As it was at your suggestion that I undertook to draw up a popular
account of those prodigies of the material world which have received
the appellation of _Natural Magic_, I have availed myself of the
privilege of introducing it under the shelter of your name. Although
I cannot hope to produce a volume at all approaching in interest
to that which you have contributed to the Family Library, yet the
popular character of some of the topics which belong to this branch of
Demonology may atone for the defects of the following Letters; and I
shall deem it no slight honour if they shall be considered as forming
an appropriate supplement to your valuable work.
The subject of Natural Magic is one of great extent as well as of
deep interest. In its widest range, it embraces the history of the
governments and the superstitions of ancient times,--of the means by
which they maintained their influence over the human mind,--of the
assistance which they derived from the arts and the sciences, and from
a knowledge of the powers and phenomena of nature. When the tyrants
of antiquity were unable or unwilling to found their sovereignty on
the affections and interests of their people, they sought to entrench
themselves in the strongholds of supernatural influence, and to rule
with the delegated authority of Heaven. The prince, the priest, and the
sage, were leagued in a dark conspiracy to deceive and enslave their
species; and man, who refused his submission to a being like himself,
became the obedient slave of a spiritual despotism, and willingly bound
himself in chains when they seemed to have been forged by the gods.
This system of imposture was greatly favoured by the ignorance of these
early ages. The human mind is at all times fond of the marvellous,
and the credulity of the individual may be often measured by his own
attachment to the truth. When knowledge was the property of only one
caste, it was by no means difficult to employ it in the subjugation
of the great mass of society. An acquaintance with the motions of the
heavenly bodies, and the variations in the state of the atmosphere,
enabled its possessor to predict astronomical and meteorological
phenomena with a frequency and an accuracy which could not fail to
invest him with a divine character. The power of bringing down fire
from the heavens, even at times when the electric influence was
itself in a state of repose, could be regarded only as a gift from
heaven. The power of rendering the human body insensible to fire was
an irresistible instrument of imposture; and in the combinations of
chemistry, and the influence of drugs and soporific embrocations on the
human frame, the ancient magicians found their most available resources.
The secret use which was thus made of scientific discoveries and
of remarkable inventions, has no doubt prevented many of them from
reaching the present times; but though we are very ill informed
respecting the progress of the ancients in various departments of the
physical sciences, yet we have sufficient evidence that almost every
branch of knowledge had contributed its wonders to the magician’s
budget, and we may even obtain some insight into the scientific
acquirements of former ages, by a diligent study of their fables and
their miracles.
The science of _Acoustics_ furnished the ancient sorcerers with some of
their best deceptions. The imitation of thunder in their subterranean
temples could not fail to indicate the presence of a supernatural
agent. The golden virgins whose ravishing voices resounded through the
temple of Delphos;--the stone from the river Pactolus, whose trumpet
notes scared the robber from the treasure which it guarded;--the
speaking head which uttered its oracular responses at Lesbos; and the
vocal statue of Memnon, which began at the break of day to accost the
rising sun,--were all deceptions derived from science, and from a
diligent observation of the phenomena of nature.
The principles of _Hydrostatics_ were equally available in the work of
deception. The marvellous fountain which Pliny describes in the island
of Andros as discharging wine for seven days, and water during the rest
of the year;--the spring of oil which broke out in Rome to welcome the
return of Augustus from the Sicilian war,--the three empty urns which
filled themselves with wine at the annual feast of Bacchus in the city
of Elis,--the glass tomb of Belus which was full of oil, and which when
once emptied by Xerxes could not again be filled,--the weeping-statues,
and the perpetual lamps of the ancients,--were all the obvious effects
of the equilibrium and pressure of fluids.
Although we have no direct evidence that the philosophers of antiquity
were skilled in _Mechanics_, yet there are indications of their
knowledge by no means equivocal in the erection of the Egyptian
obelisks, and in the transportation of huge masses of stone, and their
subsequent elevation to great heights in their temples. The powers
which they employed, and the mechanism by which they operated, have
been studiously concealed, but their existence may be inferred from
results otherwise inexplicable; and the inference derives additional
confirmation from the mechanical arrangements which seemed to have
formed a part of their religious impostures. When, in some of the
infamous mysteries of ancient Rome, the unfortunate victims were
carried off by the gods, there is reason to believe that they were
hurried away by the power of machinery; and when Apollonius, conducted
by the Indian sages to the temple of their god, felt the earth rising
and falling beneath his feet, like the agitated sea, he was no doubt
placed upon a moving floor capable of imitating the heavings of the
waves. The rapid descent of those who consulted the oracle in the
cave of Trophonius,--the moving tripods which Apollonius saw in the
Indian temples,--the walking statues at Antium, and in the temple of
Hierapolis,--and the wooden pigeon of Archytas, are specimens of the
mechanical resources of the ancient magic.
But of all the sciences _Optics_ is the most fertile in marvellous
expedients. The power of bringing the remotest objects within the very
grasp of the observer, and of swelling into gigantic magnitude the
almost invisible bodies of the material world, never fails to inspire
with astonishment even those who understand the means by which these
prodigies are accomplished. The ancients, indeed, were not acquainted
with those combinations of lenses and mirrors which constitute the
telescope and the microscope, but they must have been familiar with
the property of lenses and mirrors to form erect and inverted images
of objects. There is reason to think that they employed them to effect
the apparition of their gods; and in some of the descriptions of the
optical displays which hallowed their ancient temples, we recognize
all the transformations of the modern phantasmagoria.
It would be an interesting pursuit to embody the information which
history supplies respecting the fables and incantations of the ancient
superstitions, and to show how far they can be explained by the
scientific knowledge which then prevailed. This task has, to a certain
extent, been performed by M. Eusebe Salverte, in a work on the occult
sciences which has recently appeared; but notwithstanding the ingenuity
and learning which it displays, the individual facts are too scanty to
support the speculations of the author, and the descriptions are too
meagre to satisfy the curiosity of the reader.[1]
[1] We must caution the young reader against some of the views given
in M. Salverte’s work. In his anxiety to account for everything
miraculous by natural causes, he has ascribed to the same origin some
of these events in sacred history which Christians cannot but regard
as the result of divine agency.
In the following letters I propose to take a wider range, and to enter
into more minute and popular details. The principal phenomena of
nature, and the leading combinations of arts, which bear the impress of
a supernatural character, will pass under our review, and our attention
will be particularly called to those singular illusions of sense, by
which the most perfect organs either cease to perform their functions,
or perform them faithlessly; and where the efforts and the creations of
the mind predominate over the direct perceptions of external nature.
In executing this plan, the task of selection is rendered extremely
difficult by the superabundance of materials, as well as from the
variety of judgments for which these materials must be prepared. Modern
science may be regarded as one vast miracle, whether we view it in
relation to the Almighty Being by whom its objects and its laws were
formed, or to the feeble intellect of man, by which its depths have
been sounded, and its mysteries explored; and if the philosopher who is
familiarized with its wonders, and who has studied them as necessary
results of general laws, never ceases to admire and adore their Author,
how great should be their effect upon less gifted minds, who must ever
view them in the light of inexplicable prodigies!--Man has in all ages
sought for a sign from heaven, and yet he has been habitually blind to
the millions of wonders with which he is surrounded. If the following
pages should contribute to abate this deplorable indifference to all
that is grand and sublime in the universe, and if they should inspire
the reader with a portion of that enthusiasm of love and gratitude
which can alone prepare the mind for its final triumph, the labours of
the author will not have been wholly fruitless.