAL INDEX.
 Herod opened the tomb of David
   and Solomon, ii, 198.
 ------,  his  descent  into  David's
   tomb, ii, 198.
 Herodotus, quotation from, i, 66.
 Hervorar Saga, i, 262.
 Heydens, people so called, i, 150; ii,
   186.
 Hhuleh or Halleh, a town on the Eu-
   phrates, i, 51.
 Hibbert, anecdote related by him, ii,
   78.
 Highlanders, superstitions of, ii, 65.
 -----------, second sight of, ii, 65.
 Hinan-yuan,  singular chariot of, ii,
   222.
 Hindoo mythology, i, 119.
 Hindoos, acquainted with  lightning
   conductors, ii, 173.
 --------, custom of placing a per-
   fumed pastille in their mouths, i,
   68.
 Hindostan, what  diseases known on
   the coast of, i, 66.
 ---------, belief existing in, i, 119.
 Hippolytus de Marsilies, ii, 31.
 Hippomanes, its power, i, 310.
 Hirpi, i, 296.
 Hohenlohe, Prince, impositions of,
   ii, 81.
 Homer, his many fables merely nat-
   ural facts, aggrandized by poetical
   conception, i, 62.
 Horse of Tiberius of Rhodes, ii, 151
 Hussites, the celebration of the ex-
   communication of the, i, 151
 Hydrostatics, i, 239.
 Hyphasis, unextinguishable oil made
   at, ii, 195.

 Is, town of, i, 105.
 Isaac Comnenus,  Emperor, anecdote
   of, i, 103.
 Idyl of Theocritus, the second, i, 210.
 Iamblichus,  arranges  the genii into
   two  divisions, i, 134.
 Ice, account of it  produced in a ves-
  sel at a great heat, i, 135.
Ida, River of, change of color of, i.,53.
Imagination, influence of ii, 63.
----------, definition of, ii, 63.
----------warmed to delirium, ii,
  75.
 Imitation, force of, ii, 78.
--------, anecdote of its power, ii,
  78.
 Imporcitor, i, 137.
India, Ctesias speaks of a fountain in,
Innocents, Cimetiere des, blossom ol
  a hawthorn in, i, 102.
Insitor, i, 137.
Intoxication, Greek  and  Persian
  drank  much without suffering, i.
  68.
Invocation, decline ol" the art of, in
  Greece, i, 2ii5.
         ,  the art of, in Italy, i, 265.
Iodhan-Moran, i, 152.
Iphigenia, sacrifice of, i, 163.
Iphis and Caenis, fable of them, i, 96.

Justinian, the Emperor, i, 80.
Jael, note on Sisera and, i, 70.
Jakoutes, prone to ecstasy, ii, 71.
James, King, a believer in witchcraft,
  ii, 53.
Janus, Numa consecrated a temple
  under the name of, i, 108.
-----, a symbolical representation of
  the year, i, 108.
Jerusalem, temple  of, could not be
  rebuilt ii, 199, 200.
         , temple of, protected from
lightning, ii, 162.
      -, attempt by Julian to raze
  the temple of, i, 213.
---------, not struck  by lightning
  during a thousand years, ii., 162.
Jethro, mosque of, i, 51.
Jewel,   Bishop,  preached  against
  witchcraft, ii, 56.
John of Salisbury, when he lived, L,
  274.
Jouin, St, the mare of, i, 57.
Julian, efforts of, to raze the temple
  of Jerusalem, i, 213.
Juno, temple of, protected from light-
  ning, ii., 154.
  —, Milo, high priest of, i, 82.
Jupiter  Cataibates, origin of the  sur-
  name, ii, 159.
  ----, miracle  attributed by Mar-
  cus Aurelius to, i, 103.
      , fiction that stones were rain-
 ed by, i, 103.
-----Elicius, ii, 160.
     • Apomyios, worshiped by the
 Eleans, i, 106.
-----Ammon, temple of, i, 233.
-----, transformations of, i, 273.
Kaleidoscope, note on, ii, 227.
Kamtschatka, the name of Brichtains
  still given to the Russians in, i, 72.
Kea-soum, what, i, 288.
Key, the cures of the, i, 232.
   - of St Hubert, i, 232, ii, 98. 
GENERAL  INDEX.
307
Key of St. John, i, 232.
Khivans, complicated  calculations
  made from pieces of wood by, i,
  197.
Kicahans,  subjects of the Burmese,
  ii, 102.
Klaproth, M. Jules, describes the No-
  gais Tartars, i, 91.
Kongx, Om, Panx, i, 227.
Kraken, we may disbelieve all that
  has been related of the, i, 61.
Krishna, the god, definition of the
  name, i, 178.
Kurdes, or Ali-Oulahies, i, 122.

Labyrinth of Crete, i, 245.
--------of Egypt i, 247.
La Charente, the department of, i,
  58.
Lachryma Batavica, ii, 227.
Lactantius, note on, i, 267.
Laguna, Andre, physician  to  Pope
  Julius, ii, 44.
Lammer Geyer, the eagle of the Alps,
  i, 60.
Lamp, miraculous account of the oil
  of one, i, 283.
-----, perpetual, i, 283.
-----, common invention  concern
  ing, i, 284.
Lapis Memphiticus, ii., 28.
Laplanders, described as pigmies, i.
   89.
Larcher, turns the account of Ctesias
  into ridicule, i, 67.
Larysium, the Mount, i, 128.
Latace, explanation of, i, 69.
Laurels, protectors against lightnin,
   ii, 152.
Law, Hindoo, account of the, ii, 122.
Lead, molten, poured on Zoroaster,
   i, 298.
----,  substitute for, i, 302.
 Leibnitz penetrated into a secret so:
   ciety at Nuremberg, i, 220.
 Lenoir, his opinions on dragons  as
   emblems, ii, 237.
 Lerna, the blood of the hydra of, i,
   71.
 Lethe, waters of, ii, 8.
 Letronne, M, his opinions of the stat-
   ue of Memnon, ii, 287, 288.
 Letters, governed by angels, i, 201.
 ------, Runic, i, 202.
 Libanus,  Mount, composed  of red
   earth, i, 53.
 Lightning, various means to guard
   against, ii, 151,152.
 --------, custom of proving, ii, 153.
Lightning, conductors  of, reproba-
  ted by St Bernardin, ii, 153.
Llorente, who, ii, 45.
Lot, division of angels by, i, 155.
---, suggestion of Plato regarding the
  contraction of marriages by, i, 156.
Lybas, sacrifice to the manes of, i,
  148.
Lydus, the sacred books of the Etrus-
  can priests often quoted by, i, 113.

Macrisius, his  relation  of an enor-
  mous hail shower, i, 48.
Madelaine, St., the print of her right
  foot, i, 58.
Magi, the star which guided them, i,
  59.
----, wonders performed by the, i.,
  209.
  — should  be  distinguished from
  wizards, i, 231.
Magic, name applied to the art of
  working wonders, i, 43.
 ----, for some time the world was
  governed by, i, 115.
 ----  originated  from researches
  into the occult science, i, 115.
 ----, name given by the Greeks to
  the  science which they learned
  from the Magi, i, 116.
 -----, established in Bactria by Nim-
  rod, i, 117.
 ---—, Cassien speaks  of a  treatise
  on, i, 117.
 -----, the highest consideration in
   Hindostan given to, i, 118,119.
 -----  acquired by Joseph in Egypt,
  i, 118.
 -----, the mysteries of, known to
   Pharaoh's  wife, i, 118.
 -----  known to the Druids under
   the name of occult sciences, i, 119.
 -----, Voeleurs or Volveurs, priest-
   esses well versed in, i, 119.
 -----, arts which  come into com-
   mon use may pass for, i, 128.
 -----, the works of, much circum-
   scribed within the limits of science,
   i, 130.
 -----, those ridiculed by Apolloniua
   of Tyana who expected to gain by
   the  ends of, i, 130.
 _____-, how the mystery is removed
   from, i, 143.
 -----, severe laws issued against by
   the Franks and Visigoths, i, 225.
 Magical performances much more
   useful to the priest than prodigies,
   i, 114. 
308
GENERAL INDEX.
Magician, fate of a female, i, 130.
Magicians, power of those in the Isles
  of Sena, ii, 91.
---------, priest, ii, 95.
Magnet, its attractive power known
  to the ancients, ii, 216.
Magnetic sleep, ii, 82.
Magnus, Albertus, note on, i, 250,251.
---------------, his description of
  two processes, i, 301.
                 possessed  a stone
Meteorology, limited information in,
  ""  141.
Mexico, traditions of the people who
  emigrated from, i, 72.
Michaelis, his explanation of several
  explosions, ii, 198.
         , account of, i, 177.
  for attracting serpents, i, 329
Marcomans, war against the, i, 103.
Marcos, miracle by, i, 285.
Maricus passed himself off for a god,
  i, 306, 307.
Marses, the gift they pretended to
  possess, i, 325,326.
Marsian priests made to collect ser-
  pents, i, 326.
Martineau, Miss, her cure, ii, 81.
Marum, note on, influence of, i, 305,
  306.
Mash Allah, what, ii, 16.
Maupertuis appeared as a ghost to
  Gleditsch, ii, 84.
Maximus the Cynic, ii, 184.
--------of Turin, i, 231.
--------the Theurgist, i, 278.
Mecca, shower of stones at the foot
  of the walls of, i, 104.
Medals, legends discovered on, ii, 161.
Medea, poison used by her, ii, 190.
------, poisoned robe sent by her to
  Creusa, ii.. 190.
------, oil  of, ii, 190.
------, renewal of  the youth of
  iEson by, i, 145.
------, how  her   mysterious   arts
  were  represented, i, 142.
Medina, a grotto near, i, 57.
Medusa, one of the Gorgons, ii, 165.
Memnon,  opinions  respecting the
  sounding of the  statue of, i, 253-
  255; ii, 277.
--------,  statue of, ii, 275-297
-------fell beneath the blows of
  Achilles, i, 52.
--------,  ancient inscriptions on, ii.
  280.
Memnon,  oracle connected with, ii,
  281, 282.
Memphis, situation of, i, 216.
--------, stone of, ii, 28.
Menelaus, Greeks bound to him,  i,
  162.
Mendes, note on, i, 230, 231.
Meroe, locality of, determined, i, 107.
Metal, fusible, i., 302.
Midas, king of Phrygia, how he died,
  i, 71.
Milo of Croton, i, 82.
Mines supposed to be inhabited by
  genii, i, 141.
Miners supposed to be destroyed by
  demons, i, 109.
  ----, what was said of the genii,
  might hold good of the, i, 141.
Miracle on the attempt to rebuild the
  temple of Jerusalem, ii, 199, 200.
Miracles,  apparent, have been pro-
  duced by the science, or by the ad-
  dress of able men, i, 49.
          at St. Petersburgh, i, 282.
Mirme, head of, i, 251.
Misletoe, account of the, i, 229, 230.
Missouri,the  people who dwell in
  the burning mountains north of,
  i, 72.
Mnemosyne, waters of, ii, 8.
Mochus, who were his descendants,
  i, 142.
Mohammed, ascended to heaven, i,
    85.
           <, impression of the head
-why did  he refuse  to
of, i, 57.
work miracles ? i, 127.
        -, what species of divina-
tion used in the time of, i, 156.
         , account of, i, 223.
Mongolia, an army of rebels pursued
  in, i, 102.
Morat, Lake  of, extraordinary  ap-
  pearance of, i, 98.
Moses possessed some knowledge of
  electricity, ii, 162.
Mother of the Water, description of,
   , 272.
Moudela, crocodile, i, 309.
Mountain of the Hand, i, 58.
Muchamore, plant of, ii, 19.
Music, the influence of, i, 170.
-----, the power of, on  animals, i,
  311.
-----, cats agreeably affected by, i,
  312.
Myagrus, the god, invoked by Her-
  cules, i, 106.
Myope, the  plant,  occasions  blind-
  ness, ii, 126. 
GENERAL  INDEX.
309
Mystery, custom of, i. 216.
Mythology, Greek, did not admit one
  deity to interfere  in the schemes
  of another, i, 130.

Nadoessis,  ignorant  of ciphers,  i,
  201.
--------,  a religious society, ii, 10.
Naevius, the augur, i, 159.
------, his talent as an augur  ap
  peared from infancy, i, 175.
Nagals, how the art of distilling was
  received by, i, 289.
Naguals, power ascribed to the, i, 277.
Naphtha, its  abundance and use at
  Bakhou, ii, 175, 176.
-------, native, brought  from  the
  Caspian, ii, 176.
Navigators, French  and English de-
  ceived, i, 54.
Natural physics  employed  by ma-
  gicians, ii, 147.
Nazareth, the mark of the Virgin
  Mother's knee near, i, 57.
Nebuchadnezzar, method of decis-
  ion, i, 156.
Nekyomantion,   introduction   of
  Achilles into a, i, 264,
-------------, Virgil's description
  of a, i, 265.
               Pausanias driven to
  a, i., 265.
Nelson, Lord, monument to, on the
  Calton Hill, i, 55.
Nepenthes of the Greeks, account of,
  ii, 15.
Nessus, blood of, ii, 187.
------, misnamed, i, 71.
Newton,  Sir Issaac, anecdote of, ii,
  143.
Nicasius, St, Bishop of Rheims, i, 51.
-------, Church of, i, 51.
Niobe, i, 55.
Nipa palm-tree, i, 289.
Nonacris, the water of, ii, 117.
-------, account of, ii, 117.
Nonnosus regarded as a narrator of
  fables, i, 80.
Numa drew  lightning  from  the
  clouds, ii, 155.
-----, the books of, i, 183.

Obarator, i, 137.
Obsequens, Julius, i, 94.
Occator, i, 137.
Occult Science, its use in removing
  the mystery of magic, i, 143,
             -, unknown to Moham
Occult Science, lustre added by Zo-
  roaster to the, i, 125.
Odin  regarded as the inventor of
  magic in Scandinavia, note on, i,
  119.
  —  possessed of a speaking head,
  i, 251.
Odors, influence of, ii, 36.
GSnomaus, king of Pisa, killed by his
  son-in-law, ii, 159,160.
         , note on, ii, 159, 160.
Oil of Medea, a poison, ii, 190.
  - of vitriol, i, 290.
  -, fraudulent practices with, i, 282.
  -.unextinguishable, whence  ob-
  tained, ii, 196.
—, miraculous overflow of, i, 283.
— produced from common salt, i,
  290.
Old Man of the Mountain, account
  of, ii, 21.
Ololuchqui, account of, ii, 40.
Olympia, the statue of Milo in, i, 82.
Olympic games, i, 106.
Onocentaur, what is  designated by,
  i, 92.
  --------• resembles  the   Chim-
  panzee, i, 92.
Ophiogenes in Cyprus, i, 325.
Ophiusa, a plant of Ethiopia, ii, 19.
Opium, power of, ii, 106.
Oracle, belief in an, by. Baro, i, 159.
  ----of Delphi, indication of, con-
  cerning Croesus, i, 159.
Oracles, history of, i,  160.
        account of the ancient,  i,
 163-165.
-----, Chaldaic, ii, 170.
       of Dodona, i, 168.
Ordeal of heat, i, 297, 298.
       by  fire,  early  known
 Greece, i, 299.
-----of boiling water, i, 300.
     •of  exposure  to   ferocious
beasts, i, 306, 307.
    - of swimming among croco-
diles, i, 308.
    • of poisons, ii, 122.
Organs, not unknown to the ancients,
  i, 248.
Origen, account of, i, 155.
-----, opinions advanced by, i, 155.
Orose, Paul, i, 280.
Orpheus  represented as versed in
  magic,  i, 142.
        , note on, i, 184.
med, i., 128.
_______, historical explanation of
  the fable of, i, 263.
-------, account of, ii, 36. 
310
GENERAL INDEX.
Orphic mysteries, i, 184.
Osages, magicians among the, i, 150.
Oscellatoria  rubesceus,  what  was
  caused by the development of, i,
  99.
Ossian, a  comparison  of his  son's
  sword to flame, ii, 179.
Oupnek'-hat,  passage of, ii, 172.
Oxus, wells dug in the vicinity of the,
  i, 102.

Pachymerus, assertion of, i, 300.
Pactolus, wonderful stone found in
  the, i, 248.
Paracelsus, note on, ii, 97.
Paragreles, ii, 148.
Paragrandines, security against hail,
  ii, 148.
Pausanias, his initiation, ii, 39, 40.
Paw, ii, 135.
Pegna, Francis, who, ii, 32.
Pelops, accessory to  the death of
  CEnomaus, ii, 159,160.
Pentheus, note on, ii, 38, 39.
Perfumes, use of, by the ancients, ii,
  36.
Perkinism, account of, ii, 82.
Persian Greeks  listened eagerly to
  the magi, i, 209, 210.
Persians, exulted in being  able to
  drink much without suffering in-
  toxication, L, 68.
Peter, the River of St, i, 72.
Petersburgh,  St, pretended miracle
  at, i, 282.
Petronius Arbiter, his  romance, ii,
  9.
Phantasmagoria, now only restored,
  not invented, i, 268.
               , account  of   that
  brought out in London, i, 268,269.
———---—, the    instruments
Pietramala, the fires of, in Tuscany,
  i, 97.
Pigeons, carrier, i, 315.
  -----dung, burned the Church of
  Pisa, ii, 180.
Pigmies described by Ctesias, 1, 90.
  -----, supposition of the  ancients
  concerning them, i, 91.
Pisa, Church of, how  set on fire, ii,
  180.
Pliny discusses proper methods for
  preventing a return of the plague,
  u, 138.
Pliny and ..Elian accused of having
  exaggerated, i, 61.
----names three plants endowed
  with magical properties, i, 62.
Poisons, Hindoo, named Powst, ii,
  119.
        trial by, ii, 123.
  which formed, i, 269.
Pharachites, i, 150.
Phosphorus, how used  by the  an
  cients, ii, 183.
----------, Bologna, ii, 177,178.
----------, Baldwin's, ii, 178.
  t     ■   , the ancients acquainted
  ■with, ii, 182.
Phrygia, where Diana rewards the
  love of Endymion, i, 53.
-------, Rome  borrowed  the fable
  of Anchurus from, i, 87.
Physical science, for the most part,
  can explain the sorcery of  Thau-
  maturgy, i, 41.
Physics, natural, employed by ma-
  gicians, ii, 147.
Polo, Marco, i, I
Polycritus, the ghost of, i, 252.
Polyphemus conquered by Ulysses,
  i, 54.
Polypi, dimensions of the, exaggera-
  ted, i, 61.
Polytheism, miracles of, exposed by
  the Christian religion, i, 169.
          , legends of, transformed
  into moral allegories, i, 215.
Pontiffs, the Roman, in their  rites
  made use of words known only to
  themselves, i, 177.
Porphyrogenitus,  Constantine,  ad-
  vice to his son, ii, 193.
                 used  the Greek
  fire, ii, 194.
Porphyry, account of, i, 134.
   -----, his refutation of Chaere-
  mon, i, 134.
Porsenna, story of, explained, ii, 156.
Posthumus, Dictator, victory gained
  by him, i, 57.
Potamantis, a plant, ii, 17.
Powder, offensive, ii, 135.
Prayers, miracle attributed by the
  Christians to the efficacy of, i, 103.
Priest, title  inseparable with physi-
  cian and sorcerer among the Na-
  doessis, <fcc, ii, 94.
Priests of Phrygia and Syria threw
  open their sunctuaries, i, 210.
Proclus, a physician, ii, 36.
Prodigy, every thing so in the eyes
  of the ignorant, i, 42.
Protesilaus, the wife of, i, 266.
Proteus, account of, i, 275.
Psamtnemtes, King  of  Egypt, cause
  of the-death of, l, 71. 
GENERAL INDEX.
311
Pseudo-monarchia  Dsemonum,  of
what origin, i, 233.
ge
  nii of, i, 233.
Psychagogues, i, (265.
Psychomantium visited by Elysius,
  i, 265.
Ptolemies introduced  the  worship
  of Saturn and Serapis, ii, 292.
Pyrites, what composed of, ii, 180.
Pythagoras, three plants, according
  to him, had the power of freezing
  water, i, 62.
---------, who were the prophets
  consulted by him at Sidon, i, 142
---------, account of, i, 167, 168.
         -, what sagacity attributed
the
  to, ii., 136.
Pythonesses  known   among
  Gauls, i, 230.
Purgatory of St Patrick, ii, 86.
Queen Elizabeth suffers from witch
  craft, ii, 56.
--------------, sermon     against
  witchcraft preached before her,
  ii, 56.
Quicksilver, a shower of, i, 44.

Raymond of Sully, his exploit,  ii,
  260.
Rabelais, the memory of, i, 58.
Radegonde, the Church of St, i,  58.
Rain, diverse opinions of that which
  succored Marcus Aurelius, i, 103.
Raleigh, Sir W, note on, i, 89.
Rats, Libyan, note on, i, 92.
----, yellow, transformed  into yel-
  low quails, i, 77.
Rattlesnake, the young, at  the  ap
  proach of danger, take  refuge in
  the mouth of the mother, i, 64.
Religion of Egypt attacked  in vain by
  Cambyses, i, 205, 211.
Regillus, Lake, i, 57.
Reparator, i, 137.
Rhabdomaritic art, i, 197.
Rheims, ringing of bells at, i, 51.
Rhesus, horses of, i, 79.
Rigveda, character of, ii, 170,171.
Rosicrucians, account of the, i, 219,
  220.
Roukh, or Roc, under this name nar-
  rators have described a monstrous
  bird, i, 60.
Royal touch, account of, ii, 80.
Rogations, ii, 250.
---------,  serpents carried in  the
  processions, ii, 253.
Rome, legend of its inundation, ii,
  251.

Sabbat, account of, i, 225, 226,  228,
  229; u, 41-49.
  ----, St. Augustin speaks of, note
  on, i, 225, 226.
  ----, what passed at the, i, 228.
  ----, inventions taught at, ii., 132.
Sabaism,  religious system prevalent
  in Arabia, i, 204.
Saint  Arnel, his exploit  with a  ser-
  pent, ii, 2154.
  — Athanasius, note on, ii, 120.
  — Balsemus, i, 84.  .
  — Bernardin  reprobated light-
  ning conductors, ii, 153.
  —  Clara, in a  church  in Norman-
  dy,  i, 83.
  —  Clare, account of her, i, 75.
----Cyr, well at the church of, ii,
  253.
         , his victory over a dragon.
 ii, 253.
---Denis, i, 83.
---Epiphanius, account of, i, 117.
---Exuperantius, i, 83.
---Felix represented on the seal
 of the canton, i, 83.
          sent St Martin to Nantes,
  i, 104.
  — Florence, his exploit with  a
  serpent, ii, 256.
  — Francis of Assisi, account of, i,
  75.
  — Germain at Auxerre, account
  of, i, 75.   .
  — Hilaire, Geoffroy, i, 97.
  — Hilary, his triumph over a ser-
  pent, ii, 254.
  — Hubert, note on, i, 232; ii, 98.
----Januarius, note on, i, 287.
----John the Baptist, relics of, i,
  288.
----Justin, note on, i, 266, 267.
----Lawrence  Scopali, note on, i,
  286.
----Lucain, i, 84.
----Lucian, i, 84.
----Magdalene, the blood of, i, 286.
----Martin, sent to convert; i, 104.
-----------, his triumph over a ser-
  pent, ii, 255.
----Maurice of Agen, i, 83.
----Michael,  legend of lulling the
  dragon, ii, 250.
              his sword and shield
  exhibited, ii, 250.
----Mitrius at Aries, note on, i, 83. 
312
GENERAL INDEX.
Scythia, the liqueur of, i, 290.
  -----, impression of Hercules' foot
  left in, i, 56.
Scythian asses, ii, 114.
Scythians,  anthropophagi  existing
  among the, i, 89.
  -------sometimes have the ap-
  pearance of old women, i, 91,
  92.
Seals, representation of saints on, i,
  83.
Second sight, note on, ii, 65.
Sementini, Doctor, i, 303.
Serapion the Egyptian, i, 307.
Serapis, constellation of the equinox
  represented by, i, 107.
Seres described by Pliny and Virgil,
  i, 67.
Serpent, tamed, of Ajax, i, 319.
------ in Timauni, i, 319.
------- Papa, or Ammodite, i, 320.
    --- Naja, i, 325.
       -, that opposed  by Regulus
probably a boa constrictor, ii, 238.
    -, figure of the, in emblems,
Saint Nicasius, first Bishop of Rouen,
  i, 84.
----Nicholas of Tolentius, bones of,
  i, 288.
----Pantaleon, note on, i, 287.
----Par, one of three martyrs, i, 84.
----Patrick, lighted  a kiln with
  snow, ii, 181.
-----------, note on, i, 79.
-----------, purgatory of, ii, 86
----Paul, trance of, i, 76.
----PhocaS, curative power of his
  tomb, ii, 253.
----Principius at  Souvigny, i, 84.
----Regula, i, 83.
----Sane, the iron collar of, i, 152
----Savinian, i, 84.
----Thecla, miracle  attributed to
  her, account of, i, 103.
----Thomas, the black slaves at, i,
  168,  169.
------------Aquinas, bones of, i,
  288.
----Valery  painted holding  his
  head, i, 83.
----Vitus's Dance, ii, 80.
Salmonius, the fable of, ii, 158,159,
Samaria,  a prey to the  horrors of
  famine, i, 70.
Sdmaveda, character of, ii,  171,
Samoyedes, a people recognized in
  the narrations of Greek writers, i,
  89.
----------very susceptible of fear,
  ii, 76.
----------, how they  cured  dis
  eases, ii, 88, 89.
San Severo occupied with chemical
  experiments, i, 188.
Sannyasi, visions of, ii, 85.
--------, description of the sect of,
  ii, 85.
Sarritor, i, 137.
Savoy, a block of granite at, i, 56.
Saxo Grammaticus, first tales of, i
  120, 274.
Scandinavians, the  power  they at-
  tach to verse, i, 200.
Schools of Philosophy opened to the
  Christians, i, 215.
------ of Toledo, Seville, and Sala-
  manca, i, 224.
Sciences, occult, the domain of, re-
  duced within true limits,  i, 49.
Scopelism, the emblem of, ii, 131.
Scrofula, royal touch and cure  for,----, adoration of, i, 204.
  ii., 80.                          iSmerdis, brother of Cambyses, L,
 Scylla, what becomes of the tradition   208.
  of, i, 61.                        'Snake stones, account of, i, 324.
  ii, 252.
------, ancient mythology connect-
  ed with legends of the, ii, 316.
Serpents discovered in the Antilles
  by their odor, i, 327.
         winged, could only have
been emblems, ii, 240.
     -, monstrous, emblematic of
 inundations, ii, 240.
-------, legends of,  adopted into
 history, ii, 244.
        of Sologne, legend respect-
  ing, ii, 251, 252.
Shells of beans, ii, 132.
Siam, mode of calculating eclipses
  existing in, i, 195.
Siberia shut out from the age of in-
  ventions, i, 290.
Simmias, a philosopher of Thebes,
  ii., 34.
Simon the magician,  i, 274, 275.
Simplicus, Pope, i, 299.
Sipylus, Mount of, i, 55.
                , endemic diseases
  peculiar to the neighborhood of.
  i, 55.
Sisera, note on Jael and, i, 70.
Sita, wife of Rama, i, 297, 298.
Siva, colossal statue of, account of, i,
  161. 
GENERAL  INDEX.
313
Snake9, Hindoos allowed themselves
  to be bitten by, i, 324.
Snow, from what causes it becomes
  of a red hue, i, 99.
-----, red, account of, note, i, 99.
Soap, its  influence  in  rendering
  bodies incombustible, i, 303.
----, its stupefying influence, ii, 32.
Solanum, poison of, ii, 16.
Solinus, note on, i, 81.
Solomon, explosion at his tomb, ii,
  198.
Sorcery, Bishop of Spires accused
  of, ii, 59.
_______t various accusations of, n,
  59,  60.
Soukh-oos, note on, i, 317, 318.
Soulimas, the king of the, i, 316.
________., the tribe of the, i, 153.
Spikenard, note on, i, 307.
Spinon, nature of, ii, 181.
Spots, red. appearance of, i, 100.
Spring, fatal, in Thrace, ii, 116,117.
______ of water near Tyana,ii, 125.
Statues, sweating and weeping of, i
  282.
Steinacker, M, death of, i_, 190.
Stheno, one of the Gorgons, ii, 165.
Stone, boat of, i, 54.
Stones, account of wonderful, l, 248,
  249.
Striae, i, 230.
Sun,  effect of looking on the, ii, 8o
Superstitions, note on various,!, 108-
  110.
Superstitious observances, note on,
  i, 108-110.
Suttee, ii, 29.
Sweet kernels, what is meant by, _.,
  103.                     ,  .
 Swedenborg affirmed his revelations
  to be a sufficient miracle, i, 128
 Synesius, account of, i, 215, 216.
 Szalina, salt-mine  of, i, 98.

 Taisch, note on, ii, 65.
 Tanyoxartes, brother of Cambyses,
   how he died, i. 71.
 Tarasque, account of, ii, 238.
 ________ emblematical of the inun
   dation of the Rhone, i, 242.
 Tarchon  founder of  the  Etruscan
   Theurgists, ii, 152.
 ________, the ancient, i, 178.
 Tarquin  the elder, note on, i, 159.
 Tartars,  some tribes eat the  con-
    demned to death, i, 90.
 _______, curious  custom of  the. ii,
    185,186.
Tchin, wine poisonous in which are
  macerated the feathers of the, i,
  70.
Tchu-ki, a species of partridge called
  the, i, 77.
Telchines, derivation of the name, l,
  129.
       —• first  regarded as magi-
  cians, i, 137.
Tell, William, story of the apple, ii,
  261.               .
Temersa, sacrifice at, l, 148.
Temple of Jerusalem, attempt to re-
  build, ii, 199, 200.
        of Juno protected fromhght-
ning, ii, 154.
    ■ at Delphi, account of the, l.
  172.
Tenda Maia, pigmies found there, 1,

Teriakana, or opium shops, ii, 16.
Terra, the temple of, i, 71.
Tetractys of Pythagoras and Plato,
  i, 196.
Thales enabled to predict an eclipse,
  i, 206.
Thaumaturgian  subalterns held in
  little estimation, i, 212.
Thaumaturgist, his facility of inspir-
  ing a belief in the falfiTIment of
  wonders, i, 145.
Thaumaturgists, the sect  mere la-
1  borers in natural philosophy, i, 134.
  _____________unknown  to  Mo-
  hammed and  Swedenborg, i, 127,
  128.                       .   .
                in what  consisted
  their power, i, 132.
Thaumaturgy  can for the most part
  be explained by physical science,

  i-> 41-                ,  v
Thecles,  how  he escaped the wild
  beasts, i, 307.
Themistocles,  the cause of his death,
  i, 71.
Theodoretus, note  on, i, 271.
Theophrastus  named  a  mineral
  stone spinon, ii, 181.
Theraphim, account of, i, 252.
Theurgist, spirits described by a, i,
  135.
Theurgy defined, i, 127.
Thibault, General, anecdote of, ii., 84.
Thompson, Agnes, a witch, ii, 53.
Thousand and one Nights, tales of
  the, of Hindoo origin, i, 130.
Thrasybulus,  what appeared when
  he was at the head of the exuea
   Athenians, i, 103. 
311
U_NER.\L  INDEX.
Tiberius of Rhodes, his horse elec-
  trical, ii, 151.             ' f
Timarches, his account of his initia-
  tion, ii, 11.
Tji-Kounir, waters of, troubled, ii,
  137.
Toddy made at Ava, Siam, and Pegu,
  i, 289.
Toko, story of Tell's apple applied to
  him, ii, 261.
Touch, royal, in scrofula, ii, i
Tours, Gregory of, quotation  from,
  i, 59.
-----------------, miracle describ-
  ed  by, i, 283.
Tower raised by Archelaus, i, 304.
-----, of larch wood, i, 304.
Travers, Mr, his opinion of Miss Fan-
  court's case, ii, 81.
Trance  sometimes   beneficial,  ii,
  72.
Trial of burning coals still practiced
  among the Hindoos, i, 298.
----by poisons, ii, 122.
----by water, ii, 123.
Tripod, how placed i, 173.
Tritonides, the  formation  of, i, 107.
Tritonis in Libya, the lake or river
  of,  i, 107, 108.
Trogus, Pompeius, note on, i, 81.
Trophonius, mysteries of his cave,
  ii, 11.
----------, cave of, i, 242.
Trows, under what names are rec-
  ognized the, i, 140.
Tsaltsalya, account of, L, 107,
Tschingenes, i, 150; ii, 186.
Tullus Hostilius, discovery from the
  books of Numa, note on, i, 183.
              -, killed by lightning,
Vedas, scriptures of the Hindoos, ii,
  170-172.
  ----, the collection of the, i, 119.
Vegetation, various methods  of de-
  stroying, ii, 132, 133.
Ventriloquism, definition of, i, 165,
  166.
              , account of the art of,
ii, 155.
-, his death, ii, 156.
Tzenganis, ii, 186.
Tzianys, i, 150.

Ulysses, vessel of, i, 54.
------, his rowers, i, 61.
-------, admission of, into a nekyo-
  mantion, i, 264.
Unctions, mysterious, belonging to
  ancient  magi, i, 228.
-------, the effect of, i, 228.

Valmont de Bomasi, quotation from,
  him, i, 63.
Vandale, Anthony, account of, i, 160,
  161.
Varro, Columella, Pliny, and Sphnus,
  extraordinary relations of, i, 81.
  166,167.
Venus, altar of, on Mount Eryx, i,
  97, 98.
Vervator, i, 137.
Vishnu, the adoration of, i, 204.
Vitus, Saint, his dance, ii, 80.
Voeleurs or Volveurs, priestesses, i,
  119.
Vulcan, arms fabricated by, i, 129.
       art of treating metals deified
 under the name of, i, 137.
-----, traditions of, i, 244.
Wailand, by whom instructed in the
  art of forging, i, 129.
Waldenses, account of, ii, 49, 50.
Water, forespoken, account  of, ii,
  52.
-----, ordeal of boiling, i, 300.
-----, trial by boiling, used in Hin-
  dostan, i, 298.
-----, expansive power of, known
  to the ancients, ii, 214.
Waters  becoming muddy previous
  to an earthquake, ii, 137.
Wierius, J, fragment published by,
  account of, i, 180.
Wilkinson, Mr, discoveries of, in the
  statue of Memnon, ii, 296.
Wine, rice, made in China, i, 288.
-----, of Falerno, i, 290.
Wire-gauze used by the ancients on
  the principles of Sir H. Davy, i, 279.
Witch burned at Wurzburg in 1750,
  ii, 47, 55.
Witchcraft, numbers condemned at
  Geneva, ii, 47.
---------, Reginald  Scott's work
  on, ii, 48.
           shepherds supposed to
practice, ii, 50.
         Mrs. Dyer accused of, ii,
belief in, leads to every
56.
  vice, ii, 59.
Witches  drowned in  England  in
  1751, ii, 55, 56.
         seventeen burned at Osus
in Essex, ii, 57.
       statute of James I. of En-
gland against, ii, 57. 
GENERAL  INDEX.
315
Words  used in the operations of
  magic only Greek and Latin, i.

Wraiths, account of, ii, 65.

Xanthus, the horses of Rhfisus not
  permitted to taste of the waters of,
  i, 79.
Xen-si, the province of, i, 98.
Yadjour-Veda, its character, ii, 171.
Yogis, account of, ii, 34.

Zagh, description of, ii, 116.
Zealanders,  the  New, avowed can-
  nibals, i, 90.
Zigeuners, what people so called, ii,
  186.
Zingari, origin of, ii, 185.
-------, what description of people,
  i, 150 ; ii., 186.
-------, their perfection in tricks of
  every kind i,  150.
      -, definition of the term, i, 150.
Zoogene, description of the appear-
  ance of, i, 101,
Zoroaster had an interview with the
  devil, ii, 163.
  -------perished by lightning, ii.
-, verses by, ii, 166.
-, his doctrines, ii, 168.
-, what occurred to him, ii.
 76.
-------had no other aim than that
 of making additions to the  art of
 magic, i, 116,117.
         often entered the lists with
necromancers inimical to his doc-
trine, i, 124.
      -, trials of fire endured by,
allowed melted lead to be
i, 293.
 poured over him, i, 298.
--------, that, under the name of,
 the Persians worshiped a son of
 Shem, ii, 163.
       -, oracles attributed to the
 disciples of, ii, 166.
--------prayed to the gods to be
 struck by lightning, ii, 164. 
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                           I.. II.

  Elements  of Morality and  Polity.

          BY  WILLIAM WHEWELL, O.D.,

AUTHOR OF " HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE INDUCTIVE SCIEN
                          CES," <_C

          2 vols. 12mo, Muslin, extra gilt, $1 00.

  Dr. Whewell's work ought to be read, because it can not be read without
advantage : the age requires such books.—London Athenaum.
  A text-book of simple truths, from which, by induction, a complete sys-
tem of morality is constructed, applicable to all the  relations and circum-
stances of life, and embracing every department of human action.  The
reader who shall carefully study these volumes—and a more inviting page,
clear and legible, the eye does not often rest upon—will find his labor more
than rewarded.—New York Commercial Advertiser.
  Professor Whewell's " Elements of Morality" have been universally re-
ceived in England as a contribution of rare value to the department of moral
and political science.—Baltimore American.
  A. splendid  production by one  of the most distinguished of the scientific
men of the age.  This is a book, not to be read merely, but to be re-perused
and patiently studied ; we have  heard it pronounced by no mean critic the
most complete and lucid work on ethical philosophy ever produced. We
commend this work to the especial notice of thinkers and readers, to schol-
ars and schools generally, as a most admirable text-book.—Sun.
  The style of the work, though simple,  is extremely clear, strong, and el-
oquent.  It is a book to be  studied rather than superficially read, and can
not fail to be  of the very highest importance in instructing and disciplining
the public mind.—American Patriot.
  This is beyond all comparison the most complete, comprehensive, and lu-
minous treatise on the important subjects it discusses, that is to be found
in the language, and  its careful study is indispensable  to every one who
would obtain true and definite notions in regard to the principles of public
And private morals.  It is profoundly learned and philosophical, but the writ-
er thinks logically and clearly, and ii therefore at all times lucid and com-
prehensible.—Buffalo Commercial  Advertiser. 
2             HARPER'S  NEW  MISCELLANY

                                III.

        The Philosophy  of Mystery.

           BY  WALTER  COOPER  D E N D Y.

               12mo, Muslin, extra gilt, 50 cents.

  This is a learned and elaborate work, in which the writer goes into the
investigation of all the phenomena of mind in the erratic operations and
phantasies of ghost seeing and spectral hallucinations, and aims to give the
true philosophy of all such delusions.  He  is a medical man of consider-
able eminence, and has  spared  no pains in his researches, giving a great
number of facts and cases to illustrate his philosophy.  The volume will be
much sought for, as it is really a desideratum in the world of literature.
We know of no work on this subject which lays the same just claim to public
attention, or the study of the philosopher.—Christian Advocate and Journal.
  The volume before us is both instructive and amusing, and at this partic-
ular time, when the extremes of superstition and philosophy have shaken
hands, it will be likely to effect an  inconceivable amount of good, if prop-
erly studied.  It is one of the most remarkable productions of the day, and
must create an extraordinary  degree of interest in the public mind.—Mer-
chant's Magazine.
  It belongs to that class of writings  which you can take up and put down
at pleasure, and which may be subjected to repeated readings.  The work
is pleasant, however, in spite  of this—pleasant because of  its facts, its nu-
merous details of mystery, its vast collection of anecdote, its developments
of diablerie, its tidings from the spiritual world, and the many cases which
ii brings together of the curious and the wonderful in nature and art, which
former ages, and ignorance and superstition, have concluded to consider su-
pernatural.   Where science and modern speculation furnish the solution to
the mystery, Mr. Dendy couples it with the statements, and the book is
thus equally valuable and amusing.—Charleston Transcript.
  Here lies a remarkable work;  beautiful in its  style, and wondrous in its
matter.  The work is strictly philosophical in its tendency, yet more amus-
ing than a novel.—True American.
  This is a book for the  lovers of marvels and of mysteries.  It contains an
immense collection of anecdotes of spectral apparitions, of illusions of vision
or of hearing, of striking phenomena exhibited  in dreams, in  insanity, in
trance, or in magnetism, and furnishes many very valuable hints to aid in
the solution of these mysteries, by which so many have been bewildered
or affrighted.  It. is written in a style of great ease and elegance, and  can
not fail to find a very wide circle of welcoming readers.—Albion.
  This unique and remarkable book has just been placed on our table ; we
know its reputation of old ; it is an admirable discourse on the  subject of
supernaturalisms, such as mental illusions, dreams, ghosts, mesmeric phe-
nomena, <fcc.  If any one will but read the  first half dozen pages, we will
vouch for it he will not neglect the rest of the volume : it is one of the best
written books on one of the most curious range of topics that could engage
the pen of a writer, or the attention of a reader.   It is, in fact, one of the
most curious volumes ever perused, upon a series of the most singular sub-
jects, and, in this new and  neat form, it will command  a  vast number of
readers.—Sunday Times.
  " The  Philosophy of Mystery" is an exceedingly able work; far better,
we  think, than the " Natural  Magic" of Brewster, a book of identical pur-
pose, carried out in a totally different way.   The " Natural  Magic" is the
more ratiocinative, Mr. Dendy's essay  the more poetical, the more imagina
live, and to us the more interesting.—National Press. 
         OF  POPULAR  STERLING  LITERATURE.        3


                                IV.

              The  Life  of Mozart:

      INCLUDING  HIS  CORRESPONDENCE.

                BY  EDWARD  HOLMES,
AUTHOR  OF " A RAMBLE  AMONG THE  MUSICIANS OF GERMANY,"  &C.

              12mo, Muslin, extra gilt, 50 cents.
  It is written in a beautiful, narrative style, and can not but  be every
where acceptable.  To all  who appreciate the extraordinary genius of Mo-
zart, the delicate structure of his mind, the incidents of his life, and his ro-
mantic death, this volume  will indeed be a treasure.—Boston Gazette.
  It contains, in addition to much of his interesting  correspondence,  and
other papers, a detailed account of his life, adventures, and rise as an artist,
and a discriminating sketch of his character, the peculiarities of which are
happily illustrated  by anecdotes. Many things of him, unknown even to
his admirers, are here given to the world, and his biographer, fully appre-
ciating the artist, has yet,  not like a flatterer, but with true.independence,
spoken candidly of the faults of the man.—Merchant's Magazine.
  Of this far-famed life of Mozart it is  scarcely necessary for us to say a
word; the  foreign  reviews have been so unanimous  in their encomiums,
that we suppose few will be found insensible to the strong inducement of
its perusal, especially as the work may be obtained at the trifling cost of
half a dollar, and in so beautiful a guise.  We have looked into  the biog-
raphy but slightly, yet find it redolent with  interest, and fully sustaining
the high estimate  placed upon the work by the London  Athenaum  and
Blackwood.  If the Harpers continue to fill their new  library  with sterling
works like the present, it will present the most truly valuable series, yet
the cheapest, ever attempted in any age or country.—Evening Gazette.
  The only authentic biography of the great composer that is  extant in the
English language, and the events of his career are replete with useful ad-
monitions and warning to the sons  of  genius, and they whisper to those
whose present claims are not allowed that there is a future  full of promise.
In his life Mozart was  neglected and  impoverished,  and  he went to his
grave with more than the bitterness of death  crowding on his  thoughts,
but fame has taken possession of his memory, and among those who move
as gods in musical art, few are equal to him, none are superior.   This bi-
ograpliy possesses an interest for all who feel interested in the great  men
of the earth.  It is not only remarkably well written, but has a  complete-
ness about  it we have never found before in any life of Mozart.—Louisville
Journal.
  There is such a charm in this  narrative, that the lovers of good  biography
can not hear of it too soon.  We can not conceive a more fascinating story
of genius.  To a style which would alone have sufficed to the production
of an interesting and striking  narrative, Mr.  Holmes unites a depth of
knowledge and musical appreciation very rare and remarkable.  We thank
him cordially for a most pleasing addition to  our  standard biographical lit-
erature.—Examiner.
  The book is one  of extraordinary interest, not merely to the lovers of
music and appreciators of  the great composer, but to the general  reader, as
a vivid picture of the life of a man of genius, who encountered all the dif-
ficulties, trials, and sufferings  usually the lot of  genius when it comes be-
fore a world incapable of appreciating it, and indifferent to its welfare.  The
domestic portions of the book are invaluable ;  his relations to  his  father and
his wife are very beautiful.  The work is admirably executed, as well in the
scientific as anecdotical  passages, and is worthy of the widest sale.—News 
  Messrs. Harper &  Brothers have  the pleasure  of an
nouncing that they have just issued a complete  Classified and
Descriptive Catalogue of their Publications,  comprising  a
very extensive range of Literature, in its  several departments
of History, Biography,  Philosophy, Travel, Science and Art,
the Classics, and Fiction; also, many splendidly Embellished
Productions.   A rigid critical taste has  governed the selec-
tion of these works,  so  as to include  not only a large pro-
portion of the most esteemed  Literary Productions  of our
times, but supplying also, in the majority of  instances, the
best existing authorities on given subjects.  This new Cata-
logue, having been constructed with a view to the especial
use of persons desirous of forming or enriching  their Literary
Collections, as well as principals of District Schools and Sem-
inaries of Learning, who may not possess any reliable  means
of forming a true estimate of any production, commends itself
to all  such by its novel feature  of including bibliographical,
explanatory,  and critical notices. For want of  such  aid, a
large portion of the reading community remain  ignorant of
the vast wealth of our accumulated literary stores, an acquaint-
ance with which must ever be regarded as an essential ele-
ment, both in the progress of social advancement and in in-
dividual refinement and happiness.   It may be  as well to
add, that the valuable collection described in this Catalogue,
consisting of about eighteen hundred volumes,  combines the
two-fold advantages of great economy in price  with neatness
—often great elegance  of typographical execution, in many
instances the rates  of publication being  scarcely  one-fifth of
those of similar issues in Europe.
  *#*  Copies of this Catalogue  may be obtained, free of ex-
pense, by application to the Publishers personally, or by letter,
post-paid.
  All orders accompanied with  a remittance  promptly ex-
ecuted.
82 Cliff-street, Sept., 1846. 
 
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