illustrious person; in which the poet promises him great honours,
advantages, successes, victories, &c. by a kind of prophecy or
prediction. Such, for instance, is the eclogue of Virgil to Pollio,
beginning
_Sicelides Musæ, paulo majora Canamus._
There are also _Genethliac_ speeches or orations, made to celebrate a
person’s birth day.
_Barclay’s Refutation of Astrology._
Astrological superstition, it is said, transcended from the Chaldeans,
who transmitted it to the Egyptians, from whom the Greeks derived it,
whence it passed to the Romans, who, doubtless, were the first to
disseminate it over Europe, though some will have it to be of Egyptian
origin, and ascribe the invention to CHAM; but it is to the Arabs that
we owe it. At Rome, the people were so infatuated with it, the
Astrologers, or, as they are called, the mathematicians, maintained
their ground in spite of all the edicts to expel them out of the
city[11].
The Brahmins introduced and practised this art among the Indians, and
thereby constituted themselves the arbiters of good and evil hours,
which gives them vast authority, and in consequence of this
supererogation, they are consulted as Oracles, and take good care they
never sell their answers but at a good price.
The same superstition, as we have already shewn, has prevailed in more
modern ages and nations. The French historians remark, that, in the time
of Queen Catherine of Medicis, Astrology was in so great repute, that
the most inconsiderable thing was not undertaken or done without
consulting the stars. And in the reigns of king Henry III. and IV. of
France, the predictions of Astrologers were the common theme of the
court conversation.
This predominant humour in the French court was well rallied by Barclay
in his Argenis, lib. ii, on account of an Astrologer who had undertaken
to instruct king Henry in the event of a war then threatened by the
faction of the Guises.
“You maintain,” says Barclay, “that the circumstances of life and death
depend on the place and influence of the celestial bodies, at the time
when the child first comes to light; and yet you own, that the heavens
revolve with such vast rapidity that the situation of the stars is
considerably changed in the least moment of time. What certainty then
can be in your art, unless you suppose the midwives constantly careful
to observe the clock, that the minute of time may be conveyed to the
infant, as we do his patrimony? How often does the mother’s danger
prevent this care? And how many are there who are not touched with this
superstition? But suppose them watchful to your wish; if the child be
long in delivery; if, as is often the case, a hand or the head come
first, and be not immediately followed by the rest of the body; which
state of the stars is to determine for him; that, when the head made its
appearance, or when the whole body was disengaged? I say nothing of the
common errors of clocks, and other time-keepers, sufficient to elude all
your cares.
“Again, why are we to regard only the stars at his nativity, and not
those rather which shone when the fœtus was animated in the womb? and
why must those others be excluded, which presided while the body
remained tender, and susceptible of the weakest impression, during
gestation?
“But setting this aside, and supposing, withal, the face of the heavens
accurately known, whence arises this dominion of the stars over our
bodies and minds, that they must be the arbiters of our happiness, our
manner of life, and death? Were all those who went to battle, and died
together, born under the same position of the heavens? and when a ship
is to be cast away, shall it admit no passengers but those doomed by the
stars to suffer shipwreck? or rather, do not persons born under every
planet go into the combat, or aboard the vessel; and thus,
notwithstanding the disparity of their birth, perish alike? Again, all
who were born under the same configuration of the stars do not live or
die in the same manner. All, who were born at the same time with the
king, monarchs? Or are all even alive at this day? I saw M. Villeroy
here; nay, I saw yourself: were all that came into the world with him as
wise and virtuous as he; or all born under your own stars, astrologers
like you? If a man meet a robber, you will say he was doomed to perish
by a robber’s hand; but did the same stars, which, when the traveller
was born, subjected him to the robber’s sword, did they likewise give
the robber, who perhaps was born long before, a power and inclination to
kill him? For you will allow that it is as much owing to the stars that
the one kills, as that the other is killed. And when a man is
overwhelmed by the fall of a house, did the walls become faulty, because
the stars had doomed him to perish thereby; or rather, was his death not
owing to this, that the walls were faulty? The same may be said with
regard to honours or employ: because the stars which shone at a man’s
nativity, promised him preferment; could those have an influence over
other persons not born under them, by whose suffrages he was to rise? or
how do the stars at one man’s birth annul, or set aside, the contrary
influences of other stars, which shone at the birth of another?
“The truth is, supposing the reality of all the planetary powers; as the
sun which visits an infinity of bodies with the same rays, has not the
same effect on all, as some things are hardened thereby, as clay; others
softened, as wax; some seeds cherished, others destroyed; the tender
herbs scorched up, others secured by their coarser juice: so, where so
many children are born together, like a field tilled so many different
ways, according to the various health, habitude, and temperament of the
parents, the same celestial influx must operate differently. If the
genius be suitable and towardly, it must predominate therein: if
contrary, it will only correct it. So that to foretel the life and
manners of a child, you are not only to look into the heavens, but into
the parents, into the fortune which attended the pregnant mother, and a
thousand other circumstances utterly inaccessible.
“Further, does the power that portends the new-born infant a life, for
instance of forty years; or perhaps a violent death at thirty; does that
power I say, endure and reside still in the heavens, waiting the
destined time, when, descending upon earth, it may produce such an
effect? Or is it infused into the infant himself; so that being
cherished, and gradually growing up together with him, it bursts forth
at the appointed time, and fulfils what the stars had given it in
charge? Exist in the heavens it cannot; in that depending immediately on
a certain configuration of the stars; when that is changed the effect
connected with it must cease, and a new, perhaps a contrary one, takes
place. What repository have you for the former power to remain in, till
the time comes for its delivery? If you say it inherits or resides in
the infant, not to operate on him till he be grown to manhood; the
answer is more preposterous than the former; for this, in the instance
of a shipwreck, you must suppose the cause why the winds arise, and the
ship is leaky, or the pilot, through ignorance of the place, runs on a
shoal or a rock. So the farmer is the cause of the war that impoverishes
him; or of the favourable season, which brings him a plenteous harvest.
“You boast much of the event of a few predictions, which, considering
the multitude of those your art has produced, plainly confess its
impertinency. A million of deceptions are industriously hidden and
forgot, in favour of some eight or ten things which have succeeded[12].
Out of so many conjectures, it must be preternatural if some do not hit;
and it is certain, that, by considering you only as guessers, there is
no room to boast you have been successful therein. Do you know what fate
awaits France in this war; and yet are not apprehensive what shall befal
yourself? Did you not foresee the opposition I was this day to make you?
If you can say whether the king will vanquish his enemies, find out
first whether he will believe you.
DES CARTES and AGRIPPA, as they inveigh much against some other
sciences, especially Agrippa, so the latter of them does not favour or
spare astronomy, but particularly astrology, which he says, is an art
altogether fallacious, and that all vanities and superstitions flow out
of the bosom of astrology, their whole foundation being upon
conjectures, and comparing future occurrences by past events, which they
have no pretence for, since they allow that the heavens never have been,
nor ever will be, in one exact position since the world commenced, and
yet they borrow the effects and influence of the stars from the most
remote ages in the world, beyond the memory of things, pretending
themselves able to display the hidden natures, qualities, &c. of all
sorts of animals, stones, metals, and plants, and to shew how the same
does depend on the skies, and flow from the stars. Still Eudoxus,
Archelaus, Cassandrus, Halicarnassus, and others, confess it is
impossible, that any thing of certainty should be discovered by the art
of judicial astrology, in consequence of the innumerable co-operating
causes that attend the heavenly influences; and Ptolemy is also of this
opinion. In like manner those who have prescribed the rules of
judgments, set down their maxims so various and contradictory, that it
is impossible for a prognosticator out of so many various and
disagreeable opinions, to be able to pronounce any thing certain, unless
he is inwardly inspired with some hidden instinct and sense of future
things, or unless by some occult and latent communication with the
devil. And antiquity witnesseth that Zoroaster, Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar,
Cæsar, Crassus, Pompey, Diatharus, Nero, Julian the Apostate, and
several others most addicted to astrologers’ predictions, perished
unfortunately, though they were promised all things favourable and
auspicious. And who can believe that any person happily placed under
Mars, being in the ninth, shall be able to cast out devils by his
presence only; or he who hath Saturn happily constituted with Leo at his
nativity, shall, when he departs this life, immediately return to
heaven, yet are the heresies maintained by Petrus Aponensis, Roger
Bacon, Guido, Bonatus, Arnoldus de Villanova, philosophers; Aliacensis,
cardinal and divine, and many other famous Christian doctors, against
which astrologers the most learned Picus Mirandola wrote twelve books,
so fully as scarcely one argument is omitted against it, and gave the
death blow to astrology! Amongst the ancient Romans it was prohibited,
and most of the holy fathers condemned, and utterly banished it out of
the territories of Christianity, and in the synod of Martinus it was
anathematized. As to the predictions of Thales, who is said to have
foretold a scarcity of olives and a dearth of oil, so commonly avouched
by astrologers to maintain the glory of their science, Des Cartes
answers with an easy reason and probable truth, that Thales being a
great natural philosopher, and thereby well acquainted with the virtue
of water, (which he maintained was the principle of all things,) he
could not be ignorant of the fruits that stood the most in need of
moisture, and how much they were beholden to rain for their growth,
which then being wanting, he might easily know there would be a scarcity
without the help of astrology; yet if they will have it that Thales
foreknew it only by the science of this art, why are not others who
pretend to be so well skilled in its precepts, as able to have the same
opportunities of enriching themselves? As for the foretelling the deaths
of emperors and others, it was but conjectures, knowing most of them to
be tyrants, and hated, and thereupon would they pretend to promise to
others the empires and dignities, which sometimes spurring up ambitious
minds, they neglected no attempts to gain the crown, the astrologers
thereby occasioning murders, add advancements by secret instructions,
rather than by any rules of art, which they publicly pretended to, to
gloss their actions and advance the honour of their conjecturing
science: by the same manner might Ascletarion have foretold the death of
Domitian, and as for himself being torn to pieces by dogs, it was but a
mere guess, for astrologers do not extend their predictions beyond
death, and therefore he did not suppose his body would be torn to pieces
after his death, as it proved, but alive as a punishment for his
boldness in foretelling the death of the emperor, which being a common
punishment, had it proved so, it had been by probability from custom,
but not of the rules of astrology.—_See_ BLOME’s _Body of Philosophy_,
pt. iii. chap. 14, _in the history of Nature_.
ON THE ORIGIN AND IMAGINARY EFFICACY OF
AMULETS & CHARMS,
_In the Cure of Diseases, Protection from Evil Spirits, &c._
Amulets are certain substances to which the peculiar virtue of curing,
removing, or preventing diseases, was attached by the superstitious and
credulous; for which purpose they were usually worn about the neck or
other parts of the body. The council of Laodicea prohibited
ecclesiastics from wearing amulets and phylacteries, under pain of
degradation. St. Chrysostome and Jerome were likewise zealous against
the same practice. “Hoc apud nos,” says the latter, “superstitiosæ
mulierculæ in parvulis evangeliis, et in crucis ligno, et istiusmodi
rebus, quæ habent quidam zelum Dei, sed non juxta scientiam usque hodie
factitant.”—_Vide Kirch. Oedip. Egypt._
At the present day, although by no means entirely extinct, amulets have
fallen into disrepute; the learned Boyle nevertheless considered them as
an instance of the ingress of external effluvia into the habit, in order
to shew the great porosity of the human body. He moreover adds, that he
is persuaded “some of these external medicaments do answer;” for that he
was himself subject to a bleeding from the nose; and being obliged to
use several remedies to check this discharge, he found the moss of a
dead man’s skull, though only applied so as to touch the skin until the
moss became warm from being in contact with it, to be the most
efficacious remedy. A remarkable instance of this nature was
communicated to Zwelfer, by the chief physician to the states of
Moravia, who, having prepared some troches, or lozenges of toads, after
the manner of Van Helmont, not only found that being worn, as amulets,
they preserved him, his domestics, and friends, from the plague, but
when applied to the carbuncles or buboes, a consequence of this disease,
in others, they found themselves greatly relieved, and many even saved
by them. Mr. Boyle also shews how the effluvia, even of cold amulets,
may, in the course of time, pervade the pores of the living animal, by
supposing an agreement between the pores of the skin and the figure of
the corpuscules. Bellini has demonstrated the possibility of this
occurrence, in his last proposition _de febribus_; the same has also
been shewn by Dr. Wainwright, Dr. Keil, and others. There were also
verbal or lettered charms, which were frequently sung or chaunted, and
to which a greater degree of efficacy was ascribed; and a belief in the
curative powers of music has even extended to later times. In the last
century, Orazio Benevoli composed a mass for the cessation of the plague
at Rome. It was performed in St. Peter’s church, of which he was
_maestro di capella_, and the singers, amounting to more than two
hundred, were arranged in different circles of the dome; the sixth choir
occupying the summit of the cupola.
The origin of amulets may be traced to the most remote ages of mankind.
In our researches to discover and fix the period when remedies were
first employed for the alleviation of bodily suffering, we are soon lost
in conjecture, or involved in fable; we are unable to reach the period
in any country, when the inhabitants were destitute of medical
resources, and we find among the most uncultivated tribes, that medicine
is cherished as a blessing, and practised as an art, as by the
inhabitants of New Holland and New Zealand, by those of Lapland and
Greenland, of North America and the interior of Africa. The personal
feelings of the sufferer, and the anxiety of those about him, must, in
the rudest state of society, have incited a spirit of industry and
research to procure alleviation, the modification of heat and cold, of
moisture and dryness; and the regulation and change of diet and habit,
must intuitively have suggested themselves for the relief of pain, and
when these resources failed, charms, amulets, and incantations, were the
natural expedients of the barbarians, ever more inclined to indulge the
delusive hope of superstition than to listen to the voice of sober
reason. Traces of amulets may be discovered in very early history. The
learned Dr. Warburton is evidently wrong, when he assigns the origin of
these magical instruments to the age of the Ptolemies, which was not
more than 300 years before Christ; this is at once refuted by the
testimony of Galen, who tells us that the Egyptian king, Nechepsus, who
lived 630 years before the Christian era, had written, that a green
jasper cut into the form of a dragon surrounded with rays, if applied
externally, would strengthen the stomach and organs of digestion. We
have moreover the authority of the Scriptures in support of this
opinion: for what were the ear-rings which Jacob buried under the oak of
Sechem, as related in Genesis, but amulets? and we are informed by
Josephus, in his Antiquities of the Jews, (_lib._ viii. _c._ 2, 5,) that
Solomon discovered a plant efficacious in the cure of epilepsy, and that
he employed the aid of a charm or spell for the purpose of assisting its
virtues; the root of the herb was concealed in a ring[13], which was
applied to the nostrils of the demoniac; and Josephus himself remarks,
that he himself saw a Jewish priest practise the art of Solomon with
complete success in the presence of Vespasian, his sons, and the
tribunes of the Roman army. Nor were such means confined to dark and
barbarous ages; Theophrastus pronounced Pericles to be insane, because
he discovered that he wore an amulet about his neck; and in the
declining era of the Roman empire, we find that this superstitious
custom was so general, that the Emperor Caracalla was induced to make a
public edict, ordaining, that no man should wear any superstitious
amulets about his person.
In the progress of civilization, various fortuitous incidents[14], and
even errors in the choice and preparation of aliments, must gradually
have unfolded the remedial powers of many natural substances: these were
recorded, and the authentic history of medicine may date its
commencement from the period when such records began.
We are told by Herodotus, that the Chaldeans and Babylonians carried
their sick to the public roads and markets, that travellers might
converse with them, and communicate any remedies which had been
successfully used in similar cases; this custom continued during many
ages in Assyria: Strabo states that it also prevailed among the ancient
Lusitanians, or Portuguese: in this manner, however, the results of
experience descended only by oral tradition. It was in the temple of
Æsculapius in Greece, that medical information was first recorded;
diseases and cures were then registered on durable tablets of marble;
the priests and priestesses, who were the guardians of the temple,
prepared the remedies and directed their application; and as these
persons were ambitious to pass for the descendants of Æsculapius, they
assumed the name of the Asclepiades. The writings of Pausanias,
Philostratus, and Plutarch, abound with the artifices of those early
physicians. Aristophanes describes in a truly comic manner, the craft
and pious avarice of these godly men, and mentions the dexterity and
promptitude with which they collected and put into bags the offerings on
the altar. The patients, during this period, reposed on the skins of
sacrificed rams, in order that they might procure celestial visions. As
soon as they were believed to be asleep, a priest, clothed in the dress
of Æsculapius, imitating his manners, and accompanied by the daughters
of the God, that is, by young actresses, thoroughly instructed in their
parts, entered and delivered a medical opinion.
_Definition of Amulets, &c._
All remedies working as it were sympathetically, and plainly unequal to
the effect, may be termed Amulets; whether used at a distance by another
person, or immediately about the patient: of these various are related.
By the Jews, they were called _Kamea_; by the Greeks, _Phylacteries_, as
already mentioned; and by the Latins, _Amuleta_ or _Ligatura_; by the
Catholics, _Agnus Dei_, or consecrated relicts, and by the natives of
Guinea, where they are still held in great veneration, _Fetishes_.
Different kinds of materials by these different people, have been
venerated and supposed capable of preserving from danger and infection,
as well as to remove diseases when actually present.
Plutarch relates of Pericles, an Athenian general, that when a friend
came to see him, and inquiring after his health, he reached out his hand
and shewed him his Amulet; by which he meant to intimate the truth of
his illness, and, at the same time, the confidence he placed in these
ordinary remedies.
Amulets still continue among us to the present day, indeed there are few
instances of ancient superstition some parcel of which has not been
preserved, and not unfrequently they have been adapted by men of
otherwise good understanding, who plead in excuse, that they are not
nauseous, cost little, and if they can do no good they can do no harm.
Lord Bacon, whom no one can suspect of being an ignorant man, says, that
if a man wear a bone ring or a planet seal, strongly believing, by that
means, that he might obtain his mistress, or that it would preserve him
unhurt at sea, or in battle, it would probably make him more active and
less timid; as the audacity they might inspire would conquer and bind
weaker minds in the execution of a perilous duty.