[Letters on Natural Magic, addressed to Sir Walter Scott, Bart., by Sir
David Brewster. Murray’s Family Library. London, 1832. Price 5_s._]
Natural Magic is the name given to those combinations of natural
agencies, which, by the illusion or surprise which they produce, seem to
us to possess supernatural power. Nor is the name an inappropriate one,
though somewhat strange in sound. Magic, in the ordinary sense of the
word, that is, supernatural power in human hands, exists only in the
imagination; it is not a thing which has ever really been; it is a mere
fancy, the offspring of ignorance and superstition, and nothing more.
But if we can actually produce, by natural means, the same effects which
the believers in magic say are to be achieved by the aid of spirits or
other supernatural agents, we have a right to give the name of magic
also to the art by which we do this--adding the epithet natural, to
intimate that it is only the products of the magician’s trickery which
are imitated, and not his pretended mode of operation. If the impostor
who professes to raise a spectre by a charm or incantation, calls the
deception a piece of magic, the philosopher who does the same thing by
an ingenious arrangement of mirrors, is still entitled to give it the
same name.
On this subject Sir David Brewster has here produced a learned,
instructive, and amusing work. The only regret or disappointment that
the reader feels is on account of the parts of the subject which are
only alluded to or slightly touched upon. The examples of the wonders of
science given in the present volume are only a selection from a much
more abundant store of materials of the same kind. It is a selection,
however, very judiciously made, and so as, if not to exhaust the
subject, yet to present a view, more or less full, of each of its
principal departments. First we have the illusions which affect us
through the eye very largely treated of. The appearance of spectres to a
brain or nervous system in a diseased or extraordinarily excited
state,--the case of persons who are insensible to particular
colours,--the tricks of the necromancers with concave mirrors,--the
magic lantern and phantasmagoria,--the spectre of the Brocken, and the
Fata Morgana,--are included, among many other things, under this head.
The illusions depending on the ear, including the modern exhibition of
the invisible girl, ventriloquism, the effects produced by the voice on
glasses, the phenomena of echoes, &c. are considered in several of the
following chapters. Then come two highly interesting chapters on
mechanical feats and contrivances--such as remarkable exertions of
strength, the automata of the ancients, Degennes’s mechanical peacock,
Vaucanson’s duck, which ate and digested its food, Baron Kempelen’s
famous automaton chess-player, Duncan’s tambouring machine, Babbage’s
calculating engine, &c. Lastly, the volume closes with a rapid survey of
several of the most remarkable wonders of Chemistry. The art of
breathing fire, that of walking upon red-hot iron, Aldini’s
incombustible dresses, the spontaneous combustion of human beings, the
effects of the nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, and the very curious
subject of certain elastic gases which the author himself has discovered
in the cavities of gems, are some of the topics among which the reader
is led on through this department.
What we have stated is enough to show what a fund both of amusement and
of philosophy the book is. It is an excellent work for a mechanic’s or
village library.
The following is, we think, the most extraordinary of all the author’s
statements. The work, it is to be recollected, is addressed in the form
of letters to Sir Walter Scott:--
One of the most remarkable and inexplicable experiments relative to the
strength of the human frame, which you have yourself seen and admired,
is that in which a heavy man is raised with the greatest facility, when
he is lifted up the instant that his own lungs and those of the persons
who raise him are inflated with air. This experiment was, I believe,
first shown in England a few years ago by Major H., who saw it performed
in a large party at Venice under the direction of an officer of the
American Navy. As Major H. performed it more than once in my presence, I
shall describe as nearly as possible the method which he prescribed. The
heaviest person in the party lies down upon two chairs, his legs being
supported by the one and his back by the other. Four persons, one at
each leg, and one at each shoulder, then try to raise him, and they find
his dead weight to be very great, from the difficulty they experience in
supporting him. When he is replaced in the chair, each of the four
persons takes hold of the body as before, and the person to be lifted
gives two signals by clapping his hands. At the first signal he himself
and the four lifters begin to draw a long and full breath, and when the
inhalation is completed, or the lungs filled, the second signal is given
for raising the person from the chair. To his own surprise and that of
his bearers, he rises with the greatest facility, as if he were no
heavier than a feather. On several occasions I have observed that when
one of the bearers performs his part ill, by making the inhalation out
of time, the part of the body which he tries to raise is left as it were
behind. As you have repeatedly seen this experiment, and have performed
the part both of the load and of the bearer, you can testify how
remarkable the effects appear to all parties, and how complete is the
conviction, either that the load has been lightened, or the bearer
strengthened by the prescribed process.
At Venice the experiment was performed in a much more imposing manner.
The heaviest man in the party was raised and sustained upon the points
of the fore fingers of six persons. Major H. declared that the
experiment would not succeed if the person lifted were placed upon a
board. He conceived it necessary that the bearers should communicate
directly with the body to be raised. I have not had an opportunity of
making any experiments relative to these curious facts; but whether the
general effect is an illusion, or the result of known or of new
principles, the subject merits a careful investigation.
Amongst the descriptions of mechanism calculated to excite popular
curiosity, the following is very striking:--
One of the most popular pieces of mechanism which we have seen is the
magician, constructed by M. Maillardet, for the purpose of answering
certain given questions. A figure, dressed like a magician, appears
seated at the bottom of a wall, holding a wand in one hand, and a book
in the other. A number of questions ready prepared are inscribed on oval
medallions, and the spectator takes any of these which he chooses, and
to which he wishes an answer, and having placed it in a drawer ready to
receive it, the drawer shuts with a spring till the answer is returned.
The magician then rises from his seat, bows his head, describes circles
with his wand, and consulting the book as if in deep thought, he lifts
it towards his face. Having thus appeared to ponder over the proposed
question, he raises his wand, and, striking with it the wall above his
head, two folding doors fly open, and display an appropriate answer to
the question. The doors again close, the magician resumes his original
position, and the drawer opens to return the medallion. There are twenty
of these medallions, all containing different questions, to which the
magician returns the most suitable and striking answers. The medallions
are thin plates of brass of an elliptical form, exactly resembling each
other. Some of the medallions have a question inscribed on each side,
both of which the magician answers in succession. If the drawer is shut
without a medallion being put into it, the magician rises, consults his
book, shakes his head, and resumes his seat. The folding-doors remain
shut, and the drawer is returned empty. If two medallions are put into
the drawer together, an answer is returned only to the lower one. When
the machinery is wound up, the movements continue about an hour, during
which time about fifty questions may be answered. The inventor stated,
that the means by which the different medallions acted upon the
machinery, so as to produce the proper answers to the questions which
they contained, were extremely simple.
We give, in conclusion, the author’s very just observations on the
ultimate effect of inventions which at first sight appear to have no
really useful object:--
Ingenious and beautiful as all these pieces of mechanism are, and
surprising as their effects appear even to scientific spectators, the
principal object of their inventors was to astonish and amuse the
public. We should form an erroneous judgment, however, if we supposed
that this was the only result of the ingenuity which they displayed. The
passion for automatic exhibitions which characterized the eighteenth
century, gave rise to the most ingenious mechanical devices, and
introduced among the higher orders of artists habits of nice and
accurate execution in the formation of the most delicate pieces of
machinery. The same combination of the mechanical powers which made the
spider crawl, or which waved the tiny rod of the magician, contributed
in future years to purposes of higher import. Those wheels and pinions,
which almost eluded our senses by their minuteness, reappeared in the
stupendous mechanism of our spinning-machines, and our steam-engines.
The elements of the tumbling puppet were revived in the chronometer,
which now conducts our navy through the ocean; and the shapeless wheel
which directed the hand of the drawing automaton has served in the
present age to guide the movements of the tambourine engine. Those
mechanical wonders which in one century enriched only the conjuror who
used them, contributed in another to augment the wealth of the nation;
and those automatic toys which once amused the vulgar, are now employed
in extending the power and promoting the civilization of our species. In
whatever way, indeed the power of genius may invent or combine, and to
whatever low or even ludicrous purposes that invention or combination
may be originally applied, society receives a gift which it can never
lose; and though the value of the seed may not be at once recognized,
and though it may lie long unproductive in the ungenial soil of human
knowledge, it will some time or other evolve its germ, and yield to
mankind its natural and abundant harvest.
---------------------