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diff --git a/old/1271-8.txt b/old/1271-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..498115d --- /dev/null +++ b/old/1271-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6165 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Bygone Beliefs, by H. Stanley Redgrove + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Bygone Beliefs + +Author: H. Stanley Redgrove + +Posting Date: August 15, 2008 [EBook #1271] +Release Date: [Updated edition of: etext98/byblf11.txt; byblf11.zip] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BYGONE BELIEFS *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Keller + + + + + +BYGONE BELIEFS BEING A SERIES OF EXCURSIONS IN THE BYWAYS OF THOUGHT + +By H. Stanley Redgrove + + + _Alle Erfahrung ist Magic, und nur magisch erklarbar_. + NOVALIS (Friedrich von Hardenberg). + + Everything possible to be believ'd is an image of truth. + WILLIAM BLAKE. + + +TO MY WIFE + + +Transcriber's Note: + + <.> = coordinate covalent bond. + <#s> = subscripted #. + <#S> = superscripted #. + {} mark non-ascii characters. + "Emphasis" _italics_ have a * mark. + @@@ marks a reference to internal page numbers. + Comments and guessed at characters in {braces} need stripped/fixed. + Footnotes have not been re-numbered, however, (#) are moved to EOParagraph. + The footnotes that have duplicate numbers across 2 pages are "a" and "b". + "Protected" indentations have a space before the [Tab]. + EOL - have been converted to ([Soft Hyphen]). + Greek letters are encoded in <gr > brackets, and the letters are + based on Adobe's Symbol font. + Hebrew letters are encoded in <hb > brackets. + + + + +PREFACE + +THESE Excursions in the Byways of Thought were undertaken at different +times and on different occasions; consequently, the reader may be able +to detect in them inequalities of treatment. He may feel that I have +lingered too long in some byways and hurried too rapidly through others, +taking, as it were, but a general view of the road in the latter case, +whilst examining everything that could be seen in the former with, +perhaps, undue care. As a matter of fact, how ever, all these excursions +have been undertaken with one and the same object in view, that, namely, +of understanding aright and appreciating at their true worth some of the +more curious byways along which human thought has travelled. It is easy +for the superficial thinker to dismiss much of the thought of the past +(and, indeed, of the present) as _mere_ superstition, not worth the +trouble of investigation: but it is not scientific. There is a reason +for every belief, even the most fantastic, and it should be our object +to discover this reason. How far, if at all, the reason in any case +justifies us in holding a similar belief is, of course, another +question. Some of the beliefs I have dealt with I have treated at +greater length than others, because it seems to me that the truths of +which they are the images--vague and distorted in many cases though they +be--are truths which we have either forgotten nowadays, or are in danger +of forgetting. We moderns may, indeed, learn something from the thought +of the past, even in its most fantastic aspects. In one excursion at +least, namely, the essay on "The Cambridge Platonists," I have ventured +to deal with a higher phase--perhaps I should say the highest phase--of +the thought of a bygone age, to which the modern world may be completely +debtor. + +"Some Characteristics of Mediaeval Thought," and the two essays on +Alchemy, have appeared in _The Journal of the Alchemical Society_. +In others I have utilised material I have contributed to _The Occult +Review_, to the editor of which journal my thanks are due for permission +so to do. I have also to express my gratitude to the Rev. A. H. COLLINS, +and others to be referred to in due course, for permission here to +reproduce illustrations of which they are the copyright holders. I have +further to offer my hearty thanks to Mr B. R. ROWBOTTOM and my wife for +valuable assistance in reading the proofs. H. S. R. + +BLETCHLEY, BUCKS, _December_ 1919. + + + +CONTENTS PAGE + + PREFACE........................... ix + LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.................... xiii + 1. SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF MEDIAEVAL THOUGHT......... 1 + 2. PYTHAGORAS AND HIS PHILOSOPHY............... 8 + 3. MEDICINE AND MAGIC..................... 25 + 4. SUPERSTITIONS CONCERNING BIRDS .............. 34 + 5. THE POWDER OF SYMPATHY: A CURIOUS MEDICAL SUPERSTITION.. 47 + 6. THE BELIEF IN TALISMANS.................. 57 + 7. CEREMONIAL MAGIC IN THEORY AND PRACTICE.......... 87 + 8. ARCHITECTURAL SYMBOLISM..................111 + 9. THE QUEST OF THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE............121 + 10. THE PHALLIC ELEMENT IN ALCHEMICAL DOCTRINE.........149 + 11. ROGER BACON: AN APPRECIATION...............183 + 12. THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS..................193 + + +{the LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS are incomplete and raw OCR output!} + + PAGE 46. Symbolic Alchemical Design from Mutus Liber (1677). + PLATE: 25, to face p.176 + 47. Symbolic Alchemical Design illustrating the Work of Woman, + from MAIER's Atalanta Fugiens...,, 26,,, 178 + 48. Symbolic Alchemica Design, Hermaphrodite, + from MAIER's Atalanta Fugiens..,, 27,,, 180 + 49. ROGER BACON presenting a Book to a King, from a Fifteenth Century + Miniature in the Bodleian Library, Oxford...,, 28,,, 184 + 50. ROGER BACON, from a Portrait in Knole Castle..,, 29,,, 188 + 51. BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE, from an engraved Portrait + by ROBERT WHITE....30...194 + 52. HENRY MORE, from a Portrait by DAVID LOGGAN, engraved ad vivum, 1679 + ...,, 31,,, 198 + 53. RALPH CUDWORTH, from an engraved Portrait by VERTUE, after LOGGAN, + forming the Frontispiece to CUDWORTH's Treatise Concerning Morality + (1731) ,, 32,,, 3~ + + + + +BYGONE BELIEFS + + + + +I. SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF MEDAEVAL THOUGHT + +IN the earliest days of his upward evolution man was satisfied with +a very crude explanation of natural phenomena--that to which the name +"animism" has been given. In this stage of mental development all the +various forces of Nature are personified: the rushing torrent, the +devastating fire, the wind rustling the forest leaves--in the mind of +the animistic savage all these are personalities, spirits, like himself, +but animated by motives more or less antagonistic to him. + +I suppose that no possible exception could be taken to the statement +that modern science renders animism impossible. But let us inquire +in exactly what sense this is true. It is not true that science robs +natural phenomena of their spiritual significance. The mistake is often +made of supposing that science explains, or endeavours to explain, +phenomena. But that is the business of philosophy. The task science +attempts is the simpler one of the correlation of natural phenomena, and +in this effort leaves the ultimate problems of metaphysics untouched. A +universe, however, whose phenomena are not only capable of some degree +of correlation, but present the extraordinary degree of harmony and +unity which science makes manifest in Nature, cannot be, as in animism, +the product of a vast number of inco-ordinated and antagonistic wills, +but must either be the product of one Will, or not the product of will +at all. + +The latter alternative means that the Cosmos is inexplicable, which not +only man's growing experience, but the fact that man and the +universe form essentially a unity, forbid us to believe. The term +"anthropomorphic" is too easily applied to philosophical systems, as if +it constituted a criticism of their validity. For if it be true, as +all must admit, that the unknown can only be explained in terms of +the known, then the universe must either be explained in terms of +man--_i.e_. in terms of will or desire--or remain incomprehensible. That +is to say, a philosophy must either be anthropomorphic, or no philosophy +at all. + +Thus a metaphysical scrutiny of the results of modern science leads us +to a belief in God. But man felt the need of unity, and crude animism, +though a step in the right direction, failed to satisfy his thought, +long before the days of modern science. The spirits of animism, however, +were not discarded, but were modified, co-ordinated, and worked into a +system as servants of the Most High. Polytheism may mark a stage in this +process; or, perhaps, it was a result of mental degeneracy. + +What I may term systematised as distinguished from crude animism +persisted throughout the Middle Ages. The work of systematisation had +already been accomplished, to a large extent, by the Neo-Platonists +and whoever were responsible for the Kabala. It is true that these main +sources of magical or animistic philosophy remained hidden during the +greater part of the Middle Ages; but at about their close the youthful +and enthusiastic CORNELIUS AGRIPPA (1486-1535)(1) slaked his thirst +thereat and produced his own attempt at the systematisation of magical +belief in the famous _Three Books of Occult Philosophy_. But the waters +of magical philosophy reached the mediaeval mind through various devious +channels, traditional on the one hand and literary on the other. And of +the latter, the works of pseudo-DIONYSIUS,(2) whose immense influence +upon mediaeval thought has sometimes been neglected, must certainly be +noted. + + +(1) The story of his life has been admirably told by HENRY MORLEY (2 +vols., 1856). + +(2) These writings were first heard of in the early part of the sixth +century, and were probably the work of a Syrian monk of that date, who +fathered them on to DIONYSIUS the Areopagite as a pious fraud. See Dean +INGE'S _Christian Mysticism_ (1899), pp. 104--122, and VAUGHAN'S _Hours +with the Mystics_ (7th ed., 1895), vol. i. pp. 111-124. The books have +been translated into English by the Rev. JOHN PARKER (2 vols.1897-1899), +who believes in the genuineness of their alleged authorship. + + +The most obvious example of a mediaeval animistic belief is that in +"elementals"--the spirits which personify the primordial forces of +Nature, and are symbolised by the four elements, immanent in which they +were supposed to exist, and through which they were held to manifest +their powers. And astrology, it must be remembered, is essentially a +systematised animism. The stars, to the ancients, were not material +bodies like the earth, but spiritual beings. PLATO (427-347 B.C.) speaks +of them as "gods". Mediaeval thought did not regard them in quite this +way. But for those who believed in astrology, and few, I think, did +not, the stars were still symbols of spiritual forces operative on man. +Evidences of the wide extent of astrological belief in those days are +abundant, many instances of which we shall doubtless encounter in our +excursions. + +It has been said that the theological and philosophical atmosphere of +the Middle Ages was "scholastic," not mystical. No doubt "mysticism," as +a mode of life aiming at the realisation of the presence of God, is +as distinct from scholasticism as empiricism is from rationalism, +or "tough-minded" philosophy (to use JAMES' happy phrase) is from +"tender-minded". But no philosophy can be absolutely and purely +deductive. It must start from certain empirically determined facts. A +man might be an extreme empiricist in religion (_i.e_. a mystic), +and yet might attempt to deduce all other forms of knowledge from the +results of his religious experiences, never caring to gather experience +in any other realm. Hence the breach between mysticism and scholasticism +is not really so wide as may appear at first sight. Indeed, +scholasticism officially recognised three branches of theology, of which +the MYSTICAL was one. I think that mysticism and scholasticism both had +a profound influence on the mediaeval mind, sometimes acting as opposing +forces, sometimes operating harmoniously with one another. As Professor +WINDELBAND puts it: "We no longer onesidedly characterise the philosophy +of the middle ages as scholasticism, but rather place mysticism beside +it as of equal rank, and even as being the more fruitful and promising +movement."(1) + + +(1) Professor WILHELM WINDELBAND, Ph.D.: "Present-Day Mysticism," _The +Quest_, vol. iv. (1913), P. 205. + + +Alchemy, with its four Aristotelian or scholastic elements and its +three mystical principles--sulphur, mercury, salt,--must be cited as +the outstanding product of the combined influence of mysticism and +scholasticism: of mysticism, which postulated the unity of the Cosmos, +and hence taught that everything natural is the expressive image and +type of some supernatural reality; of scholasticism, which taught men +to rely upon deduction and to restrict experimentation to the smallest +possible limits. + +The mind naturally proceeds from the known, or from what is supposed to +be known, to the unknown. Indeed, as I have already indicated, it must +so proceed if truth is to be gained. Now what did the men of the Middle +Ages regard as falling into the category of the known? Why, surely, the +truths of revealed religion, whether accepted upon authority or upon +the evidence of their own experience. The realm of spiritual and moral +reality: there, they felt, they were on firm ground. Nature was a realm +unknown; but they had analogy to guide, or, rather, misguide them. +Nevertheless if, as we know, it misguided, this was not, I think, +because the mystical doctrine of the correspondence between the +spiritual and the natural is unsound, but because these ancient seekers +into Nature's secrets knew so little, and so frequently misapplied what +they did know. So alchemical philosophy arose and became systematised, +with its wonderful endeavour to perfect the base metals by the +Philosopher's Stone--the concentrated Essence of Nature,--as man's soul +is perfected through the life-giving power of JESUS CHRIST. + +I want, in conclusion to these brief introductory remarks, to say a +few words concerning phallicism in connection with my topic. For some +"tender-minded"(1) and, to my thought, obscure, reason the subject is +tabooed. Even the British Museum does not include works on phallicism +in its catalogue, and special permission has to be obtained to consult +them. Yet the subject is of vast importance as concerns the origin +and development of religion and philosophy, and the extent of phallic +worship may be gathered from the widespread occurrence of obelisks and +similar objects amongst ancient relics. Our own maypole dances may be +instanced as one survival of the ancient worship of the male generative +principle. + + +(1) I here use the term with the extended meaning Mr H. G. WELLS has +given to it. See _The New Machiavelli_. + + +What could be more easy to understand than that, when man first +questioned as to the creation of the earth, he should suppose it to have +been generated by some process analogous to that which he saw held in +the case of man? How else could he account for its origin, if knowledge +must proceed from the known to the unknown? No one questions at all +that the worship of the human generative organs as symbols of the dual +generative principle of Nature degenerated into orgies of the most +frightful character, but the view of Nature which thus degenerated is +not, I think, an altogether unsound one, and very interesting remnants +of it are to be found in mediaeval philosophy. + +These remnants are very marked in alchemy. The metals, as I have +suggested, are there regarded as types of man; hence they are +produced from seed, through the combination of male and female +principles--mercury and sulphur, which on the spiritual plane are +intelligence and love. The same is true of that Stone which is perfect +Man. As BERNARD of TREVISAN (1406-1490) wrote in the fifteenth century: +"This Stone then is compounded of a Body and Spirit, or of a volatile +and fixed Substance, and that is therefore done, because nothing in +the World can be generated and brought to light without these two +Substances, to wit, a Male and Female: From whence it appeareth, that +although these two Substances are not of one and the same species, yet +one Stone doth thence arise, and although they appear and are said to be +two Substances, yet in truth it is but one, to wit, _Argent-vive_."(1) +No doubt this sounds fantastic; but with all their seeming intellectual +follies these old thinkers were no fools. The fact of sex is the most +fundamental fact of the universe, and is a spiritual and physical as +well as a physiological fact. I shall deal with the subject as concerns +the speculations of the alchemists in some detail in a later excursion. + + +(1) BERNARD, Earl of TREVISAN: _A Treatise of the Philosopher's Stone_, +1683. (See _Collectanea Chymica: A Collection of Ten Several Treatises +in Chemistry_, 1684, p. 91.) + + + + +II. PYTHAGORAS AND HIS PHILOSOPHY + +IT is a matter for enduring regret that so little is known to us +concerning PYTHAGORAS. What little we do know serves but to enhance +for us the interest of the man and his philosophy, to make him, in many +ways, the most attractive of Greek thinkers; and, basing our estimate +on the extent of his influence on the thought of succeeding ages, we +recognise in him one of the world's master-minds. + +PYTHAGORAS was born about 582 B.C. at Samos, one of the Grecian isles. +In his youth he came in contact with THALES--the Father of Geometry, +as he is well called,--and though he did not become a member of THALES' +school, his contact with the latter no doubt helped to turn his mind +towards the study of geometry. This interest found the right ground for +its development in Egypt, which he visited when still young. Egypt is +generally regarded as the birthplace of geometry, the subject having, it +is supposed, been forced on the minds of the Egyptians by the necessity +of fixing the boundaries of lands against the annual overflowing of the +Nile. But the Egyptians were what is called an essentially practical +people, and their geometrical knowledge did not extend beyond a few +empirical rules useful for fixing these boundaries and in constructing +their temples. Striking evidence of this fact is supplied by the AHMES +papyrus, compiled some little time before 1700 B.C. from an older +work dating from about 3400 B.C.,(1) a papyrus which almost certainly +represents the highest mathematical knowledge reached by the Egyptians +of that day. Geometry is treated very superficially and as of subsidiary +interest to arithmetic; there is no ordered series of reasoned +geometrical propositions given--nothing, indeed, beyond isolated rules, +and of these some are wanting in accuracy. + + +(1) See AUGUST EISENLOHR: _Ein mathematisches Handbuch der alten +Aegypter_ (1877); J. Gow: _A Short History of Greek Mathematics_ (1884); +and V. E. JOHNSON: _Egyptian Science from the Monuments and Ancient +Books_ (1891). + + +One geometrical fact known to the Egyptians was that if a triangle be +constructed having its sides 3, 4, and 5 units long respectively, then +the angle opposite the longest side is exactly a right angle; and the +Egyptian builders used this rule for constructing walls perpendicular to +each other, employing a cord graduated in the required manner. The +Greek mind was not, however, satisfied with the bald statement of mere +facts--it cared little for practical applications, but sought above all +for the underlying REASON of everything. Nowadays we are beginning to +realise that the results achieved by this type of mind, the general laws +of Nature's behaviour formulated by its endeavours, are frequently +of immense practical importance--of far more importance than the mere +rules-of-thumb beyond which so-called practical minds never advance. +The classic example of the utility of seemingly useless knowledge is +afforded by Sir WILLIAM HAMILTON'S discovery, or, rather, invention of +Quarternions, but no better example of the utilitarian triumph of the +theoretical over the so-called practical mind can be adduced than that +afforded by PYTHAGORAS. Given this rule for constructing a right angle, +about whose reason the Egyptian who used it never bothered himself, and +the mind of PYTHAGORAS, searching for its full significance, made that +gigantic geometrical discovery which is to this day known as the Theorem +of PYTHAGORAS--the law that in every right-angled triangle the square +on the side opposite the right angle is equal in area to the sum of the +squares on the other two sides.(1) The importance of this discovery +can hardly be overestimated. It is of fundamental importance in most +branches of geometry, and the basis of the whole of trigonometry--the +special branch of geometry that deals with the practical mensuration of +triangles. EUCLID devoted the whole of the first book of his _Elements +of Geometry_ to establishing the truth of this theorem; how PYTHAGORAS +demonstrated it we unfortunately do not know. + + +(1) Fig. 3 affords an interesting practical demonstration of the truth +of this theorem. If the reader will copy this figure, cut out the +squares on the two shorter sides of the triangle and divide them along +the lines AD, BE, EF, he will find that the five pieces so obtained can +be made exactly to fit the square on the longest side as shown by the +dotted lines. The size and shape of the triangle ABC, so long as it +has a right angle at C, is immaterial. The lines AD, BE are obtained +by continuing the sides of the square on the side AB, _i.e_. the side +opposite the right angle, and EF is drawn at right angles to BE. + +After absorbing what knowledge was to be gained in Egypt, PYTHAGORAS +journeyed to Babylon, where he probably came into contact with even +greater traditions and more potent influences and sources of knowledge +than in Egypt, for there is reason for believing that the ancient +Chaldeans were the builders of the Pyramids and in many ways the +intellectual superiors of the Egyptians. + +At last, after having travelled still further East, probably as far as +India, PYTHAGORAS returned to his birthplace to teach the men of his +native land the knowledge he had gained. But CROESUS was tyrant over +Samos, and so oppressive was his rule that none had leisure in which to +learn. Not a student came to PYTHAGORAS, until, in despair, so the story +runs, he offered to pay an artisan if he would but learn geometry. The +man accepted, and later, when PYTHAGORAS pretended inability any longer +to continue the payments, he offered, so fascinating did he find +the subject, to pay his teacher instead if the lessons might only be +continued. PYTHAGORAS no doubt was much gratified at this; and the +motto he adopted for his great Brotherhood, of which we shall make the +acquaintance in a moment, was in all likelihood based on this event. It +ran, "Honour a figure and a step before a figure and a tribolus"; or, as +a freer translation renders it:-- + +"A figure and a step onward Not a figure and a florin." + + +"At all events," as Mr FRANKLAND remarks, "the motto is a lasting witness +to a very singular devotion to knowledge for its own sake."(1) + + +(1) W. B. FRANKLAND, M.A.: _The Story of Euclid_ (1902), p. 33 + +But PYTHAGORAS needed a greater audience than one man, however +enthusiastic a pupil he might be, and he left Samos for Southern +Italy, the rich inhabitants of whose cities had both the leisure and +inclination to study. Delphi, far-famed for its Oracles, was visited _en +route_, and PYTHAGORAS, after a sojourn at Tarentum, settled at Croton, +where he gathered about him a great band of pupils, mainly young people +of the aristocratic class. By consent of the Senate of Croton, he formed +out of these a great philosophical brotherhood, whose members lived +apart from the ordinary people, forming, as it were, a separate +community. They were bound to PYTHAGORAS by the closest ties of +admiration and reverence, and, for years after his death, discoveries +made by Pythagoreans were invariably attributed to the Master, a fact +which makes it very difficult exactly to gauge the extent of PYTHAGORAS' +own knowledge and achievements. The regime of the Brotherhood, or +Pythagorean Order, was a strict one, entailing "high thinking and low +living" at all times. A restricted diet, the exact nature of which is +in dispute, was observed by all members, and long periods of silence, as +conducive to deep thinking, were imposed on novices. Women were admitted +to the Order, and PYTHAGORAS' asceticism did not prohibit romance, +for we read that one of his fair pupils won her way to his heart, and, +declaring her affection for him, found it reciprocated and became his +wife. + +SCHURE writes: "By his marriage with Theano, Pythagoras affixed _the +seal of realization_ to his work. The union and fusion of the two lives +was complete. One day when the master's wife was asked what length of +time elapsed before a woman could become pure after intercourse with a +man, she replied: 'If it is with her husband, she is pure all the time; +if with another man, she is never pure.'" "Many women," adds the writer, +"would smilingly remark that to give such a reply one must be the wife +of Pythagoras, and love him as Theano did. And they would be in the +right, for it is not marriage that sanctifies love, it is love which +justifies marriage."(1) + + +(1) EDOUARD SCHURE: _Pythagoras and the Delphic Mysteries_, trans. by F. +ROTHWELL, B.A. (1906), pp. 164 and 165. + + +PYTHAGORAS was not merely a mathematician, he was first and foremost a +philosopher, whose philosophy found in number the basis of all things, +because number, for him, alone possessed stability of relationship. As I +have remarked on a former occasion, "The theory that the Cosmos has its +origin and explanation in Number... is one for which it is not difficult +to account if we take into consideration the nature of the times in +which it was formulated. The Greek of the period, looking upon Nature, +beheld no picture of harmony, uniformity and fundamental unity. The +outer world appeared to him rather as a discordant chaos, the mere sport +and plaything of the gods. The theory of the uniformity of Nature--that +Nature is ever like to herself--the very essence of the modern +scientific spirit, had yet to be born of years of unwearied labour +and unceasing delving into Nature's innermost secrets. Only in +Mathematics--in the properties of geometrical figures, and of +numbers--was the reign of law, the principle of harmony, perceivable. +Even at this present day when the marvellous has become commonplace, +that property of right-angled triangles... already discussed... comes +to the mind as a remarkable and notable fact: it must have seemed a +stupendous marvel to its discoverer, to whom, it appears, the regular +alternation of the odd and even numbers, a fact so obvious to us that +we are inclined to attach no importance to it, seemed, itself, to be +something wonderful. Here in Geometry and Arithmetic, here was order and +harmony unsurpassed and unsurpassable. What wonder then that Pythagoras +concluded that the solution of the mighty riddle of the Universe was +contained in the mysteries of Geometry? What wonder that he read mystic +meanings into the laws of Arithmetic, and believed Number to be the +explanation and origin of all that is?"(1) + + +(1) _A Mathematical Theory of Spirit_ (1912), pp. 64-65. + + +No doubt the Pythagorean theory suffers from a defect similar to that +of the Kabalistic doctrine, which, starting from the fact that all words +are composed of letters, representing the primary sounds of language, +maintained that all the things represented by these words were created +by God by means of the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. But at +the same time the Pythagorean theory certainly embodies a considerable +element of truth. Modern science demonstrates nothing more clearly +than the importance of numerical relationships. Indeed, "the history of +science shows us the gradual transformation of crude facts of experience +into increasingly exact generalisations by the application to them of +mathematics. The enormous advances that have been made in recent years +in physics and chemistry are very largely due to mathematical methods +of interpreting and co-ordinating facts experimentally revealed, whereby +further experiments have been suggested, the results of which have +themselves been mathematically interpreted. Both physics and chemistry, +especially the former, are now highly mathematical. In the biological +sciences and especially in psychology it is true that mathematical +methods are, as yet, not so largely employed. But these sciences are far +less highly developed, far less exact and systematic, that is to say, +far less scientific, at present, than is either physics or chemistry. +However, the application of statistical methods promises good results, +and there are not wanting generalisations already arrived at which +are expressible mathematically; Weber's Law in psychology, and the law +concerning the arrangement of the leaves about the stems of plants in +biology, may be instanced as cases in point."(1) + + +(1) Quoted from a lecture by the present writer on "The Law of +Correspondences Mathematically Considered," delivered before The +Theological and Philosophical Society on 26th April 1912, and published +in _Morning Light_, vol. xxxv (1912), p. 434 _et seq_. + + +The Pythagorean doctrine of the Cosmos, in its most reasonable form, +however, is confronted with one great difficulty which it seems +incapable of overcoming, namely, that of continuity. Modern science, +with its atomic theories of matter and electricity, does, indeed, show +us that the apparent continuity of material things is spurious, that all +material things consist of discrete particles, and are hence measurable +in numerical terms. But modern science is also obliged to postulate an +ether behind these atoms, an ether which is wholly continuous, and hence +transcends the domain of number.(1) It is true that, in quite recent +times, a certain school of thought has argued that the ether is +also atomic in constitution--that all things, indeed, have a grained +structure, even forces being made up of a large number of quantums +or indivisible units of force. But this view has not gained general +acceptance, and it seems to necessitate the postulation of an ether +beyond the ether, filling the interspaces between its atoms, to obviate +the difficulty of conceiving of action at a distance. + + +(1) Cf. chap. iii., "On Nature as the Embodiment of Number," of my _A +Mathematical Theory of Spirit_, to which reference has already been +made. + + +According to BERGSON, life--the reality that can only be lived, not +understood--is absolutely continuous (_i.e_. not amenable to numerical +treatment). It is because life is absolutely continuous that we cannot, +he says, understand it; for reason acts discontinuously, grasping only, +so to speak, a cinematographic view of life, made up of an immense +number of instantaneous glimpses. All that passes between the glimpses +is lost, and so the true whole, reason can never synthesise from that +which it possesses. On the other hand, one might also argue--extending, +in a way, the teaching of the physical sciences of the period between +the postulation of DALTON'S atomic theory and the discovery of the +significance of the ether of space--that reality is essentially +discontinuous, our idea that it is continuous being a mere illusion +arising from the coarseness of our senses. That might provide a complete +vindication of the Pythagorean view; but a better vindication, if not +of that theory, at any rate of PYTHAGORAS' philosophical attitude, +is forthcoming, I think, in the fact that modern mathematics has +transcended the shackles of number, and has enlarged her kingdom, so as +to include quantities other than numerical. PYTHAGORAS, had he been +born in these latter centuries, would surely have rejoiced in this, +enlargement, whereby the continuous as well as the discontinuous is +brought, if not under the rule of number, under the rule of mathematics +indeed. + +PYTHAGORAS' foremost achievement in mathematics I have already +mentioned. Another notable piece of work in the same department was +the discovery of a method of constructing a parallelogram having a side +equal to a given line, an angle equal to a given angle, and its area +equal to that of a given triangle. PYTHAGORAS is said to have celebrated +this discovery by the sacrifice of a whole ox. The problem appears in +the first book of EUCLID'S _Elements of Geometry_ as proposition 44. In +fact, many of the propositions of EUCLID'S first, second, fourth, and +sixth books were worked out by PYTHAGORAS and the Pythagoreans; but, +curiously enough, they seem greatly to have neglected the geometry of +the circle. + +The symmetrical solids were regarded by PYTHAGORAS, and by the Greek +thinkers after him, as of the greatest importance. To be perfectly +symmetrical or regular, a solid must have an equal number of faces +meeting at each of its angles, and these faces must be equal regular +polygons, _i.e_. figures whose sides and angles are all equal. +PYTHAGORAS, perhaps, may be credited with the great discovery that there +are only five such solids. These are as follows:-- + +The Tetrahedron, having four equilateral triangles as faces. + +The Cube, having six squares as faces. + +The Octahedron, having eight equilateral triangles as faces. + +The Dodecahedron, having twelve regular pentagons (or five-sided +figures) as faces. + +The Icosahedron, having twenty equilateral triangles as faces.(1) + + +(1) If the reader will copy figs. 4 to 8 on cardboard or stiff paper, +bend each along the dotted lines so as to form a solid, fastening +together the free edges with gummed paper, he will be in possession of +models of the five solids in question. + + +Now, the Greeks believed the world to be composed of four +elements--earth, air, fire, water,--and to the Greek mind the conclusion +was inevitable(2a) that the shapes of the particles of the elements +were those of the regular solids. Earth-particles were cubical, the cube +being the regular solid possessed of greatest stability; fire-particles +were tetrahedral, the tetrahedron being the simplest and, hence, +lightest solid. Water-particles were icosahedral for exactly the reverse +reason, whilst air-particles, as intermediate between the two latter, +were octahedral. The dodecahedron was, to these ancient mathematicians, +the most mysterious of the solids: it was by far the most difficult to +construct, the accurate drawing of the regular pentagon necessitating a +rather elaborate application of PYTHAGORAS' great theorem.(1) Hence the +conclusion, as PLATO put it, that "this (the regular dodecahedron) the +Deity employed in tracing the plan of the Universe."(2b) Hence also +the high esteem in which the pentagon was held by the Pythagoreans. By +producing each side of this latter figure the five-pointed star (fig. +9), known as the pentagram, is obtained. This was adopted by the +Pythagoreans as the badge of their Society, and for many ages was held +as a symbol possessed of magic powers. The mediaeval magicians made use +of it in their evocations, and as a talisman it was held in the highest +esteem. + + +(2a) _Cf_. PLATO: The Timaeus, SESE xxviii--xxx. + +(1) In reference to this matter FRANKLAND remarks: "In those early days +the innermost secrets of nature lay in the lap of geometry, and the +extraordinary inference follows that Euclid's _Elements_, which are +devoted to the investigation of the regular solids, are therefore in +reality and at bottom an attempt to 'solve the universe.' Euclid, +in fact, made this goal of the Pythagoreans the aim of his +_Elements_."--_Op. cit_., p. 35. + +(2b) _Op. cit_., SE xxix. + + +Music played an important part in the curriculum of the Pythagorean +Brotherhood, and the important discovery that the relations between +the notes of musical scales can be expressed by means of numbers is a +Pythagorean one. It must have seemed to its discoverer--as, in a sense, +it indeed is--a striking confirmation of the numerical theory of the +Cosmos. The Pythagoreans held that the positions of the heavenly bodies +were governed by similar numerical relations, and that in consequence +their motion was productive of celestial music. This concept of "the +harmony of the spheres" is among the most celebrated of the Pythagorean +doctrines, and has found ready acceptance in many mystically-speculative +minds. "Look how the floor of heaven," says Lorenzo in SHAKESPEARE'S +_The Merchant of Venice_-- + + "... Look how the floor of heaven + Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold: + There's not the smallest orb which thou behold's" + But in his motion like an angel sings, + Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins; + Such harmony is in immortal souls; + But whilst this muddy vesture of decay + Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it."(1) + + +(1) Act v. scene i. + +Or, as KINGSLEY writes in one of his letters, "When I walk the fields I +am oppressed every now and then with an innate feeling that everything +I see has a meaning, if I could but understand it. And this feeling +of being surrounded with truths which I cannot grasp, amounts to an +indescribable awe sometimes! Everything seems to be full of God's +reflex, if we could but see it. Oh! how I have prayed to have the +mystery unfolded, at least hereafter. To see, if but for a moment, the +whole harmony of the great system! To hear once the music which the +whole universe makes as it performs His bidding!"(1) In this connection +may be mentioned the very significant fact that the Pythagoreans did +not consider the earth, in accordance with current opinion, to be a +stationary body, but believed that it and the other planets revolved +about a central point, or fire, as they called it. + + +(1) CHARLES KINGSLEY: _His Letters and Memories of His Life_, edited by +his wife (1883), p. 28. + + +As concerns PYTHAGORAS' ethical teaching, judging from the so-called +_Golden Verses_ attributed to him, and no doubt written by one of his +disciples,(2) this would appear to be in some respects similar to that +of the Stoics who came later, but free from the materialism of the Stoic +doctrines. Due regard for oneself is blended with regard for the gods +and for other men, the atmosphere of the whole being at once rational +and austere. One verse--"Thou shalt likewise know, according to Justice, +that the nature of this Universe is in all things alike"(3)--is of +particular interest, as showing PYTHAGORAS' belief in that principle of +analogy--that "What is below is as that which is above, what is above is +as that which is below"--which held so dominant a sway over the minds of +ancient and mediaeval philosophers, leading them--in spite, I suggest, +of its fundamental truth--into so many fantastic errors, as we shall +see in future excursions. Metempsychosis was another of the Pythagorean +tenets, a fact which is interesting in view of the modern revival +of this doctrine. PYTHAGORAS, no doubt, derived it from the East, +apparently introducing it for the first time to Western thought. + + +(2) It seems probable, though not certain, that PYTHAGORAS wrote nothing +himself, but taught always by the oral method. + +(3) Cf. the remarks of HIEROCLES on this verse in his _Commentary_. + + +Such, in brief, were the outstanding doctrines of the Pythagorean +Brotherhood. Their teachings included, as we have seen, what may justly +be called scientific discoveries of the first importance, as well as +doctrines which, though we may feel compelled--perhaps rightly--to +regard them as fantastic now, had an immense influence on the thought of +succeeding ages, especially on Greek philosophy as represented by PLATO +and the Neo-Platonists, and the more speculative minds--the occult +philosophers, shall I say?--of the latter mediaeval period and +succeeding centuries. The Brotherhood, however, was not destined to +continue its days in peace. As I have indicated, it was a philosophical, +not a political, association; but naturally PYTHAGORAS' philosophy +included political doctrines. At any rate, the Brotherhood acquired a +considerable share in the government of Croton, a fact which was greatly +resented by the members of the democratic party, who feared the loss of +their rights; and, urged thereto, it is said, by a rejected applicant +for membership of the Order, the mob made an onslaught on the +Brotherhood's place of assembly and burnt it to the ground. One account +has it that PYTHAGORAS himself died in the conflagration, a sacrifice +to the mad fury of the mob. According to another account--and we like to +believe that this is the true one--he escaped to Tarentum, from which he +was banished, to find an asylum in Metapontum, where he lived his last +years in peace. + +The Pythagorean Order was broken up, but the bonds of brotherhood still +existed between its members. "One of them who had fallen upon sickness +and poverty was kindly taken in by an innkeeper. Before dying he traced +a few mysterious signs (the pentagram, no doubt) on the door of the inn +and said to the host: 'Do not be uneasy, one of my brothers will pay my +debts.' A year afterwards, as a stranger was passing by this inn he saw +the signs and said to the host: 'I am a Pythagorean; one of my brothers +died here; tell me what I owe you on his account.'"(1) + + + +(1) EDOUARD SCHURE: _Op. cit_., p. 174. + + +In endeavouring to estimate the worth of PYTHAGORAS' discoveries and +teaching, Mr FRANKLAND writes, with reference to his achievements in +geometry: "Even after making a considerable allowance for his pupils' +share, the Master's geometrical work calls for much admiration"; and, +"... it cannot be far wrong to suppose that it was Pythagoras' wont +to insist upon proofs, and so to secure that rigour which gives to +mathematics its honourable position amongst the sciences." And of his +work in arithmetic, music, and astronomy, the same author writes: "... +everywhere he appears to have inaugurated genuinely scientific methods, +and to have laid the foundations of a high and liberal education"; +adding, "For nearly a score of centuries, to the very close of the +Middle Ages, the four Pythagorean subjects of study--arithmetic, +geometry, astronomy, music--were the staple educational course, and were +bound together into a fourfold way of knowledge--the Quadrivium."(1) +With these words of due praise, our present excursion may fittingly +close. + + +(1) _Op. cit_., pp. 35, 37, and 38. + + + + +III. MEDICINE AND MAGIC + +THERE are few tasks at once so instructive and so fascinating as the +tracing of the development of the human mind as manifested in the +evolution of scientific and philosophical theories. And this is, +perhaps, especially true when, as in the case of medicine, this +evolution has followed paths so tortuous, intersected by so many +fantastic byways, that one is not infrequently doubtful as to the true +road. The history of medicine is at once the history of human wisdom and +the history of human credulity and folly, and the romantic element (to +use the expression in its popular acceptation) thus introduced, whilst +making the subject more entertaining, by no means detracts from its +importance considered psychologically. + +To whom the honour of having first invented medicines is due is unknown, +the origins of pharmacy being lost in the twilight of myth. OSIRIS and +ISIS, BACCHUS, APOLLO father of the famous physician AESCULAPIUS, and +CHIRON the Centaur, tutor of the latter, are among the many mythological +personages who have been accredited with the invention of physic. It +is certain that the art of compounding medicines is extraordinarily +ancient. There is a papyrus in the British Museum containing medical +prescriptions which was written about 1200 B.C.; and the famous EBERS +papyrus, which is devoted to medical matters, is reckoned to date +from about the year 1550 B.C. It is interesting to note that in the +prescriptions given in this latter papyrus, as seems to have been the +case throughout the history of medicine, the principle that the efficacy +of a medicine is in proportion to its nastiness appears to have been the +main idea. Indeed, many old medicines contained ingredients of the +most disgusting nature imaginable: a mediaeval remedy known as oil of +puppies, made by cutting up two newly-born puppies and boiling them with +one pound of live earthworms, may be cited as a comparatively pleasant +example of the remedies (?) used in the days when all sorts of excreta +were prescribed as medicines.(1) + + +(1) See the late Mr A. C. WOOTTON'S excellent work, _Chronicles of +Pharmacy_ (2 vols, 1910), to which I gladly acknowledge my indebtedness. + + +Presumably the oldest theory concerning the causation of disease is that +which attributes all the ills of mankind to the malignant operations of +evil spirits, a theory which someone has rather fancifully suggested is +not so erroneous after all, if we may be allowed to apply the term "evil +spirits" to the microbes of modern bacteriology. Remnants of this theory +(which does--shall I say?--conceal a transcendental truth), that is, +in its original form, still survive to the present day in various +superstitious customs, whose absurdity does not need emphasising: for +example, the use of red flannel by old-fashioned folk with which to +tie up sore throats--red having once been supposed to be a colour very +angatonistic to evil spirits; so much so that at one time red cloth hung +in the patient's room was much employed as a cure for smallpox! + +Medicine and magic have always been closely associated. Indeed, the +greatest name in the history of pharmacy is also what is probably the +greatest name in the history of magic--the reference, of course, being +to PARACELSUS (1493-1541). Until PARACELSUS, partly by his vigorous +invective and partly by his remarkable cures of various diseases, +demolished the old school of medicine, no one dared contest the +authority of GALEN (130-_circa_ 205) and AVICENNA (980--1037). GALEN'S +theory of disease was largely based upon that of the four humours +in man--bile, blood, phlegm, and black bile,--which were regarded as +related to (but not identical with) the four elements--fire, air, water, +and earth,--being supposed to have characters similar to these. Thus, to +bile, as to fire, were attributed the properties of hotness and dryness; +to blood and air those of hotness and moistness; to phlegm and water +those of coldness and moistness; and, finally, black bile, like earth, +was said to be cold and dry. GALEN supposed that an alteration in the +due proportion of these humours gives rise to disease, though he did not +consider this to be its only cause; thus, cancer, it was thought, might +result from an excess of black bile, and rheumatism from an excess of +phlegm. Drugs, GALEN argued, are of efficiency in the curing of disease, +according as they possess one or more of these so-called fundamental +properties, hotness, dryness, coldness, and moistness, whereby it was +considered that an excess of any humour might be counteracted; moreover, +it was further assumed that four degrees of each property exist, and +that only those drugs are of use in curing a disease which contain the +necessary property or properties in the degree proportionate to that +in which the opposite humour or humours are in excess in the patient's +system. + +PARACELSUS' views were based upon his theory (undoubtedly true in a +sense) that man is a microcosm, a world in miniature.(1) Now, all things +material, taught PARACELSUS, contain the three principles termed in +alchemistic phraseology salt, sulphur, and mercury. This is true, +therefore, of man: the healthy body, he argued, is a sort of chemical +compound in which these three principles are harmoniously blended (as +in the Macrocosm) in due proportion, whilst disease is due to a +preponderance of one principle, fevers, for example, being the result +of an excess of sulphur (_i.e_. the fiery principle), _etc_. PARACELSUS, +although his theory was not so different from that of GALEN, whose views +he denounced, was thus led to seek for CHEMICAL remedies, containing +these principles in varying proportions; he was not content with +medicinal herbs and minerals in their crude state, but attempted +to extract their effective essences; indeed, he maintained that the +preparation of new and better drugs is the chief business of chemistry. + + +(1) See the "Note on the Paracelsian Doctrine of the Microcosm" below. + + +This theory of disease and of the efficacy of drugs was complicated by +many fantastic additions;(1) thus there is the "Archaeus," a sort +of benevolent demon, supposed by PARACELSUS to look after all the +unconscious functions of the bodily organism, who has to be taken into +account. PARACELSUS also held the Doctrine of Signatures, according to +which the medicinal value of plants and minerals is indicated by their +external form, or by some sign impressed upon them by the operation of +the stars. A very old example of this belief is to be found in the use +of mandrake (whose roots resemble the human form) by the Hebrews and +Greeks as a cure for sterility; or, to give an instance which is still +accredited by some, the use of eye-bright (_Euphrasia officinalis_, L., +a plant with a black pupil-like spot in its corolla) for complaints of +the eyes.(2) Allied to this doctrine are such beliefs, once held, as +that the lungs of foxes are good for bronchial troubles, or that the +heart of a lion will endow one with courage; as CORNELIUS AGRIPPA put +it, "It is well known amongst physicians that brain helps the brain, and +lungs the lungs."(3) + + +(1) The question of PARACELSUS' pharmacy is further complicated by the +fact that this eccentric genius coined many new words (without regard to +the principles of etymology) as names for his medicines, and often used +the same term to stand for quite different bodies. Some of his disciples +maintained that he must not always be understood in a literal sense, +in which probably there is an element of truth. See, for instance, _A +Golden and Blessed Casket of Nature's Marvels_, by BENEDICTUS FIGULUS +(trans. by A. E. WAITE, 1893). + +(2) See Dr ALFRED C. HADDON'S _Magic and Fetishism_ (1906), p. 15. + +(3) HENRY CORNELIUS AGRIPPA: _Occult Philosophy_, bk. i. chap. xv. +(WHITEHEAD'S edition, Chicago, 1898, P. 72). + + +In modern times homoeopathy--according to which a drug is a cure, +if administered in small doses, for that disease whose symptoms it +produces, if given in large doses to a healthy person---seems to bear +some resemblance to these old medical theories concerning the curing of +like by like. That the system of HAHNEMANN (1755--1843), the founder +of homoeopathy, is free from error could be scarcely maintained, but +certain recent discoveries in connection with serum-therapy appear to +indicate that the last word has not yet been said on the subject, and +the formula "like cures like" may still have another lease of life to +run. + +To return to PARACELSUS, however. It may be thought that his views were +not so great an advance on those of GALEN; but whether or not this be +the case, his union of chemistry and medicine was of immense benefit +to each science, and marked a new era in pharmacy. Even if his theories +were highly fantastic, it was he who freed medicine from the shackles of +traditionalism, and rendered progress in medical science possible. + +I must not conclude these brief notes without some reference to the +medical theory of the medicinal efficacy of words. The EBERS papyrus +already mentioned gives various formulas which must be pronounced when +preparing and when administering a drug; and there is a draught used by +the Eastern Jews as a cure for bronchial complaints prepared by writing +certain words on a plate, washing them off with wine, and adding three +grains of a citron which has been used at the Tabernacle festival. But +enough for our present excursion; we must hie us back to the modern +world, with its alkaloids, serums, and anti-toxins--another day we will, +perhaps, wander again down the by-paths of Medicinal Magic. + + +NOTE ON THE PARACELSIAN DOCTRINE OF THE MICROCOSM + + +"Man's nature," writes CORNELIUS AGRIPPA, "_is the most complete Image +of the whole Universe_."(1) This theory, especially connected with the +name of PARACELSUS, is worthy of more than passing reference; but as +the consideration of it leads us from medicine to metaphysics, I have +thought it preferable to deal with the subject in a note. + + +(1) H. C. AGRIPPA: _Occult Philosophy_, bk. i. chap. xxxiii. +(WHITEHEAD'S edition, p. 111). + + +Man, taught the old mystical philosophers, is threefold in nature, +consisting of spirit, soul, and body. The Paracelsian mercury, sulphur, +and salt were the mineral analogues of these. "As to the Spirit," writes +VALENTINE WEIGEL (1533--1588), a disciple of PARACELSUS, "we are of God, +move in God, and live in God, and are nourished of God. Hence God is in +us and we are in God; God hath put and placed Himself in us, and we are +put and placed in God. As to the Soul, we are from the Firmament and +Stars, we live and move therein, and are nourished thereof. Hence the +Firmament with its astralic virtues and operations is in us, and we in +it. The Firmament is put and placed in us, and we are put and placed in +the Firmament. As to the Body, we are of the elements, we move and live +therein, and are nourished of them:--hence the elements are in us, and +we in them. The elements, by the slime, are put and placed in us, and we +are put and placed in them."(1) Or, to quote from PARACELSUS himself, in +his _Hermetic Astronomy_ he writes: "God took the body out of which He +built up man from those things which He created from nothingness into +something... Hence man is now a microcosm, or a little world, because +he is an extract from all the stars and planets of the whole firmament, +from the earth and the elements, and so he is their quintessence.... But +between the macrocosm and the microcosm this difference occurs, that the +form, image, species, and substance of man are diverse therefrom. In man +the earth is flesh, the water is blood, fire is the heat thereof, and +air is the balsam. These properties have not been changed but only the +substance of the body. So man is man, not a world, yet made from the +world, made in the likeness, not of the world, but of God. Yet man +comprises in himself all the qualities of the world.... His body is from +the world, and therefore must be fed and nourished by that world from +which he has sprung.... He has been taken from the earth and from the +elements, and therefore, must be nourished by these.... Now, man is not +only flesh and blood, but there is within the intellect which does not, +like the complexion, come from the elements, but from the stars. And +the condition of the stars is this, that all the wisdom, intelligence, +industry of the animal, and all the arts peculiar to man are contained +in them. From the stars man has these same things, and that is called +the light of Nature; in fact, it is whatever man has found by the light +of Nature.... Such, then, is the condition of man, that, out of the +great universe he needs both elements and stars, seeing that he himself +is constituted in that way."(1b) + + +(1) VALENTINE WEIGEL: "_Astrology Theologised": The Spiritual +Hermeneutics of Astrology and Holy Writ_, ed. by ANNA BONUS KINGSFORD +(1886), p. 59. + +(1b) _The Hermetic and Alchemical Writings of_ PARACELSUS, ed. by A. E. +WAITE (1894), vol. ii. pp. 289-291. + + + +It is not difficult to discern a certain truth in all this, making +allowances for modes of thought which are not those of the present day. +The Swedish philosopher SWEDENBORG (1688-1772) reaffirmed the theory +in later years; but, as he points out,(2) the reason that man is a +microcosm lies deeper than in the facts that his body is of the elements +of this earth and is nourished thereby. According to this profound +thinker, FORM, spiritually understood, is the expression of USE, the +uses of things being indicated by their forms. Now, the human form is +the highest of all forms, because it subserves the highest of all uses. +Hence, both the world of matter and the world of spirit are in the +human form, because there is a correspondence in use between man and +the Cosmos. We may, therefore, call man as to his body a microcosm, or +little world; as to his soul a micro-uranos, or little heaven. Or we may +speak of the macrocosm, or great world, as the Grand Man, and we may +say that the Soul of this Grand Man, the self-existent, substantial, and +efficient cause of all things, at once immanent within yet transcending +all things, is God. + +(2) See especially his _Divine Love and Wisdom_, SESE 251 and 319. + + + + +IV. SUPERSTITIONS CONCERNING BIRDS + +AMONGST the most remarkable of natural occurrences must be included +many of the phenomena connected with the behaviour of birds. Undoubtedly +numerous species of birds are susceptible to atmospheric changes (of +an electrical and barometric nature) too slight to be observed by man's +unaided senses; thus only is to be explained the phenomenon of migration +and also the many other peculiarities in the behaviour of birds whereby +approaching changes in the weather may be foretold. Probably, also, this +fact has much to do with the extraordinary homing instinct of pigeons. +But, of course, in the days when meteorological science had yet to be +born, no such explanation as this could be known. The ancients observed +that birds by their migrations or by other peculiarities in their +behaviour prognosticated coming changes in the seasons of the year and +other changes connected with the weather (such as storms, _etc_.); they +saw, too, in the homing instincts of pigeons an apparent exhibition of +intelligence exceeding that of man. What more natural, then, for them +to attribute foresight to birds, and to suppose that all sorts of coming +events (other than those of an atmospheric nature) might be foretold by +careful observation of their flight and song? + +Augury--that is, the art of divination by observing the behaviour of +birds--was extensively cultivated by the Etrurians and Romans.(1) It +is still used, I believe, by the natives of Samoa. The Romans had an +official college of augurs, the members of which were originally three +patricians. About 300 B.C. the number of patrician augurs was increased +by one, and five plebeian augurs were added. Later the number was again +increased to fifteen. The object of augury was not so much to foretell +the future as to indicate what line of action should be followed, in +any given circumstances, by the nation. The augurs were consulted on all +matters of importance, and the position of augur was thus one of great +consequence. In what appears to be the oldest method, the augur, arrayed +in a special costume, and carrying a staff with which to mark out the +visible heavens into houses, proceeded to an elevated piece of ground, +where a sacrifice was made and a prayer repeated. Then, gazing towards +the sky, he waited until a bird appeared. The point in the heavens where +it first made its appearance was carefully noted, also the manner and +direction of its flight, and the point where it was lost sight of. From +these particulars an augury was derived, but, in order to be of effect, +it had to be confirmed by a further one. + + +(1) This is not quite an accurate definition, as "auguries" were +also obtained from other animals and from celestial phenomena (_e.g_. +lightning), _etc_. + +Auguries were also drawn from the notes of birds, birds being divided by +the augurs into two classes: (i) _oscines_, "those which give omens by +their note," and (ii) _alites_, "those which afford presages by their +flight."(1) Another method of augury was performed by the feeding of +chickens specially kept for this purpose. This was done just before +sunrise by the _pullarius_ or feeder, strict silence being observed. If +the birds manifested no desire for their food, the omen was of a +most direful nature. On the other hand, if from the greediness of the +chickens the grain fell from their beaks and rebounded from the +ground, the augury was most favourable. This latter augury was known as +_tripudium solistimum_. "Any fraud practiced by the 'pullarius'," writes +the Rev. EDWARD SMEDLEY, "reverted to his own head. Of this we have a +memorable instance in the great battle between Papirius Cursor and the +Samnites in the year of Rome 459. So anxious were the troops for battle, +that the 'pullarius' dared to announce to the consul a 'tripudium +solistimum,' although the chickens refused to eat. Papirius +unhesitatingly gave the signal for fight, when his son, having +discovered the false augury, hastened to communicate it to his father. +'Do thy part well,' was his reply, 'and let the deceit of the augur fall +on himself. The "tripudium" has been announced to me, and no omen could +be better for the Roman army and people!' As the troops advanced, a +javelin thrown at random struck the 'pullatius' dead. 'The hand of +heaven is in the battle,' cried Papirius; 'the guilty is punished!' and +he advanced and conquered."(1b) A coincidence of this sort, if it really +occurred, would very greatly strengthen the popular belief in auguries. + + +(1) PLINY: _Natural History_, bk. x. chap. xxii. (BOSTOCK and RILEY'S +trans., vol. ii., 1855, p. 495). + +(1b) Rev. EDWARD SMEDLEY, M.A.: _The Occult Sciences_ (_Encyclopaedia +Metropolitana_), ed. by ELIHU RICH (1855), p. 144. + + +The _cock_ has always been reckoned a bird possessed of magic power. At +its crowing, we are told, all unquiet spirits who roam the earth +depart to their dismal abodes, and the orgies of the Witches' Sabbath +terminate. A cock is the favourite sacrifice offered to evil spirits +in Ceylon and elsewhere. Alectromancy(2) was an ancient and peculiarly +senseless method of divination (so called) in which a cock was employed. +The bird had to be young and quite white. Its feet were cut off and +crammed down its throat with a piece of parchment on which were written +certain Hebrew words. The cock, after the repetition of a prayer by the +operator, was placed in a circle divided into parts corresponding to the +letters of the alphabet, in each of which a grain of wheat was placed. +A certain psalm was recited, and then the letters were noted from which +the cock picked up the grains, a fresh grain being put down for each +one picked up. These letters, properly arranged, were said to give the +answer to the inquiry for which divination was made. I am not sure what +one was supposed to do if, as seems likely, the cock refused to act in +the required manner. + + +(2) Cf. ARTHUR EDWARD WAITE: _The Occult Sciences_ (1891), pp. 124 and +125. + + +The _owl_ was reckoned a bird of evil omen with the Romans, who derived +this opinion from the Etrurians, along with much else of their so-called +science of augury. It was particularly dreaded if seen in a city, or, +indeed, anywhere by day. PLINY (Caius Plinius Secundus, A.D. 61-before +115) informs us that on one occasion "a horned owl entered the very +sanctuary of the Capitol;... in consequence of which, Rome was purified +on the nones of March in that year."(1) + + +(1) PLINY: _Natural History_, bk. x. chap. xvi. (BOSTOCK and RILEY'S +trans., vol. ii., 1855, p. 492). + + +The folk-lore of the British Isles abounds with quaint beliefs and +stories concerning birds. There is a charming Welsh legend concerning +the _robin_, which the Rev. T. F. T. DYER quotes from _Notes and +Queries_:--"Far, far away, is a land of woe, darkness, spirits of evil, +and fire. Day by day does this little bird bear in his bill a drop of +water to quench the flame. So near the burning stream does he fly, +that his dear little feathers are SCORCHED; and hence he is named +Brou-rhuddyn (Breast-burnt). To serve little children, the robin +dares approach the infernal pit. No good child will hurt the devoted +benefactor of man. The robin returns from the land of fire, and +therefore he feels the cold of winter far more than his brother birds. +He shivers in the brumal blast; hungry, he chirps before your door."(2) + + +(2) T. F. THISELTON DYER, M.A.: _English Folk-Lore_ (1878), pp. 65 and +66. + + +Another legend accounts for the robin's red breast by supposing this +bird to have tried to pluck a thorn from the crown encircling the brow +of the crucified CHRIST, in order to alleviate His sufferings. No doubt +it is on account of these legends that it is considered a crime, which +will be punished with great misfortune, to kill a robin. In some places +the same prohibition extends to the _wren_, which is popularly believed +to be the wife of the robin. In other parts, however, the wren is (or +at least was) cruelly hunted on certain days. In the Isle of Man the +wren-hunt took place on Christmas Eve and St Stephen's Day, and is +accounted for by a legend concerning an evil fairy who lured many men to +destruction, but had to assume the form of a wren to escape punishment +at the hands of an ingenious knight-errant. + +For several centuries there was prevalent over the whole of civilised +Europe a most extraordinary superstition concerning the small Arctic +bird resembling, but not so large as, the common wild goose, known as +the _barnacle_ or _bernicle goose_. MAX MUELLER(1) has suggested that +this word was really derived from _Hibernicula_, the name thus referring +to Ireland, where the birds were caught; but common opinion associated +the barnacle goose with the shell-fish known as the barnacle (which +is found on timber exposed to the sea), supposing that the former was +generated out of the latter. Thus in one old medical writer we find: +"There are founde in the north parts of Scotland, and the Ilands +adjacent, called Orchades (Orkney Islands), certain trees, whereon +doe growe certaine shell fishes, of a white colour tending to russet; +wherein are conteined little liuing creatures: which shells in time of +maturitie doe open, and out of them grow those little living things; +which falling into the water, doe become foules, whom we call +Barnakles... but the other that do fall vpon the land, perish and come +to nothing: this much by the writings of others, and also from the +mouths of the people of those parts...."(1b) + + +(1) See F. MAX MUELLER'S _Lectures on the Science of Language_ (1885), +where a very full account of the tradition concerning the origin of the +barnacle goose will be found. + +(1b) JOHN GERARDE: _The Herball; or, Generall Historie of Plantes_ +(1597). 1391. + + +The writer, however, who was a well-known surgeon and botanist of +his day, adds that he had personally examined certain shell-fish from +Lancashire, and on opening the shells had observed within birds in +various stages of development. No doubt he was deceived by some purely +superficial resemblances--for example, the feet of the barnacle fish +resemble somewhat the feathers of a bird. He gives an imaginative +illustration of the barnacle fowl escaping from its shell, which is +reproduced in fig. 12. + +Turning now from superstitions concerning actual birds to legends of +those that are purely mythical, passing reference must be made to the +_roc_, a bird existing in Arabian legend, which we meet in the _Arabian +Nights_, and which is chiefly remarkable for its size and strength. + +The _phoenix_, perhaps, is of more interest. Of "that famous bird of +Arabia," PLINY writes as follows, prefixing his description of it with +the cautious remark, "I am not quite sure that its existence is not all +a fable." "It is said that there is only one in existence in the whole +world, and that that one has not been seen very often. We are told that +this bird is of the size of an eagle, and has a brilliant golden plumage +around the neck, while the rest of the body is of a purple colour; +except the tail, which is azure, with long feathers intermingled of a +roseate hue; the throat is adorned with a crest, and the head with a +tuft of feathers. The first Roman who described this bird... was the +senator Manilius.... He tells us that no person has ever seen this bird +eat, that in Arabia it is looked upon as sacred to the sun, that it +lives five hundred and forty years, that when it becomes old it builds a +nest of cassia and sprigs of incense, which it fills with perfumes, and +then lays its body down upon them to die; that from its bones and marrow +there springs at first a sort of small worm, which in time changes +into a little bird; that the first thing that it does is to perform the +obsequies of its predecessor, and to carry the nest entire to the city +of the Sun near Panchaia, and there deposit it upon the altar of that +divinity. + +"The same Manilius states also, that the revolution of the great year +is completed with the life of this bird, and that then a new cycle comes +round again with the same characteristics as the former one, in the +seasons and the appearance of the stars. ... This bird was brought to +Rome in the censorship of the Emperor Claudius... and was exposed to +public view.... This fact is attested by the public Annals, but there is +no one that doubts that it was a fictitious phoenix only."(1) + + +(1) PLINY: _Natural History_, bk. x. chap. ii. (BOSTOCK and RILEY'S +trans., vol. ii., 1855, PP. 479-481). + + +The description of the plumage, _etc_., of this bird applies fairly +well, as CUVIER has pointed out,(2) to the golden pheasant, and a +specimen of the latter may have been the "fictitious phoenix" +referred to above. That this bird should have been credited with the +extraordinary and wholly fabulous properties related by PLINY and others +is not, however, easy to understand. The phoenix was frequently used +to illustrate the doctrine of the immortality of the soul (_e.g_. in +CLEMENT'S _First Epistle to the Corinthians_), and it is not impossible +that originally it was nothing more than a symbol of immortality which +in time became to be believed in as a really existing bird. The fact, +however, that there was supposed to be only one phoenix, and also that +the length of each of its lives coincided with what the ancients +termed a "great year," may indicate that the phoenix was a symbol +of cosmological periodicity. On the other hand, some ancient writers +(e_.g_. TACITUS, A.D. 55-120) explicitly refer to the phoenix as a +symbol of the sun, and in the minds of the ancients the sun was closely +connected with the idea of immortality. Certainly the accounts of +the gorgeous colours of the plumage of the phoenix might well be +descriptions of the rising sun. It appears, moreover, that the Egyptian +hieroglyphic _benu_, {glyph}, which is a figure of a heron or crane (and +thus akin to the phoenix), was employed to designate the rising sun. + + +(2) See CUVIER'S _The Animal Kingdom_, GRIFFITH'S trans., vol. viii. +(1829), p. 23. + + +There are some curious Jewish legends to account for the supposed +immortality of the phoenix. According to one, it was the sole animal +that refused to eat of the forbidden tree when tempted by EVE. According +to another, its immortality was conferred on it by NOAH because of its +considerate behaviour in the Ark, the phoenix not clamouring for food +like the other animals.(1) + + +(1) The existence of such fables as these shows how grossly the real +meanings of the Sacred Writings have been misunderstood. + + +There is a celebrated bird in Chinese tradition, the _Fung Hwang_, which +some sinologues identify with the phoenix of the West.(2) According to +a commentator on the '_Rh Ya_, this "felicitous and perfect bird has a +cock's head, a snake's neck, a swallow's beak, a tortoise's back, is of +five different colours and more than six feet high." + + +(2) Mr CHAS. GOULD, B.A., to whose book _Mythical Monsters_ (1886) I am +very largely indebted for my account of this bird, and from which I have +culled extracts from the Chinese, is not of this opinion. Certainly the +fact that we read of Fung Hwangs in the plural, whilst tradition asserts +that there is only one phoenix, seems to point to a difference in +origin. + + +Another account (that in the _Lun Yu Tseh Shwai Shing_) tells us that +"its head resembles heaven, its eye the sun, its back the moon, +its wings the wind, its foot the ground, and its tail the woof." +Furthermore, "its mouth contains commands, its heart is conformable to +regulations, its ear is thoroughly acute in hearing, its tongue utters +sincerity, its colour is luminous, its comb resembles uprightness, its +spur is sharp and curved, its voice is sonorous, and its belly is the +treasure of literature." Like the dragon, tortoise, and unicorn, it was +considered to be a spiritual creature; but, unlike the Western phoenix, +more than one Fung Hwang was, as I have pointed out, believed to exist. +The birds were not always to be seen, but, according to Chinese records, +they made their appearance during the reigns of certain sovereigns. The +Fung Hwang is regarded by the Chinese as an omen of great happiness and +prosperity, and its likeness is embroidered on the robes of empresses +to ensure success. Probably, if the bird is not to be regarded as purely +mythological and symbolic in origin, we have in the stories of it no +more than exaggerated accounts of some species of pheasant. Japanese +literature contains similar stories. + +Of other fabulous bird-forms mention may be made of the _griffin_ and +the _harpy_. The former was a creature half eagle, half lion, popularly +supposed to be the progeny of the union of these two latter. It is +described in the so-called _Voiage and Travaile of Sir_ JOHN MAUNDEVILLE +in the following terms(1): "Sum men seyn, that thei ben the Body upward, +as an Egle, and benethe as a Lyoun: and treuly thei seyn sothe, that +thei ben of that schapp. But o Griffoun hathe the body more gret and +is more strong thanne 8 Lyouns, of suche Lyouns as ben o this half; and +more gret and strongere, than an 100 Egles, suche as we ben amonges us. +For o Griffoun there will bere, fleynge to his Nest, a gret Hors, or +2 Oxen zoked to gidere, as thei gon at the Plowghe. For he hathe his +Talouns so longe and so large and grete, upon his Feet, as thoughe thei +weren Hornes of grete Oxen or of Bugles or of Kyzn; so that men maken +Cuppes of hem, to drynken of: and of hire Ribbes and of the Pennes of +hire Wenges, men maken Bowes fulle strong, to schote with Arwes +and Quarelle." The special characteristic of the griffin was its +watchfulness, its chief function being thought to be that of guarding +secret treasure. This characteristic, no doubt, accounts for its +frequent use in heraldry as a supporter to the arms. It was sacred to +APOLLO, the sun-god, whose chariot was, according to early sculptures, +drawn by griffins. PLINY, who speaks of it as a bird having long ears +and a hooked beak, regarded it as fabulous. + + +(1) _The Voiage and Travaile of Sir_ JOHN MAUNDEVILLE, _Kt. Which +treateth of the Way to Hierusalem; and of Marvayles of Inde, with other +Ilands and Countryes. Now Publish'd entire from an Original MS. in The +Cotton Library_ (London, 1727), cap. xxvi. pp. 325 and 326. + +"This work is mainly a compilation from the writings of William of +Boldensele, Friar Odoric of Pordenone, Hetoum of Armenia, Vincent de +Beauvais, and other geographers. It is probable that the name John de +Mandeville should be regarded as a pseudonym concealing the identity +of Jean de Bourgogne, a physician at Liege, mentioned under the name of +Joannes ad Barbam in the vulgate Latin version of the Travels." (Note in +British Museum Catalogue). The work, which was first published in French +during the latter part of the fourteenth century, achieved an immense +popularity, the marvels that it relates being readily received by the +credulous folk of that and many a succeeding day. + + +The harpies (_i.e_. snatchers) in Greek mythology are creatures like +vultures as to their bodies, but with the faces of women, and armed with +sharp claws. + +"Of Monsters all, most Monstrous this; no greater Wrath God sends +'mongst Men; it comes from depth of pitchy Hell: And Virgin's Face, but +Womb like Gulf unsatiate hath, Her Hands are griping Claws, her Colour +pale and fell."(1) + + +(1) Quoted from VERGIL by JOHN GUILLIM in his _A Display of Heraldry_ +(sixth edition, 1724), p. 271. + + +We meet with the harpies in the story of PHINEUS, a son of AGENOR, +King of Thrace. At the bidding of his jealous wife, IDAEA, daughter of +DARDANUS, PHINEUS put out the sight of his children by his former wife, +CLEOPATRA, daughter of BOREAS. To punish this cruelty, the gods caused +him to become blind, and the harpies were sent continually to harass +and affright him, and to snatch away his food or defile it by their +presence. They were afterwards driven away by his brothers-in-law, +ZETES and CALAIS. It has been suggested that originally the harpies were +nothing more than personifications of the swift storm-winds; and few +of the old naturalists, credulous as they were, regarded them as real +creatures, though this cannot be said of all. Some other fabulous +bird-forms are to be met with in Greek and Arabian mythologies, _etc_., +but they are not of any particular interest. And it is time for us to +conclude our present excursion, and to seek for other byways. + + + + +V. THE POWDER OF SYMPATHY: A CURIOUS MEDICAL SUPERSTITION + +OUT of the superstitions of the past the science of the present has +gradually evolved. In the Middle Ages, what by courtesy we may term +medical science was, as we have seen, little better than a heterogeneous +collection of superstitions, and although various reforms were +instituted with the passing of time, superstition still continued for +long to play a prominent part in medical practice. + +One of the most curious of these old medical (or perhaps I should say +surgical) superstitions was that relating to the Powder of Sympathy, a +remedy (?) chiefly remembered in connection with the name of Sir KENELM +DIGBY (1603-1665), though he was probably not the first to employ it. +The Powder itself, which was used as a cure for wounds, was, in fact, +nothing else than common vitriol,(1) though an improved and more elegant +form (if one may so describe it) was composed of vitriol desiccated by +the sun's rays, mixed with _gum tragacanth_. It was in the application +of the Powder that the remedy was peculiar. It was not, as one might +expect, applied to the wound itself, but any article that might have +blood from the wound upon it was either sprinkled with the Powder or +else placed in a basin of water in which the Powder had been dissolved, +and maintained at a temperate heat. Meanwhile, the wound was kept clean +and cool. + + +(1) Green vitriol, ferrous sulphate heptahydrate, a compound of iron, +sulphur, and oxygen, crystallised with seven molecules of water, +represented by the formula FeSO4<.>7H2O. On exposure to the air it loses +water, and is gradually converted into basic ferric sulphate. For long, +green vitriol was confused with blue vitriol, which generally occurs +as an impurity in crude green vitriol. Blue vitriol is copper sulphate +pentahydrate, CuSO4<.>5H2O. + + +Sir KENELM DIGBY appears to have delivered a discourse dealing with the +famous Powder before a learned assembly at Montpellier in France; at +least a work purporting to be a translation of such a discourse was +published in 1658,(1) and further editions appeared in 1660 and 1664. +KENELM was a son of the Sir EVERARD DIGBY (1578-1606) who was executed +for his share in the Gunpowder Plot. In spite of this fact, however, +JAMES I. appears to have regarded him with favour. He was a man of +romantic temperament, possessed of charming manners, considerable +learning, and even greater credulity. His contemporaries seem to have +differed in their opinions concerning him. EVELYN (1620-1706), the +diarist, after inspecting his chemical laboratory, rather harshly speaks +of him as "an errant mountebank". Elsewhere he well refers to him as "a +teller of strange things"--this was on the occasion of DIGBY'S relating +a story of a lady who had such an aversion to roses that one laid on her +cheek produced a blister! + +(1) _A late Discourse... by Sir_ KENELM DIGBY, _Kt.&c. Touching the Cure +of Wounds by the Powder of Sympathy...rendered... out of French into +English by_ R. WHITE, Gent. (1658). This is entitled the second edition, +but appears to have been the first. + + +To return to the _Late Discourse_: after some preliminary remarks, Sir +KENELM records a cure which he claims to have effected by means of +the Powder. It appears that JAMES HOWELL (1594-1666, afterwards +historiographer royal to CHARLES II.), had, in the attempt to separate +two friends engaged in a duel, received two serious wounds in the hand. +To proceed in the writer's own words:--"It was my chance to be lodged +hard by him; and four or five days after, as I was making myself ready, +he (Mr Howell) came to my House, and prayed me to view his wounds; for +I understand, said he, that you have extraordinary remedies upon such +occasions, and my Surgeons apprehend some fear, that it may grow to a +Gangrene, and so the hand must be cut off.... + +"I asked him then for any thing that had the blood upon it, so he +presently sent for his Garter, wherewith his hand was first bound: and +having called for a Bason of water, as if I would wash my hands; I took +an handfull of Powder of Vitrol, which I had in my study, and presently +dissolved it. As soon as the bloody garter was brought me, I put it +within the Bason, observing in the interim what Mr _Howel_ did, +who stood talking with a Gentleman in the corner of my Chamber, not +regarding at all what I was doing: but he started suddenly, as if he had +found some strange alteration in himself; I asked him what he ailed? I +know not what ailes me, but I find that I feel no more pain, methinks +that a pleasing kind of freshnesse, as it were a wet cold Napkin +did spread over my hand, which hath taken away the inflammation that +tormented me before; I replied, since that you feel already so good an +effect of my medicament, I advise you to cast away all your Plaisters, +onely keep the wound clean, and in a moderate temper 'twixt heat and +cold. This was presently reported to the Duke of _Buckingham_, and a +little after to the King (James I.), who were both very curious to know +the issue of the businesse, which was, that after dinner I took the +garter out of the water, and put it to dry before a great fire; it was +scarce dry, but Mr _Howels_ servant came running (and told me), that his +Master felt as much burning as ever he had done, if not more, for the +heat was such, as if his hand were betwixt coales of fire: I answered, +that although that had happened at present, yet he should find ease in +a short time; for I knew the reason of this new accident, and I +would provide accordingly, for his Master should be free from that +inflammation, it may be, before he could possibly return unto him: but +in case he found no ease, I wished him to come presently back again, if +not he might forbear coming. Thereupon he went, and at the instant I +did put again the garter into the water; thereupon he found his Master +without any pain at all. To be brief, there was no sense of pain +afterward: but within five or six dayes the wounds were cicatrized, and +entirely healed."(1) + + +(1) _Ibid_., pp. 7-11. + + +Sir KENELM proceeds, in this discourse, to relate that he obtained the +secret of the Powder from a Carmelite who had learnt it in the East. +Sir KENELM says that he told it only to King JAMES and his celebrated +physician, Sir THEODORE MAYERNE (1573-1655). The latter disclosed it to +the Duke of MAYERNE, whose surgeon sold the secret to various persons, +until ultimately, as Sir KENELM remarks, it became known to every +country barber. However, DIGBY'S real connection with the Powder has +been questioned. In an Appendix to Dr NATHANAEL HIGHMORE'S (1613-1685) +_The History of Generation_, published in 1651, entitled _A Discourse +of the Cure of Wounds by Sympathy_, the Powder is referred to as Sir +GILBERT TALBOT'S Powder; nor does it appear to have been DIGBY who +brought the claims of the Sympathetic Powder before the notice of +the then recently-formed Royal Society, although he was a by no means +inactive member of the Society. HIGHMORE, however, in the Appendix +to the work referred to above, does refer to DIGBY'S reputed cure of +HOWELL'S wounds already mentioned; and after the publication of DIGBY'S +_Discourse_ the Powder became generally known as Sir KENELM DIGBY'S +Sympathetic Powder. As such it is referred to in an advertisement +appended to _Wit and Drollery_ (1661) by the bookseller, NATHANAEL +BROOK.(1) + + +(1) This advertisement is as follows: "These are to give notice, that +Sir _Kenelme Digbies_ Sympathetical Powder prepar'd by Promethean fire, +curing all green wounds that come within the compass of a Remedy; and +likewise the Tooth-ache infallibly in a very short time: Is to be had at +Mr _Nathanael Brook's_ at the Angel in _Cornhil_." + +The belief in cure by sympathy, however, is much older than DIGBY'S or +TALBOT'S Sympathetic Powder. PARACELSUS described an ointment consisting +essentially of the moss on the skull of a man who had died a violent +death, combined with boar's and bear's fat, burnt worms, dried boar's +brain, red sandal-wood and mummy, which was used to cure (?) wounds in a +similar manner, being applied to the weapon with which the hurt had been +inflicted. With reference to this ointment, readers will probably recall +the passage in SCOTT'S _Lay of the Last Minstrel_ (canto 3, stanza 23), +respecting the magical cure of WILLIAM of DELORAINE'S wound by "the +Ladye of Branksome":-- + + "She drew the splinter from the wound + And with a charm she stanch'd the blood; + She bade the gash be cleans'd and bound: + No longer by his couch she stood; + But she had ta'en the broken lance, + And washed it from the clotted gore + And salved the splinter o'er and o'er. + William of Deloraine, in trance, + Whene'er she turned it round and round, + Twisted as if she gall'd his wound. + Then to her maidens she did say + That he should be whole man and sound + Within the course of a night and day. + Full long she toil'd; for she did rue + Mishap to friend so stout and true." + + +FRANCIS BACON (1561-1626) writes of sympathetic cures as follows:--"It +is constantly Received, and Avouched, that the _Anointing_ of the +_Weapon_, that maketh the _Wound_, wil heale the _Wound_ it selfe. In +this _Experiment_, upon the Relation of _Men of Credit_, (though my +selfe, as yet, am not fully inclined to beleeve it,) you shal note +the _Points_ following; First, the _Ointment_... is made of Divers +_ingredients_; whereof the Strangest and Hardest to come by, are the +Mosse upon the _Skull_ of a _dead Man, Vnburied_; And the _Fats_ of a +_Boare_, and a _Beare_, killed in the _Act of Generation_. These Two +last I could easily suspect to be prescribed as a Starting Hole; That if +the _Experiment_ proved not, it mought be pretended, that the _Beasts_ +were not killed in due Time; For as for the _Mosse_, it is certain +there is great Quantity of it in _Ireland_, upon _Slain Bodies_, laid +on _Heaps, Vnburied_. The other _Ingredients_ are, the _Bloud-Stone_ +in _Powder_, and some other _Things_, which seeme to have a _Vertue_ to +_Stanch Bloud_; As also the _Mosse_ hath.... Secondly, the same _kind_ +of _Ointment_, applied to the Hurt it selfe, worketh not the _Effect_; +but onely applied to the _Weapon_..... Fourthly, it may be applied to +the _Weapon_, though the Party Hurt be at a great Distance. Fifthly, it +seemeth the _Imagination_ of the Party, to be _Cured_, is not needfull +to Concurre; For it may be done without the knowledge of the _Party +Wounded_; And thus much hath been tried, that the _Ointment_ (for +_Experiments_ sake,) hath been wiped off the _Weapon_, without the +knowledge of the _Party Hurt_, and presently the _Party Hurt_, hath been +in great _Rage of Paine_, till the _Weapon_ was _Reannointed_. Sixthly, +it is affirmed, that if you cannot get the _Weapon_, yet if you put an +_Instrument_ of _Iron_, or _Wood_, resembling the _Weapon_, into the +_Wound_, whereby it bleedeth, the _Annointing_ of that _Instrument_ will +serve, and work the _Effect_. This I doubt should be a Device, to keep +this strange _Forme of Cure_, in Request, and Use; Because many times +you cannot come by the _Weapon_ it selve. Seventhly, the _Wound_ be at +first _Washed clean_ with _White Wine_ or the _Parties_ own _Water_; And +then bound up close in _Fine Linen_ and no more _Dressing_ renewed, till +it be _whole_."(1) + + +(1) FRANCIS BACON: _Sylva Sylvarum: or, A Natural History... Published +after the Authors death... The sixt Edition_ ù.. (1651), p. 217. + + +Owing to the demand for making this ointment, quite a considerable trade +was done in skulls from Ireland upon which moss had grown owing to +their exposure to the atmosphere, high prices being obtained for fine +specimens. + +The idea underlying the belief in the efficacy of sympathetic remedies, +namely, that by acting on part of a thing or on a symbol of it, one +thereby acts magically on the whole or the thing symbolised, is the +root-idea of all magic, and is of extreme antiquity. DIGBY and others, +however, tried to give a natural explanation to the supposed efficacy +of the Powder. They argued that particles of the blood would ascend from +the bloody cloth or weapon, only coming to rest when they had reached +their natural home in the wound from which they had originally issued. +These particles would carry with them the more volatile part of the +vitriol, which would effect a cure more readily than when combined with +the grosser part of the vitriol. In the days when there was hardly any +knowledge of chemistry and physics, this theory no doubt bore every +semblance of truth. In passing, however, it is interesting to note +that DIGBY'S _Discourse_ called forth a reply from J. F. HELVETIUS +(or SCHWETTZER, 1625-1709), physician to the Prince of Orange, who +afterwards became celebrated as an alchemist who had achieved the magnum +opus.(1) + + +(1) See my _Alchemy: Ancient and Modern_ (1911), SESE 63-67. + + +Writing of the Sympathetic Powder, Professor DE MORGAN wittily argues +that it must have been quite efficacious. He says: "The directions were +to keep the wound clean and cool, and to take care of diet, rubbing the +salve on the knife or sword. If we remember the dreadful notions upon +drugs which prevailed, both as to quantity and quality, we shall readily +see that any way of NOT dressing the wound would have been useful. If +the physicians had taken the hint, had been careful of diet, _etc_., +and had poured the little barrels of medicine down the throat of a +practicable doll, THEY would have had their magical cures as well as the +surgeons."(2) As Dr PETTIGREW has pointed out,(3) Nature exhibits very +remarkable powers in effecting the healing of wounds by adhesion, when +her processes are not impeded. In fact, many cases have been recorded in +which noses, ears, and fingers severed from the body have been rejoined +thereto, merely by washing the parts, placing them in close continuity, +and allowing the natural powers of the body to effect the healing. +Moreover, in spite of BACON'S remarks on this point, the effect of +the imagination of the patient, who was usually not ignorant that a +sympathetic cure was to be attempted, must be taken into account; for, +without going to the excesses of "Christian Science" in this respect, +the fact must be recognised that the state of the mind exercises a +powerful effect on the natural forces of the body, and a firm faith is +undoubtedly helpful in effecting the cure of any sort of ill. + + +(2) Professor AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN: _A Budget of Paradoxes_ (1872), p 66. + +(3) THOMAS JOSEPH PETTIGREW, F.R.S.: _On Superstitions connected with +the History and Practice of Medicine and Surgery_ (1844), pp. 164-167. + + + + +VI. THE BELIEF IN TALISMANS + +THE word "talisman" is derived from the Arabic "tilsam," "a magical +image," through the plural form "tilsamen." This Arabic word is itself +probably derived from the Greek telesma in its late meaning of "a +religious mystery" or "consecrated object". The term is often employed +to designate amulets in general, but, correctly speaking, it has a more +restricted and special significance. A talisman may be defined briefly +as an astrological or other symbol expressive of the influence and power +of one of the planets, engraved on a sympathetic stone or metal (or +inscribed on specially prepared parchment) under the auspices of this +planet. + +Before proceeding to an account of the preparation of talismans proper, +it will not be out of place to notice some of the more interesting and +curious of other amulets. All sorts of substances have been employed +as charms, sometimes of a very unpleasant nature, such as dried toads. +Generally, however, amulets consist of stones, herbs, or passages from +Sacred Writings written on paper. This latter class are sometimes +called "characts," as an example of which may be mentioned the Jewish +phylacteries. + +Every precious stone was supposed to exercise its own peculiar virtue; +for instance, amber was regarded as a good remedy for throat troubles, +and agate was thought to preserve from snake-bites. ELIHU RICH(1) gives +a very full list of stones and their supposed virtues. Each sign of the +zodiac was supposed to have its own particular stone(2) (as shown in the +annexed table), and hence the superstitious though not inartistic custom +of wearing one's birth- + + Month (com- + Astrological mencing 21st + Sign of the Zodiac. of preceding + Symbol. month). Stone. + + + Aries, the Ram . {} April Sardonyx. + Taurus the Bull . {} May Cornelian. + Gemini the Twins . {} June Topaz. + Cancer, the Crab . {} July Chalcedony. + Leo, the Lion . . {} August Jasper. + Virgo, the Virgin . {} September Emerald. + Libra, the Balance . {} October Beryl. + Scorpio, the Scorpion {} November Amethyst. + Sagittarius, the Archer {} December Hyacinth (=Sapphire). + Capricorn, the Goat . {} January Chrysoprase. + Aquarius, the Water- {} February Crystal. + bearer + Pisces, the Fishes . {} March Sapphire.(=Lapis lazuli). + + +stone for "luck". The belief in the occult powers of certain stones +is by no means non-existent at the present day; for even in these +enlightened times there are not wanting those who fear the beautiful +opal, and put their faith in the virtues of New Zealand green-stone. + + +(1) ELIHU RICH: _The Occult Sciences (Encyclopaedia Metropolitana_, +1855), pp. 348 _et seq_. + +(2) With regard to these stones, however, there is much confusion and +difference of opinion. The arrangement adopted in the table here +given is that of CORNELIUS AGRIPPA (_Occult Philosophy_, bk. ii.). A +comparatively recent work, esteemed by modern occultists, namely, _The +Light of Egypt, or the Science of the Soul and the Stars_ (1889), gives +the following scheme:-- + +{}=Amethyst. {}=Emerald. {}=Diamond. {}=Onyx (Chalcedony). + +{}=Agate. {}=Ruby. {}=Topaz. {}=Sapphire (skyblue). + +{}=Beryl. {}=Jasper. {}=Carbuncle. {}=Chrysolite. + + +Common superstitious opinion regarding birth-stones, as reflected, for +example, in the "lucky birth charms" exhibited in the windows of the +jewellers' shops, considerably diverges in this matter from the views of +both these authorities. The usual scheme is as follows:-- + + Jan.=Garnet. May =Emerald. Sept.=Sapphire, + Feb.=Amethyst. June=Agate. Oct. =Opal. + Mar.=Bloodstone. July=Ruby. Nov. =Topaz. + Apr.=Diamond. Aug.=Sardonyx. Dec. =Turquoise. + + +The bloodstone is frequently assigned either to Aries or Scorpio, owing +to its symbolical connection with Mars; and the opal to Cancer, which in +astrology is the constellation of the moon. + +Confusion is rendered still worse by the fact that the ancients whilst +in some cases using the same names as ourselves, applied them to +different stones; thus their "hyacinth" is our "sapphire," whilst their +"sapphire" is our "lapis lazuli". + + +Certain herbs, culled at favourable conjunctions of the planets and worn +as amulets, were held to be very efficacious against various diseases. +Precious stones and metals were also taken internally for the same +purpose--"remedies" which in certain cases must have proved exceedingly +harmful. One theory put forward for the supposed medical value of +amulets was the Doctrine of Effluvia. This theory supposes the amulets +to give off vapours or effluvia which penetrate into the body and effect +a cure. It is, of course, true that certain herbs, _etc_., might, under +the heat of the body, give off such effluvia, but the theory on the +whole is manifestly absurd. The Doctrine of Signatures, which we have +already encountered in our excursions,(1) may also be mentioned in this +connection as a complementary and equally untenable hypothesis. + +According to ELIHU RICH,(2) the following were the commonest Egyptian +amulets:-- + + +1. Those inscribed with the figure of _Serapis_, used to preserve +against evils inflicted by earth. + +2. Figure of _Canopus_, against evil by water. + +3. Figure of a _hawk_, against evil from the air. + +4. Figure of an _asp_, against evil by fire. + + +PARACELSUS believed there to be much occult virtue in an alloy of +the seven chief metals, which he called _Electrum_. Certain definite +proportions of these metals had to be taken, and each was to be added +during a favourable conjunction of the planets. From this electrum he +supposed that valuable amulets and magic mirrors could be prepared. + + +(1) See "Medicine and Magic." (2) _Op. Cit_., p. 343 + + +A curious and ancient amulet for the cure of various diseases, +particularly the ague, was a triangle formed of the letters of the word +"Abracadabra." The usual form was that shown in fig. 19, and that shown +in fig. 20 was also known. The origin of this magical word is lost in +obscurity. + +The belief in the horn as a powerful amulet, especially prevalent in +Italy, where is it the custom of the common people to make the sign of +the _mano cornuto_ to avoid the consequence of the dreaded _jettatore_ +or evil eye, can be traced to the fact that the horn was the symbol +of the Goddess of the Moon. Probably the belief in the powers of the +horse-shoe had a similar origin. Indeed, it seems likely that not only +this, but most other amulets, like talismans proper--as will appear +below,--were originally designed as appeals to gods and other powerful +spiritual beings. + + + \ ABRACADABRA / \ ABRACADABRA | + \ ABRACADABR / \ BRACADABRA | + \ ABRACADAB / \ RACADABRA | + \ ABRACADA / \ ACADABRA | + \ ABRACAD / \ CADABRA | + \ ABRACA / \ ADABRA | + \ ABRAC / \ DABRA | + \ ABRA / \ ABRA | + \ ABR / \ BRA | + \ AB / \ RA | + \ A/ \ A | + \/ \ | + + +(1) See FREDERICK T. ELWORTHY'S _Horns of Honour_ (1900), especially pp. +56 _et seq_. + +To turn our attention, however, to the art of preparing talismans +proper: I may remark at the outset that it was necessary for the +talisman to be prepared by one's own self--a task by no means easy as +a rule. Indeed, the right mental attitude of the occultist was insisted +upon as essential to the operation. + +As to the various signs to be engraver on the talismans, various +authorities differ, though there are certain points connected with the +art of talismanic magic on which they all agree. It so happened that the +ancients were acquainted with seven metals and seven planets (including +the sun and moon as planets), and the days of the week are also seven. +It was concluded, therefore, that there was some occult connection +between the planets, metals, and days of the week. Each of the seven +days of the week was supposed to be under the auspices of the spirits of +one of the planets; so also was the generation in the womb of Nature of +each of the seven chief metals. + +In the following table are shown these particulars in detail:-- + + + Planet. Symbol. Day of Metal. Colour. + + Sun. {} Sunday Gold Gold or yellow. + Moon. {} Monday Silver Silver or white. + Mars. {} Tuesday Iron Red. + Mercury {} Wednesday (1)Mercury Mixed colours or purple. + Jupiter {} Thursday Tin Violet or blue. + Venus {} Friday Copper Turquoise or green. + Saturn. {} Saturday Lead Black. + +(1) Used in the form of a solid amalgam for talismans. + +Consequently, the metal of which a talisman was to be made, and also the +time of its preparation, had to be chosen with due regard to the planet +under which it was to be prepared.(1) The power of such a talisman was +thought to be due to the genie of this planet--a talisman, was, in fact, +a silent evocation of an astral spirit. Examples of the belief that a +genie can be bound up in an amulet in some way are afforded by the story +of ALADDIN'S lamp and ring and other stories in the _Thousand and +One Nights_. Sometimes the talismanic signs were engraved on precious +stones, sometimes they were inscribed on parchment; in both cases the +same principle held good, the nature of the stone chosen, or the colour +of the ink employed, being that in correspondence with the planet under +whose auspices the talisman was prepared. + + +(1) In this connection a rather surprising discovery made by Mr W. +GORNOLD (see his _A Manual of Occultism_, 1911, pp. 7 and 8) must be +mentioned. The ancient Chaldeans appear invariably to have enumerated +the planets in the following order: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, +Mercury, Moon--which order was adopted by the mediaeval astrologers. +Let us commence with the Sun in the above sequence, and write down every +third planet; we then have-- Sun . . . . Sunday. + Moon. . . . Monday. + Mars. . . . Tuesday. + Mercury. . . . Wednesday. + Jupiter.. . . Thursday. + Venus. . . . Friday. + Saturn. . . . Saturday. + +That is to say, we have the planets in the order in which they were +supposed to rule over the days of the week. This is perhaps, not so +surprising, because it seems probable that, each day being first divided +into twenty-four hours, it was assumed that the planets ruled for one +hour in turn, in the order first mentioned above. Each day was then +named after the planet which ruled during its first hour. It will be +found that if we start with the Sun and write down every twenty-fourth +planet, the result is exactly the same as if we write down every third. +But Mr OLD points out further, doing so by means of a diagram which +seems to be rather cumbersome that if we start with Saturn in the first +place, and write down every fifth planet, and then for each planet +substitute the metal over which it was supposed to rule, we then have +these metals arranged in descending order of atomic weights, thus:-- + + Saturn . . . Lead (=207). + Mercury . . . Mercury (=200). + Sun. . . . Gold (=197). + Jupiter . . . Tin (=119). + Moon. . . . Silver (=108). + Venus . . Copper (=64). + Mars. . . . Iron (=56). + + +Similarly we can, starting from any one of these orders, pass to the +other two. The fact is a very surprising one, because the ancients could +not possibly have been acquainted with the atomic weights of the metals, +and, it is important to note, the order of the densities of these +metals, which might possibly have been known to them, is by no means the +same as the order of their atomic weights. Whether the fact indicates a +real relationship between the planets and the metals, or whether there +is some other explanation, I am not prepared to say. Certainly some +explanation is needed: to say that the fact is mere coincidence is +unsatisfactory, seeing that the odds against, not merely this, but any +such regularity occurring by chance--as calculated by the mathematical +theory of probability--are 119 to 1. + + +All the instruments employed in the art had to be specially prepared and +consecrated. Special robes had to be worn, perfumes and incense burnt, +and invocations, conjurations, _etc_., recited, all of which depended +on the planet ruling the operation. A description of a few typical +talismans in detail will not here be out of place. + +In _The Key of Solomon the King_ (translated by S. L. M. MATHERS, +1889)(1) are described five, six, or seven talismans for each planet. +Each of these was supposed to have its own peculiar virtues, and many of +them are stated to be of use in the evocation of spirits. The majority +of them consist of a central design encircled by a verse of Hebrew +Scripture. The central designs are of a varied character, generally +geometrical figures and Hebrew letters or words, or magical characters. +Five of these talismans are here portrayed, the first three described +differing from the above. The translations of the Hebrew verses, _etc_., +given below are due to Mr MATHERS. + + +(1) The _Clavicula Salomonis_, or _Key of Solomon the King_, consists +mainly of an elaborate ritual for the evocation of the various planetary +spirits, in which process the use of talismans or pentacles plays a +prominent part. It is claimed to be a work of white magic, but, inasmuch +as it, like other old books making the same claim, gives descriptions +of a pentacle for causing ruin, destruction, and death, and another for +causing earthquakes--to give only two examples,--the distinction between +black and white magic, which we shall no doubt encounter again in later +excursions, appears to be somewhat arbitrary. + +Regarding the authorship of the work, Mr MATHERS, translator and editor +of the first printed copy of the book, says, "I see no reason to +doubt the tradition which assigns the authorship of the 'Key' to King +Solomon." If this view be accepted, however, it is abundantly evident +that the _Key_ as it stands at present (in which we find S. JOHN +quoted, and mention made of SS. PETER and PAUL) must have received some +considerable alterations and additions at the hands of later editors. +But even if we are compelled to assign the _Clavicula Salomonis_ in its +present form to the fourteenth or fifteenth century, we must, I think, +allow that it was based upon traditions of the past, and, of course, +the possibility remains that it might have been based upon some earlier +work. With regard to the antiquity of the planetary sigils, Mr MATHERS +notes "that, among the Gnostic talismans in the British Museum, there is +a ring of copper with the sigils of Venus, which are exactly the same as +those given by mediaeval writers on magic." + +In spite of the absurdity of its claims, viewed in the light of modern +knowledge, the _Clavicula Salomonis_ exercised a considerable influence +in the past, and is to be regarded as one of the chief sources of +mediaeval ceremonial magic. Historically speaking, therefore, it is a +book of no little importance. + + +_The First Pentacle of the Sun_.--"The Countenance of Shaddai the +Almighty, at Whose aspect all creatures obey, and the Angelic Spirits +do reverence on bended knees." About the face is the name "El Shaddai". +Around is written in Latin: "Behold His face and form by Whom all things +were made, and Whom all creatures obey" (see fig. 21). + + +_The Fifth Pentacle of Mars_.--"Write thou this Pentacle upon virgin +parchment or paper because it is terrible unto the Demons, and at +its sight and aspect they will obey thee, for they cannot resist its +presence." The design is a Scorpion,(1) around which the word Hvl is +repeated. The Hebrew versicle is from _Psalm_ xci. 13: "Thou shalt go +upon the lion and adder, the young lion and the dragon shalt thou tread +under thy feet" (see fig. 22). + + +(1) In astrology the zodiacal sign of the scorpion is the "night house" +of the planet Mars. + + +_The Third Pentacle of the Moon_.--"This being duly borne with thee when +upon a journey, if it be properly made, serveth against all attacks by +night, and against every kind of danger and peril by Water." The design +consists of a hand and sleeved forearm (this occurs on three other +moon talismans), together with the Hebrew names Aub and Vevaphel. The +versicle is from _Psalm_ xl. 13: "Be pleased O IHVH to deliver me, O +IHVH make haste to help me" (see fig 23) + +_The Third Pentacle of Venus_.--"This, if it be only shown unto any +person, serveth to attract love. Its Angel Monachiel should be invoked +in the day and hour of Venus, at one o'clock or at eight." The design +consists of two triangles joined at their apices, with the following +names--IHVH, Adonai, Ruach, Achides, AEgalmiel, Monachiel, and Degaliel. +The versicle is from _Genesis_ i. 28: "And the Elohim blessed them, and +the Elohim said unto them, Be ye fruitful, and multiply, and replenish +the earth, and subdue it" (see fig. 24). + +_The Third Pentacle of Mercury_.--"This serves to invoke the Spirits +subject unto Mercury; and especially those who are written in this +Pentacle." The design consists of crossed lines and magical characters +of Mercury. Around are the names of the angels, Kokaviel, Ghedoriah, +Savaniah, and Chokmahiel (see fig. 25). + + +CORNELIUS AGRIPPA, in his _Three Books of Occult Philosophy_, describes +another interesting system of talismans. FRANCIS BARRETT'S _Magus, or +Celestial Intelligencer_, a well-known occult work published in the +first year of the nineteenth century, I may mention, copies AGRIPPA'S +system of talismans, without acknowledgment, almost word for word. To +each of the planets is assigned a magic square or table, _i.e_. a square +composed of numbers so arranged that the sum of each row or column is +always the same. For example, the table for Mars is as follows:-- + + 11 24 7 20 3 + 4 12 25 8 16 + 17 5 13 21 9 + 10 18 1 14 22 + 23 6 19 2 15 + + +It will be noticed that every number from 1 up to the highest possible +occurs once, and that no number occurs twice. It will also be seen that +the sum of each row and of each column is always 65. Similar squares +can be constructed containing any square number of figures, and it is, +indeed, by no means surprising that the remarkable properties of such +"magic squares," before these were explained mathematically, gave rise +to the belief that they had some occult significance and virtue. From +the magic squares can be obtained certain numbers which are said to be +the numbers of the planets; their orderliness, we are told, reflects +the order of the heavens, and from a consideration of them the magical +properties of the planets which they represent can be arrived at. For +example, in the above table the number of rows of numbers is 5. The +total number of numbers in the table is the square of this number, +namely, 25, which is also the greatest number in the table. The sum of +any row or column is 65. And, finally, the sum of all the numbers is +the product of the number of rows (namely, 5) and the sum of any row +(namely, 65), _i.e_. 325. These numbers, namely, 5, 25, 65, and 325, are +the numbers of Mars. Sets of numbers for the other planets are obtained +in exactly the same manner.(1) + + +(1) Readers acquainted with mathematics will notice that if _n_ is the +number of rows in such a "magic square," the other numbers derived as +above will be n<2S>, 1/2_n_(_n_<2S> + 1), and 1/2_n_<2S>(_n_<2S> + 1). +This can readily be proved by the laws of arithmetical progressions. +Rather similar but more complicated and less uniform "magic squares" are +attributed to PARACELSUS. + + +Now to each planet is assigned an Intelligence or good spirit, and an +Evil Spirit or demon; and the names of these spirits are related to +certain of the numbers of the planets. The other numbers are also +connected with holy and magical Hebrew names. AGRIPPA, and BARRETT +copying him, gives the following table of "names answering to the +numbers of Mars":-- + + 5. He, the letter of the holy name. <hb > + 25. <hb ___> + 65. Adonai. <hb ____> + 325. Graphiel, the Intelligence of Mars. <hb _______> + 325. Barzabel, the Spirit of Mars. <hb _______> + +Similar tables are given for the other planets. The numbers can be +derived from the names by regarding the Hebrew letters of which they +are composed as numbers, in which case <hb > (Aleph) to <hb > (Teth) +represent the units 1 to 9 in order, <hb > (Jod) to <hb > (Tzade) the +tens 10 to 90 in order, <hb > (Koph) to <hb > (Tau) the hundreds 100 to +400, whilst the hundreds 500 to 900 are represented by special terminal +forms of certain of the Hebrew letters.(2) It is evident that no little +wasted ingenuity must have been employed in working all this out. + + +(2) It may be noticed that this makes <hb _______> equal to 326, one +unit too much. Possibly an Alelph should be omitted. + + +Each planet has its own seal or signature, as well as the signature of +its intelligence and the signature of its demon. These signatures were +supposed to represent the characters of the planets' intelligences and +demons respectively. The signature of Mars is shown in fig. 26, that of +its intelligence in fig. 27, and that of its demon in fig. 28. + +These various details were inscribed on the talismans each of which was +supposed to confer its own peculiar benefits--as follows: On one side +must be engraved the proper magic table and the astrological sign of +the planet, together with the highest planetary number, the sacred names +corresponding to the planet, and the name of the intelligence of +the planet, but not the name of its demon. On the other side must be +engraved the seals of the planet and of its intelligence, and also the +astrological sign. BARRETT says, regarding the demons:(1) "It is to be +understood that the intelligences are the presiding good angels that are +set over the planets; but that the spirits or daemons, with their names, +seals, or characters, are never inscribed upon any Talisman, except to +execute any evil effect, and that they are subject to the intelligences, +or good spirits; and again, when the spirits and their characters are +used, it will be more conducive to the effect to add some divine name +appropriate to that effect which we desire." Evil talismans can also be +prepared, we are informed, by using a metal antagonistic to the signs +engraved thereon. The complete talisman of Mars is shown in fig. 29. + + +(1) FRANCIS BARRETT: _The Magus, or Celestial Intelligencer_ (1801), bk. +i. p. 146. + + +ALPHONSE LOUIS CONSTANT,(1) a famous French occultist of the nineteenth +century, who wrote under the name of "ELIPHAS LEVI," describes yet +another system of talismans. He says: "The Pentagram must be always +engraved on one side of the talisman, with a circle for the Sun, a +crescent for the Moon, a winged caduceus for Mercury, a sword for Mars, +a G for Venus, a crown for Jupiter, and a scythe for Saturn. The other +side of the talisman should bear the sign of Solomon, that is, the +six-pointed star formed by two interlaced triangles; in the centre there +should be placed a human figure for the sun talismans, a cup for those +of the Moon, a dog's head for those of Jupiter, a lion for those of +Mars, a dove's for those of Venus, a bull's or goat's for those of +Saturn. The names of the seven angels should be added either in Hebrew, +Arabic, or magic characters similar to those of the alphabets of +Trimethius. The two triangles of Solomon may be replaced by the double +cross of Ezekiel's wheels, this being found on a great number of ancient +pentacles. All objects of this nature, whether in metals or in precious +stones, should be carefully wrapped in silk satchels of a colour +analogous to the spirit of the planet, perfumed with the perfumes of the +corresponding day, and preserved from all impure looks and touches."(2) + +(1) For a biographical and critical account of this extraordinary +personage and his views, see Mr A. E. WAITE'S _The Mysteries of Magic: a +Digest of the writings of_ ELIPHAS LEVI (1897). + +(2) _Op. cit_., p. 201. + + +ELIPHAS LEVI, following PYTHAGORAS and many of the mediaeval magicians, +regarded the pentagram, or five-pointed star, as an extremely powerful +pentacle. According to him, if with one horn in the ascendant it is the +sign of the microcosm--Man. With two horns in the ascendant, however, +it is the sign of the Devil, "the accursed Goat of Mendes," and an +instrument of black magic. We can, indeed, trace some faint likeness +between the pentagram and the outline form of a man, or of a goat's +head, according to whether it has one or two horns in the ascendant +respectively, which resemblances may account for this idea. Fig. 30 +shows the pentagram embellished with other symbols according to ELIPHAS +LEVI, whilst fig. 31 shows his embellished form of the six-pointed star, +or Seal of SOLOMON. This, he says, is "the sign of the Macrocosmos, +but is less powerful than the Pentagram, the microcosmic sign," thus +contradicting PYTHAGORAS, who, as we have seen, regarded the pentagram +as the sign of the Macrocosm. ELIPHAS LEVI asserts that he attempted the +evocation of the spirit of APOLLONIUS of Tyana in London on 24th July +1854, by the aid of a pentagram and other magical apparatus and ritual, +apparently with success, if we may believe his word. But he sensibly +suggests that probably the apparition which appeared was due to the +effect of the ceremonies on his own imagination, and comes to the +conclusion that such magical experiments are injurious to health.(1) + + +(1) _Op cit_. pp. 446-450. + + +Magical rings were prepared on the same principle as were talismans. +Says CORNELIUS AGRIPPA: "The manner of making these kinds of Magical +Rings is this, viz.: When any Star ascends fortunately, with the +fortunate aspect or conjunction of the Moon, we must take a stone and +herb that is under that Star, and make a ring of the metal that is +suitable to this Star, and in it fasten the stone, putting the herb +or root under it--not omitting the inscriptions of images, names, and +characters, as also the proper suffumigations...."(1) SOLOMON'S ring +was supposed to have been possessed of remarkable occult virtue. Says +JOSEPHUS (_c_. A.D. 37-100): "God also enabled him (SOLOMON) to learn +that skill which expels demons, which is a science useful and sanative +to men. He composed such incantations also by which distempers are +alleviated. And he left behind him the manner of using exorcisms, by +which they drive away demons, so that they never return; and this method +of cure is of great force unto this day; for I have seen a certain man +of my own country, whose name was Eleazar, releasing people that were +demoniacal in the presence of Vespasian, and his sons, and his captains, +and the whole multitude of his soldiers. The manner of the cure was +this; he put a ring that had under the seal a root of one of those sorts +mentioned by Solomon, to the nostrils of the demoniac, after which he +drew out the demon through his nostrils: and when the man fell down +immediately, he abjured him to return unto him no more, making still +mention of Solomon, and reciting the incantations which he composed."(2) + +(1) H. C. AGRIPPA: _Occult Philosophy_, bk. i. chap. xlvii. (WHITEHEAD'S +edition, pp. 141 and 142). + +(2) FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS: _The Antiquities of the Jews_ (trans. by W. +WHISTON), bk. viii. chap. ii., SE 5 (45) to (47). + +Enough has been said already to indicate the general nature of +talismanic magic. No one could maintain otherwise than that much of it +is pure nonsense; but the subject should not, therefore, be dismissed as +valueless, or lacking significance. It is past belief that amulets and +talismans should have been believed in for so long unless they APPEARED +to be productive of some of the desired results, though these may have +been due to forces quite other than those which were supposed to be +operative. Indeed, it may be said that there has been no widely held +superstition which does not embody some truth, like some small specks of +gold hidden in an uninviting mass of quartz. As the poet BLAKE put it: +"Everything possible to be believ'd is an image of truth";(1) and the +attempt may here be made to extract the gold of truth from the quartz of +superstition concerning talismanic magic. For this purpose the various +theories regarding the supposed efficacy of talismans must be examined. + + +(1) "Proverbs of Hell" (_The Marriage of Heaven and Hell_). + + +Two of these theories have already been noted, but the doctrine of +effluvia admittedly applied only to a certain class of amulets, and, I +think, need not be seriously considered. The "astral-spirit theory" (as +it may be called), in its ancient form at any rate, is equally untenable +to-day. The discoveries of new planets and new metals seem destructive +of the belief that there can be any occult connection between planets, +metals, and the days of the week, although the curious fact discovered +by Mr OLD, to which I have referred (footnote, p. 63@@@), assuredly +demands an explanation, and a certain validity may, perhaps, be allowed +to astrological symbolism. As concerns the belief in the existence +of what may be called (although the term is not a very happy one) +"discarnate spirits," however, the matter, in view of the modern +investigation of spiritistic and other abnormal psychical phenomena, +stands in a different position. There can, indeed, be little doubt that +very many of the phenomena observed at spiritistic seances come under +the category of deliberate fraud, and an even larger number, perhaps, +can be explained on the theory of the subconscious self. I think, +however, that the evidence goes to show that there is a residuum of +phenomena which can only be explained by the operation, in some way, +of discarnate intelligences.(1) Psychical research may be said to +have supplied the modern world with the evidence of the existence of +discarnate personalities, and of their operation on the material plane, +which the ancient world lacked. But so far as our present subject is +concerned, all the evidence obtainable goes to show that the phenomena +in question only take place in the presence of what is called "a +medium"--a person of peculiar nervous or psychical organisation. +That this is the case, moreover, appears to be the general belief of +spiritists on the subject. In the sense, then, in which "a talisman" +connotes a material object of such a nature that by its aid the powers +of discarnate intelligences may become operative on material things, we +might apply the term "talisman" to the nervous system of a medium: +but then that would be the only talisman. Consequently, even if one is +prepared to admit the whole of modern spiritistic theory, nothing is +thereby gained towards a belief in talismans, and no light is shed upon +the subject. + + +(1) The publications of The Society for Psychical Research, and +FREDERICK MYERS' monumental work on _Human Personality and its Survival +of Bodily Death_, should be specially consulted. I have attempted a +brief discussion of modern spiritualism and psychical research in my +_Matter, Spirit, and the Cosmos_ (1910), chap. ii. + + +Another theory concerning talismans which commended itself to many of +the old occult philosophers, PARACELSUS for instance, is what may be +called the "occult force" theory. This theory assumes the existence of +an occult mental force, a force capable of being exerted by the human +will, apart from its usual mode of operation by means of the body. It +was believed to be possible to concentrate this mental energy and infuse +it into some suitable medium, with the production of a talisman, which +was thus regarded as a sort of accumulator for mental energy. The theory +seems a fantastic one to modern thought, though, in view of the many +startling phenomena brought to light by psychical research, it is not +advisable to be too positive regarding the limitations of the powers of +the human mind. However, I think we shall find the element of truth in +the otherwise absurd belief in talismans by means of what may be called, +not altogether fancifully perhaps, a transcendental interpretation of +this "occult force" theory. I suggest, that is, that when a believer +makes a talisman, the transference of the occult energy is ideal, not +actual; that the power, believed to reside in the talisman itself, is +the power due to the reflex action of the believer's mind. The power +of what transcendentalists call "the imagination" cannot be denied; for +example, no one can deny that a man with a firm conviction that such a +success will be achieved by him, or such a danger avoided, will be far +more likely to gain his desire, other conditions being equal, than one +of a pessimistic turn of mind. The mere conviction itself is a factor in +success, or a factor in failure, according to its nature; and it seems +likely that herein will be found a true explanation of the effects +believed to be due to the power of the talisman. + +On the other hand, however, we must beware of the exaggerations into +which certain schools of thought have fallen in their estimates of the +powers of the imagination. These exaggerations are particularly +marked in the views which are held by many nowadays with regard to +"faith-healing," although the "Christian Scientists" get out of the +difficulty--at least to their own satisfaction--by ascribing their +alleged cures to the Power of the Divine Mind, and not to the power of +the individual mind. + +Of course the real question involved in this "transcendental theory +of talismans" as I may, perhaps, call it, is that of the operation of +incarnate spirit on the plane of matter. This operation takes place only +through the medium of the nervous system, and it has been suggested,(1) +to avoid any violation of the law of the conservation of energy, that +it is effected, not by the transference, as is sometimes supposed, of +energy from the spiritual to the material plane, but merely by means +of directive control over the expenditure of energy derived by the body +from purely physical sources, _e.g_. the latent chemical energy bound up +in the food eaten and the oxygen breathed. + + +(1) _Cf_ Sir OLIVER LODGE: _Life and Matter_ (1907), especially chap. +ix.; and W. HIBBERT, F.I.C.: _Life and Energy_ (1904). + + +I am not sure that this theory really avoids the difficulty which it is +intended to obviate;(1) but it is at least an interesting one, and +at any rate there may be modes in which the body, under the directive +control of the spirit, may expend energy derived from the material +plane, of which we know little or nothing. We have the testimony of many +eminent authorities(2) to the phenomenon of the movement of physical +objects without contact at spiritistic seances. It seems to me that the +introduction of discarnate intelligences to explain this phenomenon is +somewhat gratuitous--the psychic phenomena which yield evidence of the +survival of human personality after bodily death are of a different +character. For if we suppose this particular phenomenon to be due to +discarnate spirits, we must, in view of what has been said concerning +"mediums," conclude that the movements in question are not produced by +these spirits DIRECTLY, but through and by means of the nervous +system of the medium present. Evidently, therefore, the means for the +production of the phenomenon reside in the human nervous system (or, at +any rate, in the peculiar nervous system of "mediums"), and all that +is lacking is intelligence or initiative to use these means. This +intelligence or initiative can surely be as well supplied by the +sub-consciousness as by a discarnate intelligence. Consequently, it does +not seem unreasonable to suppose that equally remarkable phenomena may +have been produced by the aid of talismans in the days when these +were believed in, and may be produced to-day, if one has sufficient +faith--that is to say, produced by man when in the peculiar condition of +mind brought about by the intense belief in the power of a talisman. And +here it should be noted that the term "talisman" may be applied to +any object (or doctrine) that is believed to possess peculiar power or +efficacy. In this fact, I think, is to be found the peculiar danger of +erroneous doctrines which promise extraordinary benefits, here and now +on the material plane, to such as believe in them. Remarkable results +may follow an intense belief in such doctrines, which, whilst having no +connection whatever with their accuracy, being proportional only to the +intensity with which they are held, cannot do otherwise than confirm the +believer in the validity of his beliefs, though these may be in every +way highly fantastic and erroneous. Both the Roman Catholic, therefore, +and the Buddhist may admit many of the marvels attributed to the relics +of each other's saints; though, in denying that these marvels prove the +accuracy of each other's religious doctrines, each should remember that +the same is true of his own. + + +(1) The subject is rather too technical to deal with here. I have +discussed it elsewhere; see "Thermo-Dynamical Objections to the +Mechanical Theory of Life," _The Chemical News_, vol. cxii. pp. 271 _et +seq_. (3rd December 1915). + +(2) For instance, the well-known physicist, Sir W. F. BARRETT, F.R.S. +(late Professor of Experimental Physics in The Royal College of Science +for Ireland). See his _On the Threshold of a New World of Thought_ +(1908), SE 10. + + +In illustration of the real power of the imagination, I may instance the +Maori superstition of the Taboo. According to the Maories, anyone who +touches a tabooed object will assuredly die, the tabooed object being +a sort of "anti-talisman". Professor FRAZER(1) says: "Cases have +been known of Maories dying of sheer fright on learning that they had +unwittingly eaten the remains of a chief's dinner or handled something +that belonged to him," since such objects were, _ipso facto_, tabooed. +He gives the following case on good authority: "A woman, having partaken +of some fine peaches from a basket, was told that they had come from +a tabooed place. Immediately the basket dropped from her hands and she +cried out in agony that the atua or godhead of the chief, whose divinity +had been thus profaned, would kill her. That happened in the afternoon, +and next day by twelve o'clock she was dead." For us the power of the +taboo does not exist; for the Maori, who implicitly believes in it, it +is a very potent reality, but this power of the taboo resides not in +external objects but in his own mind. + + +(1) Professor J. G. FRAZER, D.C.L.: _Psyche's Task_ (1909), p. 7. + + +Dr HADDON(2) quotes a similar but still more remarkable story of a young +Congo negro which very strikingly shows the power of the imagination. +The young negro, "being on a journey, lodged at a friend's house; the +latter got a wild hen for his breakfast, and the young man asked if it +were a wild hen. His host answered 'No.' Then he fell on heartily, and +afterwards proceeded on his journey. After four years these two met +together again, and his old friend asked him 'if he would eat a wild +hen,' to which he answered that it was tabooed to him. Hereat the host +began immediately to laugh, inquiring of him, 'What made him refuse it +now, when he had eaten one at his table about four years ago?' At the +hearing of this the negro immediately fell a-trembling, and suffered +himself to be so far possessed with the effects of imagination that he +died in less than twenty-four hours after." + + +(2) ALFRED C. HADDON, SC.D., F.R.S.: _Magic and Fetishism_ (1906), p. +56. + + +There are, of course, many stories about amulets, _etc_., which cannot +be thus explained. For example, ELIHU RICH gives the following:-- + +"In 1568, we are told (Transl. of Salverte, p. 196) that the Prince of +Orange condemned a Spanish prisoner to be shot at Juliers. The soldiers +tied him to a tree and fired, but he was invulnerable. They then +stripped him to see what armour he wore, but they found only an amulet +bearing the figure of a lamb (the _Agnus Dei_, we presume). This was +taken from him, and he was then killed by the first shot. De Baros +relates that the Portuguese in like manner vainly attempted to destroy +a Malay, so long as he wore a bracelet containing a bone set in gold, +which rendered him proof against their swords. A similar marvel is +related in the travels of the veracious Marco Polo. 'In an attempt of +Kublai Khan to make a conquest of the island of Zipangu, a jealousy +arose between the two commanders of the expedition, which led to an +order for putting the whole garrison to the sword. In obedience to this +order, the heads of all were cut off excepting of eight persons, who +by the efficacy of a diabolical charm, consisting of a jewel or amulet +introduced into the right arm, between the skin and the flesh, were +rendered secure from the effects of iron, either to kill or wound. Upon +this discovery being made, they were beaten with a heavy wooden club, +and presently died.'" + +(1) I think, however, that these, and many similar stories, must be +taken _cum grano salis_. + +In conclusion, mention must be made of a very interesting and suggestive +philosophical doctrine--the Law of Correspondences,--due in its explicit +form to the Swedish philosopher, who was both scientist and mystic, +EMANUEL SWEDENBORG. To deal in any way adequately with this important +topic is totally impossible within the confines of the present +discussion.(2) But, to put the matter as briefly as possible, it may be +said that SWEDENBORG maintains (and the conclusion, I think, is valid) +that all causation is from the spiritual world, physical causation being +but secondary, or apparent--that is to say, a mere reflection, as it +were, of the true process. He argues from this, thereby supplying a +philosophical basis for the unanimous belief of the nature-mystics, that +every natural object is the symbol (because the creation) of an idea or +spiritual verity in its widest sense. Thus, there are symbols which are +inherent in the nature of things, and symbols which are not. The +former are genuine, the latter merely artificial. Writing from the +transcendental point of view, ELIPHAS LEVI says: "Ceremonies, vestments, +perfumes, characters and figures being...necessary to enlist the +imagination in the education of the will, the success of magical works +depends upon the faithful observance of all the rites, which are in +no sense fantastic or arbitrary, having been transmitted to us +by antiquity, and permanently subsisting by the essential laws of +analogical realisation and of the correspondence which inevitably +connects ideas and forms."(1b) Some scepticism, perhaps, may be +permitted as to the validity of the latter part of this statement, and +the former may be qualified by the proviso that such things are only of +value in the right education of the will, if they are, indeed, genuine, +and not merely artificial, symbols. But the writer, as I think will +be admitted, has grasped the essential point, and, to conclude our +excursion, as we began it, with a definition, I will say that _the power +of the talisman is the power of the mind (or imagination) brought into +activity by means of a suitable symbol_. + + +(1) ELIHU RICH: _The Occult Sciences_, p. 346. + +(2) I may refer the reader to my _A Mathematical Theory of Spirit_ +(1912), chap. i., for a more adequate statement. + +(1b) ELIPHAS LEVI: _Transcendental Magic: its Doctrine and Ritual_ +(trans. by A. E. WAITE, 1896), p. 234. + + + + +VII. CEREMONIAL MAGIC IN THEORY AND PRACTICE + +THE word "magic," if one may be permitted to say so, is itself almost +magical--magical in its power to conjure up visions in the human mind. +For some these are of bloody rites, pacts with the powers of darkness, +and the lascivious orgies of the Saturnalia or Witches' Sabbath; in +other minds it has pleasanter associations, serving to transport them +from the world of fact to the fairyland of fancy, where the purse of +FORTUNATUS, the lamp and ring of ALADDIN, fairies, gnomes, jinn, and +innumerable other strange beings flit across the scene in a marvellous +kaleidoscope of ever-changing wonders. To the study of the magical +beliefs of the past cannot be denied the interest and fascination which +the marvellous and wonderful ever has for so many minds, many of whom, +perhaps, cannot resist the temptation of thinking that there may be some +element of truth in these wonderful stories. But the study has a +greater claim to our attention; for, as I have intimated already, magic +represents a phase in the development of human thought, and the magic +of the past was the womb from which sprang the science of the present, +unlike its parent though it be. + +What then is magic? According to the dictionary definition--and this +will serve us for the present--it is the (pretended) art of producing +marvellous results by the aid of spiritual beings or arcane spiritual +forces. Magic, therefore, is the practical complement of animism. +Wherever man has really believed in the existence of a spiritual world, +there do we find attempts to enter into communication with that world's +inhabitants and to utilise its forces.Professor LEUBA(1) and others +distinguish between propitiative behaviour towards the beings of +the spiritual world, as marking the religious attitude, and coercive +behaviour towards these beings as characteristic of the magical +attitude; but one form of behaviour merges by insensible degrees into +the other, and the distinction (though a useful one) may, for our +present purpose, be neglected. + + +(1) JAMES H. LEUBA: _The Psychological Origin and the Nature of +Religion_ (1909), chap. ii. + + +Animism, "the Conception of Spirit everywhere" as Mr EDWARD CLODD(2) +neatly calls it, and perhaps man's earliest view of natural phenomena, +persisted in a modified form, as I have pointed out in "Some +Characteristics of Mediaeval Thought," throughout the Middle Ages. +A belief in magic persisted likewise. In the writings of the Greek +philosophers of the Neo-Platonic school, in that curious body of +esoteric Jewish lore known as the Kabala, and in the works of later +occult philosophers such as AGRIPPA and PARACELSUS, we find magic, or +rather the theory upon which magic as an art was based, presented in +its most philosophical form. If there is anything of value for modern +thought in the theory of magic, here is it to be found; and it is, I +think, indeed to be found, absurd and fantastic though the practices +based upon this philosophy, or which this philosophy was thought to +substantiate, most certainly are. I shall here endeavour to give a +sketch of certain of the outstanding doctrines of magical philosophy, +some details concerning the art of magic, more especially as practiced +in the Middle Ages in Europe, and, finally, an attempt to extract from +the former what I consider to be of real worth. We have already wandered +down many of the byways of magical belief, and, indeed, the word "magic" +may be made to cover almost every superstition of the past: To what we +have already gained on previous excursions the present, I hope, will add +what we need in order to take a synthetic view of the whole subject. + + +(2) EDWARD CLODD: _Animism the Seed of Religion_ (1905), p. 26. + + +In the first place, something must be said concerning what is called the +Doctrine of Emanations, a theory of prime importance in Neo-Platonic +and Kabalistic ontology. According to this theory, everything in the +universe owes its existence and virtue to an emanation from God, which +divine emanation is supposed to descend, step by step (so to speak), +through the hierarchies of angels and the stars, down to the things of +earth, that which is nearer to the Source containing more of the divine +nature than that which is relatively distant. As CORNELIUS AGRIPPA +expresses it: "For God, in the first place is the end and beginning +of all Virtues; he gives the seal of #the _Ideas_ to his servants, the +Intelligences; who as faithful officers, sign all things intrusted +to them with an Ideal Virtue; the Heavens and Stars, as instruments, +disposing the matter in the mean while for the receiving of those forms +which reside in Divine Majesty (as saith Plato in Timeus) and to be +conveyed by Stars; and the Giver of Forms distributes them by the +ministry of his Intelligences, which he hath set as Rulers and +Controllers over his Works, to whom such a power is intrusted to things +committed to them that so all Virtues of Stones, Herbs, Metals, and all +other things may come from the Intelligences, the Governors. The Form, +therefore, and Virtue of things comes first from the _Ideas_, then from +the ruling and governing Intelligences, then from the aspects of the +Heavens disposing, and lastly from the tempers of the Elements +disposed, answering the influences of the Heavens, by which the +Elements themselves are ordered, or disposed. These kinds of operations, +therefore, are performed in these inferior things by express forms, +and in the Heavens by disposing virtues, in Intelligences by mediating +rules, in the Original Cause by _Ideas_ and exemplary forms, all which +must of necessity agree in the execution of the effect and virtue of +every thing. + +"There is, therefore, a wonderful virtue and operation in every Herb +and Stone, but greater in a Star, beyond which, even from the governing +Intelligences everything receiveth and obtains many things for itself, +especially from the Supreme Cause, with whom all things do mutually and +exactly correspond, agreeing in an harmonious consent, as it were in +hymns always praising the highest Maker of all things.... There +is, therefore, no other cause of the necessity of effects than the +connection of all things with the First Cause, and their correspondency +with those Divine patterns and eternal _Ideas_ whence every thing hath +its determinate and particular place in the exemplary world, from whence +it lives and receives its original being: And every virtue of herbs, +stones, metals, animals, words and speeches, and all things that are of +God, is placed there."(1) As compared with the _ex nihilo_ creationism +of orthodox theology, this theory is as light is to darkness. Of +course, there is much in CORNELIUS AGRIPPA'S statement of it which is +inacceptable to modern thought; but these are matters of form merely, +and do not affect the doctrine fundamentally. For instance, as a nexus +between spirit and matter AGRIPPA places the stars: modern thought +prefers the ether. The theory of emanations may be, and was, as a +matter of fact, made the justification of superstitious practices of the +grossest absurdity, but on the other hand it may be made the basis of +a lofty system of transcendental philosophy, as, for instance, that of +EMANUEL SWEDENBORG, whose ontology resembles in some respects that of +the Neo-Platonists. AGRIPPA uses the theory to explain all the marvels +which his age accredited, marvels which we know had for the most part no +existence outside of man's imagination. I suggest, on the contrary, that +the theory is really needed to explain the commonplace, since, in the +last analysis, every bit of experience, every phenomenon, be it ever +so ordinary--indeed the very fact of experience itself,--is most truly +marvellous and magical, explicable only in terms of spirit. As ELIPHAS +LEVI well says in one of his flashes of insight: "The supernatural +is only the natural in an extraordinary grade, or it is the exalted +natural; a miracle is a phenomenon which strikes the multitude because +it is unexpected; the astonishing is that which astonishes; miracles are +effects which surprise those who are ignorant of their causes, or assign +them causes w hich are not in proportion to such effects."(1b) But I am +anticipating the sequel. + + +(1) H. C. AGRIPPA: _Occult Philosophy_, bk. i., chap. xiii. (WHITEHEAD'S +edition, pp. 67-68). + +(1b) ELIPHAS LEVI: _Transcendental Magic, its Doctrine and Ritual_ +(trans. by A. E. WAITE, 1896), p. 192. + + +The doctrine of emanations makes the universe one vast harmonious whole, +between whose various parts there is an exact analogy, correspondence, +or sympathetic relation. "Nature" (the productive principle), says +IAMBLICHOS (3rd-4th century), the Neo-Platonist, "in her peculiar way, +makes a likeness of invisible principles through symbols in visible +forms."(2) The belief that seemingly similar things sympathetically +affect one another, and that a similar relation holds good between +different things which have been intimately connected with one another +as parts within a whole, is a very ancient one. Most primitive peoples +are very careful to destroy all their nail-cuttings and hair-clippings, +since they believe that a witch gaining possession of these might work +them harm. For a similar reason they refuse to reveal their REAL names, +which they regard as part of themselves, and adopt nicknames for common +use. The belief that a witch can torment an enemy by making an image of +his person in clay or wax, correctly naming it, and mutilating it with +pins, or, in the case of a waxen image, melting it by fire, is a very +ancient one, and was held throughout and beyond the Middle Ages. The +Sympathetic Powder of Sir KENELM DIGBY we have already noticed, as well +as other instances of the belief in "sympathy," and examples of +similar superstitions might be multiplied almost indefinitely. Such are +generally grouped under the term "sympathetic magic"; but inasmuch as +all magical practices assume that by acting on part of a thing, or a +symbolic representation of it, one acts magically on the whole, or on +the thing symbolised, the expression may in its broadest sense be said +to involve the whole of magic. + + +(2) IAMBLICHOS: _Theurgia, or the Egyptian Mysteries_ (trans. by Dr +ALEX. WILDER, New York, 1911), p. 239. + + +The names of the Divine Being, angels and devils, the planets of the +solar system (including sun and moon) and the days of the week, birds +and beasts, colours, herbs, and precious stones--all, according to +old-time occult philosophy, are connected by the sympathetic relation +believed to run through all creation, the knowledge of which was +essential to the magician; as well, also, the chief portions of the +human body, for man, as we have seen, was believed to be a microcosm--a +universe in miniature. I have dealt with this matter and exhibited +some of the supposed correspondences in "The Belief in Talismans". +Some further particulars are shown in the annexed table, for which I +am mainly indebted to AGRIPPA. But, as in the case of the zodiacal gems +already dealt with, the old authorities by no means agree as to the +majority of the planetary correspondences. + +TABLE OF OCCULT CORRESPONDENCES + + Arch- Part of Precious + angel. Angel. Planet. Human Animal. Bird. stone. + Body. + + Raphael Michael Sun Heart Lion Swan Carbuncle + Gabriel Gabriel Moon Left foot Cat Owl Crystal + Camael Zamael Mars Right hand Wolf Vulture Diamond + Michael Raphael Mercury Left hand Ape Stork Agate + Zadikel Sachiel Jupiter Head Hart Eagle Sapphire + (=Lapis lazuli) + Haniel Anael Venus Generative Goat Dove Emerald + organs + Zaphhiel Cassiel Saturn Right foot Mole Hoopoe Onyx + + +The names of the angels are from Mr Mather's translation of _Clavicula +Salomonis_; the other correspondences are from the second book of +Agrippa's _Occult Philosophy_, chap. x. + + +In many cases these supposed correspondences are based, as will be +obvious to the reader, upon purely trivial resemblances, and, in any +case, whatever may be said--and I think a great deal may be said--in +favour of the theory of symbology, there is little that may be adduced +to support the old occultists' application of it. + +So essential a part does the use of symbols play in all magical +operations that we may, I think, modify the definition of "magic" +adopted at the outset, and define "magic" as "an attempt to employ the +powers of the spiritual world for the production of marvellous results, +BY THE AID OF SYMBOLS." It has, on the other hand, been questioned +whether the appeal to the spirit-world is an essential element in magic. +But a close examination of magical practices always reveals at the root +a belief in spiritual powers as the operating causes. The belief in +talismans at first sight seems to have little to do with that in a +supernatural realm; but, as we have seen, the talisman was always a +silent invocation of the powers of some spiritual being with which it +was symbolically connected, and whose sign was engraved thereon. And, +as Dr T. WITTON DAVIES well remarks with regard to "sympathetic magic": +"Even this could not, at the start, be anything other than a symbolic +prayer to the spirit or spirits having authority in these matters. In so +far as no spirit is thought of, it is a mere survival, and not magic at +all...."(1) + + +(1) Dr T. WITTON DAVIES: _Magic, Divination, and Demonology among the +Hebrews and their Neighbours_ (1898), p. 17. + + +What I regard as the two essentials of magical practices, namely, +the use of symbols and the appeal to the supernatural realm, are most +obvious in what is called "ceremonial magic". Mediaeval ceremonial magic +was subdivided into three chief branches--White Magic, Black Magic, and +Necromancy. White magic was concerned with the evocations of angels, +spiritual beings supposed to be essentially superior to mankind, +concerning which I shall give some further details later--and the +spirits of the elements,--which were, as I have mentioned in "Some +Characteristics of Mediaeval Thought," personifications of the primeval +forces of Nature. As there were supposed to be four elements, fire, +air, water, and earth, so there were supposed to be four classes of +elementals or spirits of the elements, namely, Salamanders, Sylphs, +Undines, and Gnomes, inhabiting these elements respectively, and +deriving their characters therefrom. Concerning these curious beings, +the inquisitive reader may gain some information from a quaint little +book, by the Abbe de MONTFAUCON DE VILLARS, entitled _The Count of +Gabalis, or Conferences about Secret Sciences_ (1670), translated into +English and published in 1680, which has recently been reprinted. The +elementals, we learn therefrom, were, unlike other supernatural beings, +thought to be mortal. They could, however, be rendered immortal by means +of sexual intercourse with men or women, as the case might be; and it +was, we are told, to the noble end of endowing them with this great +gift, that the sages devoted themselves. + +Goety, or black magic, was concerned with the evocation of demons and +devils--spirits supposed to be superior to man in certain powers, but +utterly depraved. Sorcery may be distinguished from witchcraft, inasmuch +as the sorcerer attempted to command evil spirits by the aid of charms, +_etc_., whereas the witch or wizard was supposed to have made a pact +with the Evil One; though both terms have been rather loosely used, +"sorcery" being sometimes employed as a synonym for "necromancy". +Necromancy was concerned with the evocation of the spirits of the dead: +etymologically, the term stands for the art of foretelling events by +means of such evocations, though it is frequently employed in the wider +sense. + +It would be unnecessary and tedious to give any detailed account of the +methods employed in these magical arts beyond some general remarks. Mr +A. E. WAITE gives full particulars of the various rituals in his +_Book of Ceremonial Magic_ (1911), to which the curious reader may be +referred. The following will, in brief terms, convey a general idea of a +magical evocation:-- + +Choosing a time when there is a favourable conjunction of the planets, +the magician, armed with the implements of magical art, after much +prayer and fasting, betakes himself to a suitable spot, alone, or +perhaps accompanied by two trusty companions. All the articles he +intends to employ, the vestments, the magic sword and lamp, the +talismans, the book of spirits, _etc_., have been specially prepared and +consecrated. If he is about to invoke a martial spirit, the magician's +vestment will be of a red colour, the talismans in virtue of which +he may have power over the spirit will be of iron, the day chosen a +Tuesday, and the incense and perfumes employed of a nature analogous +to Mars. In a similar manner all the articles employed and the rites +performed must in some way be symbolical of the spirit with which +converse is desired. Having arrived at the spot, the magician first of +all traces the magic circle within which, we are told, no evil spirit +can enter; he then commences the magic rite, involving various prayers +and conjurations, a medley of meaningless words, and, in the case of the +black art, a sacrifice. The spirit summoned then appears (at least, so +we are told), and, after granting the magician's request, is licensed to +depart--a matter, we are admonished, of great importance. + +The question naturally arises, What were the results obtained by these +magical arts? How far, if at all, was the magician rewarded by the +attainment of his desires? We have asked a similar question regarding +the belief in talismans, and the reply which we there gained undoubtedly +applies in the present case as well. Modern psychical research, as I +have already pointed out, is supplying us with further evidence for +the survival of human personality after bodily death than the innate +conviction humanity in general seems to have in this belief, and the +many reasons which idealistic philosophy advances in favour of it. The +question of the reality of the phenomenon of "materialisation," that is, +the bodily appearance of a discarnate spirit, such as is vouched for by +spiritists, and which is what, it appears, was aimed at in necromancy +(though why the discarnate should be better informed as to the future +than the incarnate, I cannot suppose), must be regarded as _sub +judice_.(1) Many cases of fraud in connection with the alleged +production of this phenomenon have been detected in recent times; but, +inasmuch as the last word has not yet been said on the subject, we +must allow the possibility that necromancy in the past may have been +sometimes successful. But as to the existence of the angels and +devils of magical belief--as well, one might add, of those of orthodox +faith,--nothing can be adduced in evidence of this either from the +results of psychical research or on _a priori_ grounds. + + +(1) The late Sir WILLIAM CROOKES' _Experimental Researches in the +Phenomena of Spiritualism_ contains evidence in favour of the reality of +this phenomenon very difficult to gainsay. + + +Pseudo-DIONYSIUS classified the angels into three hierarchies, each +subdivided into three orders, as under:-- + + +_First Hierarchy_.--Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones; + +_Second Hierarchy_.--Dominions, Powers, and Authorities (or Virtues); + +_Third Hierarchy_.--Principalities, Archangels, and Angels,-- + +and this classification was adopted by AGRIPPA and others. +Pseudo-DIONYSIUS explains the names of these orders as follows: "... the +holy designation of the Seraphim denotes either that they are kindling +or burning; and that of the Cherubim, a fulness of knowledge or stream +of wisdom.... The appellation of the most exalted and pre-eminent +Thrones denotes their manifest exaltation above every grovelling +inferiority, and their super-mundane tendency towards higher things;... +and their invariable and firmly-fixed settlement around the veritable +Highest, with the whole force of their powers.... The explanatory +name of the Holy Lordships (Dominions) denotes a certain unslavish +elevation... superior to every kind of cringing slavery, indomitable +to every subserviency, and elevated above every dissimularity, ever +aspiring to the true Lordship and source of Lordship.... The appellation +of the Holy Powers denotes a certain courageous and unflinching +virility... vigorously conducted to the Divine imitation, not forsaking +the Godlike movement through its own unmanliness, but unflinchingly +looking to the super-essential and powerful-making power, and becoming +a powerlike image of this, as far as is attainable....The appellation of +the Holy Authorities... denotes the beautiful and unconfused good +order, with regard to Divine receptions, and the discipline of the +super-mundane and intellectual authority... conducted indomitably, +with good order towards Divine things.... (And the appellation) of the +Heavenly Principalities manifests their princely and leading function, +after the Divine example...."(1) There is a certain grandeur in these +views, and if we may be permitted to understand by the orders of the +hierarchy, "discrete" degrees (to use SWEDENBORG'S term) of spiritual +reality--stages in spiritual involution,--we may see in them a certain +truth as well. As I said, all virtue, power, and knowledge which man +has from God was believed to descend to him by way of these angelical +hierarchies, step by step; and thus it was thought that those of the +lowest hierarchy alone were sent from heaven to man. It was such beings +that white magic pretended to evoke. But the practical occultists, when +they did not make them altogether fatuous, attributed to these angels +characters not distinguishable from those of the devils. The description +of the angels in the _Heptemeron_, or _Magical Elements_,(2) falsely at + may be taken as fairly characteristic. Of MICHAEL and the other +spirits of Sunday he writes: "Their nature is to procure Gold, Gemmes, +Carbuncles, Riches; to cause one to obtain favour and benevolence; to +dissolve the enmities of men; to raise men to honors; to carry or take +away infirmities." Of GABRIEL and the other spirits of Monday, he says: +"Their nature is to give silver; to convey things from place to place; +to make horses swift, and to disclose the secrets of persons both +present and future." Of SAMAEL and the other spirits of Tuesday he says: +"Their nature is to cause wars, mortality, death and combustions; and +to give two thousand Souldiers at a time; to bring death, infirmities +or health," and so on for RAPHAEL, SACHIEL, ANAEL, CASSIEL, and their +colleagues.(1b) + + +(1) _On the Heavenly Hierarchy_. See the Rev. JOHN PARKER'S translation +of _The Works of_ DIONYSIUS _the Areopagite_, vol. ii. (1889), pp. 24, +25, 31, 32, and 36. + +(2) The book, which first saw the light three centuries after its +alleged author's death, was translated into English by ROBERT TURNER, +and published in 1655 in a volume containing the spurious _Fourth +Book of Occult Philosophy_, attributed to CORNELIUS AGRIPPA, and other +magical works. It is from this edition that I quote. + +(1b) _Op. cit_., pp. 90, 92, and 94. + + +Concerning the evil planetary spirits, the spurious _Fourth Book of +Occult Philosophy_, attributed to CORNELIUS AGRIPPA, informs us that +the spirits of Saturn "appear for the most part with a tall, lean, and +slender body, with an angry countenance, having four faces; one in the +hinder part of the head, one on the former part of the head, and on each +side nosed or beaked: there likewise appeareth a face on each knee, of +a black shining colour: their motion is the moving of the wince, with a +kinde of earthquake: their signe is white earth, whiter than any Snow." +The writer adds that their "particular forms are,-- + + A King having a beard, riding on a Dragon. + An Old man with a beard. + An Old woman leaning on a staffe. + A Hog. + A Dragon. + An Owl. + A black Garment. + A Hooke or Sickle. + A Juniper-tree." + +Concerning the spirits of Jupiter, he says that they "appear with a body +sanguine and cholerick, of a middle stature, with a horrible fearful +motion; but with a milde countenance, a gentle speech, and of the colour +of Iron. The motion of them is flashings of Lightning and Thunder; their +signe is, there will appear men about the circle, who shall seem to be +devoured of Lions," their particular forms being-- + + "A King with a Sword drawn, riding on a Stag. + A Man wearing a Mitre in long rayment. + A Maid with a Laurel-Crown adorned with Flowers. + A Bull. + A Stag. + A Peacock. + An azure Garment. + A Sword. + A Box-tree." + +As to the Martian spirits, we learn that "they appear in a tall body, +cholerick, a filthy countenance, of colour brown, swarthy or red, having +horns like Harts horns, and Griphins claws, bellowing like wilde Bulls. +Their Motion is like fire burning; their signe Thunder and Lightning +about the Circle. Their particular shapes are,-- + + A King armed riding upon a Wolf. + A Man armed. + A Woman holding a buckler on her thigh. + A Hee-goat. + A Horse. + A Stag. + A red Garment. + Wool. + A Cheeslip."(1) + + +(1) _Op. cit_., pp. 43-45. + +The rest are described in equally fantastic terms. + +I do not think I shall be accused of being unduly sceptical if I say +that such beings as these could not have been evoked by any magical +rites, because such beings do not and did not exist, save in the +magician's own imagination. The proviso, however, is important, for, +inasmuch as these fantastic beings did exist in the imagination of the +credulous, therein they may, indeed, have been evoked. The whole of +magic ritual was well devised to produce hallucination. A firm faith +in the ritual employed, and a strong effort of will to bring about the +desired result, were usually insisted upon as essential to the success +of the operation.(2) A period of fasting prior to the experiment was +also frequently prescribed as necessary, which, by weakening the body, +must have been conducive to hallucination. Furthermore, abstention +from the gratification of the sexual appetite was stipulated in certain +cases, and this, no doubt, had a similar effect, especially as concerns +magical evocations directed to the satisfaction of the sexual impulse. +Add to these factors the details of the ritual itself, the nocturnal +conditions under which it was carried out, and particularly the +suffumigations employed, which, most frequently, were of a narcotic +nature, and it is not difficult to believe that almost any type of +hallucination may have occurred. Such, as we have seen, was ELIPHAS +LEVI'S view of ceremonial magic; and whatever may be said as concerns +his own experiment therein (for one would have thought that the +essential element of faith was lacking in this case), it is undoubtedly +the true view as concerns the ceremonial magic of the past. As this +author well says: "Witchcraft, properly so-called, that is ceremonial +operation with intent to bewitch, acts only on the operator, and serves +to fix and confirm his will, by formulating it with persistence and +labour, the two conditions which make volition efficacious."(1b) + + +(2) "MAGICAL AXIOM. In the circle of its action, every word creates that +which it affirms. + +DIRECT CONSEQUENCE. He who affirms the devil, creates or makes the +devil. + +"_Conditions of Success in Infernal Evocations_. 1, Invincible +obstinacy; 2, a conscience at once hardened to crime and most subject +to remorse and fear; 3, affected or natural ignorance; 4, blind faith +in all that is incredible, 5, a completely false idea of God. (ELIPHAS +LEVI: _Op. cit_., pp. 297 and 298.) + +(1b) ELIPHAS LEVI: _Op. cit_., pp. 130 and 131. + + +EMANUEL SWEDENBORG in one place writes: "Magic is nothing but the +perversion of order; it is especially the abuse of correspondences."(2) +A study of the ceremonial magic of the Middle Ages and the following +century or two certainly justifies SWEDENBORG in writing of magic as +something evil. The distinction, rigid enough in theory, between white +and black, legitimate and illegitimate, magic, was, as I have indicated, +extremely indefinite in practice. As Mr A. E. WAITE justly remarks: +"Much that passed current in the west as White (_i.e_. permissible) +Magic was only a disguised goeticism, and many of the resplendent angels +invoked with divine rites reveal their cloven hoofs. It is not too much +to say that a large majority of past psychological experiments were +conducted to establish communication with demons, and that for unlawful +purposes. The popular conceptions concerning the diabolical spheres, +which have been all accredited by magic, may have been gross +exaggerations of fact concerning rudimentary and perverse intelligences, +but the wilful viciousness of the communicants is substantially +untouched thereby."(1b) + + +(2) EMANUEL SWEDENBORG: _Arcana Caelestia_, SE 6692. + +(1b) ARTHUR EDWARD WAITE: _The Occult Sciences_ (1891), p. 51. + + +These "psychological experiments" were not, save, perhaps, in rare +cases, carried out in the spirit of modern psychical research, with the +high aim of the man of science. It was, indeed, far otherwise; selfish +motives were at the root of most of them; and, apart from what may be +termed "medicinal magic," it was for the satisfaction of greed, lust, +revenge, that men and women had recourse to magical arts. The history of +goeticism and witchcraft is one of the most horrible of all histories. +The "Grimoires," witnesses to the superstitious folly of the past, are +full of disgusting, absurd, and even criminal rites for the satisfaction +of unlawful desires and passions. The Church was certainly justified in +attempting to put down the practice of magic, but the means adopted in +this design and the results to which they led were even more abominable +than witchcraft itself. The methods of detecting witches and the +tortures to which suspected persons were subjected to force them to +confess to imaginary crimes, employed in so-called civilised England and +Scotland and also in America, to say nothing of countries in which the +"Holy" Inquisition held undisputed sway, are almost too horrible to +describe. For details the reader may be referred to Sir WALTER SCOTT'S +_Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft_ (1830), and (as concerns America) +COTTON MATHER'S The _Wonders of the Invisible World_ (1692). The +credulous Church and the credulous people were terribly afraid of the +power of witchcraft, and, as always, fear destroyed their mental balance +and made them totally disregard the demands of justice. The result may +be well illustrated by what almost inevitably happens when a country +goes to war; for war, as the Hon. BERTRAND RUSSELL has well shown, +is fear's offspring. Fear of the enemy causes the military party to +persecute in an insensate manner, without the least regard to justice, +all those of their fellow-men whom they consider are not heart and soul +with them in their cause; similarly the Church relentlessly persecuted +its supposed enemies, of whom it was so afraid. No doubt some of the +poor wretches that were tortured and killed on the charge of witchcraft +really believed themselves to have made a pact with the devil, and were +thus morally depraved, though, generally speaking, they were no more +responsible for their actions than any other madmen. But the majority +of the persons persecuted as witches and wizards were innocent even of +this. + +However, it would, I think, be unwise to disregard the existence of +another side to the question of the validity and ethical value of +magic, and to use the word only to stand for something essentially evil. +SWEDENBORG, we may note, in the course of a long passage from the work +from which I have already quoted, says that by "magic" is signified "the +science of spiritual things"(1) His position appears to be that there is +a genuine magic, or science of spiritual things, and a false magic, that +science perverted: a view of the matter which I propose here to adopt. +The word "magic" itself is derived from the Greek "magos," the wise man +of the East, and hence the strict etymological meaning of the term is +"the wisdom or science of the magi"; and it is, I think, significant +that we are told (and I see no reason to doubt the truth of it) that the +magi were among the first to worship the new-born CHRIST.(2) + + +(1) _Op. cit_., SE 5223. + +(2) See The Gospel according to MATTHEW, chap. ii., verses 1 to 12. + + +If there be an abuse of correspondences, or symbols, there surely must +also be a use, to which the word "magic" is not inapplicable. As such, +religious ritual, and especially the sacraments of the Christian Church, +will, no doubt, occur to the minds of those who regard these symbols +as efficacious, though they would probably hesitate to apply the term +"magical" to them. But in using this term as applying thereto, I do +not wish to suggest that any such rites or ceremonies possess, or can +possess, any CAUSAL efficacy in the moral evolution of the soul. The +will alone, in virtue of the power vouchsafed to it by the Source of all +power, can achieve this; but I do think that the soul may be assisted by +ritual, harmoniously related to the states of mind which it is desired +to induce. No doubt there is a danger of religious ritual, especially +when its meaning is lost, being engaged in for its own sake. It is then +mere superstition;(1) and, in view of the danger of this degeneracy, +many robust minds, such as the members of the Society of Friends, prefer +to dispense with its aid altogether. When ritual is associated with +erroneous doctrines, the results are even more disastrous, as I have +indicated in "The Belief in Talismans". But when ritual is allied with, +and based upon, as adequately symbolising, the high teaching of genuine +religion, it may be, and, in fact, is, found very helpful by many +people. As such its efficacy seems to me to be altogether magical, in +the best sense of that word. + + +(1) As "ELIPHAS LEVI" well says: "Superstition... is the sign surviving +the thought; it is the dead body of a religious rite." (_Op cit_., p. +150.) + + +But, indeed, I think a still wider application of the word "magic" is +possible. "All experience is magic," says NOVALIS (1772-1801), "and +only magically explicable";(2a) and again: "It is only because of the +feebleness of our perceptions and activity that we do not perceive +ourselves to be in a fairy world." No doubt it will be objected that the +common experiences of daily life are "natural," whereas magic postulates +the "supernatural". If, as is frequently done, we use the term +"natural," as relating exclusively to the physical realm, then, indeed, +we may well speak of magic as "supernatural," because its aims are +psychical. On the other hand, the term "natural" is sometimes employed +as referring to the whole realm of order, and in this sense one can use +the word "magic" as descriptive of Nature herself when viewed in the +light of an idealistic philosophy, such as that of SWEDENBORG, in which +all causation is seen to be essentially spiritual, the things of this +world being envisaged as symbols of ideas or spiritual verities, and +thus physical causation regarded as an appearance produced in virtue of +the magical, non-causal efficacy of symbols.(1) Says CORNELIUS AGRIPPA: +"... every day some natural thing is drawn by art and some divine +thing is drawn by Nature which, the Egyptians, seeing, called Nature a +Magicianess (_i.e_.) the very Magical power itself, in the attracting of +like by like, and of suitable things by suitable."(2) + + +(2a) NOVALIS: _Schriften_ (ed. by LUDWIG TIECK and FR. SCHLEGEL, 1805), +vol. ii. p. 195 + +(1) For a discussion of the essentially magical character of inductive +reasoning, see my _The Magic of Experience_ (1915) + +(2) _Op. cit_., bk. i. chap. xxxvii. p. 119. + + +I would suggest, in conclusion, that there is nothing really opposed +to the spirit of modern science in the thesis that "all experience +is magic, and only magically explicable." Science does not pretend +to reveal the fundamental or underlying cause of phenomena, does +not pretend to answer the final Why? This is rather the business +of philosophy, though, in thus distinguishing between science and +philosophy, I am far from insinuating that philosophy should be +otherwise than scientific. We often hear religious but non-scientific +men complain because scientific and perhaps equally as religious men do +not in their books ascribe the production of natural phenomena to the +Divine Power. But if they were so to do they would be transcending +their business as scientists. In every science certain simple facts of +experience are taken for granted: it is the business of the scientist +to reduce other and more complex facts of experience to terms of these +data, not to explain these data themselves. Thus the physicist attempts +to reduce other related phenomena of greater complexity to terms of +simple force and motion; but, What are force and motion? Why does force +produce or result in motion? are questions which lie beyond the scope +of physics. In order to answer these questions, if, indeed, this be +possible, we must first inquire, How and why do these ideas of force and +motion arise in our minds? These problems land us in the psychical or +spiritual world, and the term "magic" at once becomes significant. + +"If, says THOMAS CARLYLE,... we... have led thee into the true Land of +Dreams; and... thou lookest, even for moments, into the region of +the Wonderful, and seest and feelest that thy daily life is girt with +Wonder, and based on Wonder, and thy very blankets and breeches are +Miracles,--then art thou profited beyond money's worth...."(1) + + +(1) THOMAS CARLYLE: _Sartor Resartus_, bk. iii. chap. ix. + + + + +VIII. ARCHITECTURAL SYMBOLISM + +I WAS once rash enough to suggest in an essay "On Symbolism in Art"(1) +that "a true work of art is at once realistic, imaginative, and +symbolical," and that its aim is to make manifest the spiritual +significance of the natural objects dealt with. I trust that those +artists (no doubt many) who disagree with me will forgive me--a man +of science--for having ventured to express any opinion whatever on the +subject. But, at any rate, if the suggestions in question are accepted, +then a criterion for distinguishing between art and craft is at once +available; for we may say that, whilst craft aims at producing works +which are physically useful, art aims at producing works which are +spiritually useful. Architecture, from this point of view, is a +combination of craft and art. It may, indeed, be said that the modern +architecture which creates our dwelling-houses, factories, and even to +a large extent our places of worship, is pure craft unmixed with art On +the other hand, it might be argued that such works of architecture are +not always devoid of decoration, and that "decorative art," even though +the "decorative artist" is unconscious of this fact, is based upon rules +and employs symbols which have a deep significance. The truly artistic +element in architecture, however, is more clearly manifest if we turn +our gaze to the past. One thinks at once, of course, of the pyramids +and sphinx of Egypt, and the rich and varied symbolism of design and +decoration of antique structures to be found in Persia and elsewhere in +the East. It is highly probable that the Egyptian pyramids were employed +for astronomical purposes, and thus subserved physical utility, but it +seems no less likely that their shape was suggested by a belief in some +system of geometrical symbolism, and was intended to embody certain of +their philosophical or religious doctrines. + + +(1) Published in _The Occult Review_ for August 1912, vol. xvi. pp. 98 +to 102. + + +The mediaeval cathedrals and churches of Europe admirably exhibit this +combination of art with craft. Craft was needed to design and construct +permanent buildings to protect worshippers from the inclemency of the +weather; art was employed not only to decorate such buildings, but +it dictated to craft many points in connection with their design. The +builders of the mediaeval churches endeavoured so to construct their +works that these might, as a whole and in their various parts, embody +the truths, as they believed them, of the Christian religion: thus the +cruciform shape of churches, their orientation, etc. The practical +value of symbolism in church architecture is obvious. As Mr F. E. HULME +remarks, "The sculptured fonts or stained-glass windows in the churches +of the Middle Ages were full of teaching to a congregation of whom +the greater part could not read, to whom therefore one great avenue of +knowledge was closed. The ignorant are especially impressed by pictorial +teaching, and grasp its meaning far more readily than they can follow a +written description or a spoken discourse."(1) + + +(1) F. EDWARD HULME, F.L.S., F.S.A.: _The History, Principles, and +Practice of Symbolism in Christian Art_ (1909), p. 2. + + +The subject of symbolism in church architecture is an extensive one, +involving many side issues. In these excursions we shall consider only +one aspect of it, namely, the symbolic use of animal forms in English +church architecture. + +As Mr COLLINS, who has written, in recent years, an interesting work on +this topic of much use to archaeologists as a book of data,(2a) points +out, the great sources of animal symbolism were the famous _Physiologus_ +and other natural history books of the Middle Ages (generally called +"Bestiaries"), and the Bible, mystically understood. The modern tendency +is somewhat unsympathetic towards any attempt to interpret the Bible +symbolically, and certainly some of the interpretations that have been +forced upon it in the name of symbolism are crude and fantastic enough. +But in the belief of the mystics, culminating in the elaborate system of +correspondences of SWEDENBORG, that every natural object, every event +in the history of the human race, and every word of the Bible, has a +symbolic and spiritual significance, there is, I think, a fundamental +truth. We must, however, as I have suggested already, distinguish +between true and forced symbolism. The early Christians employed the +fish as a symbol of Christ, because the Greek word for fish, icqus, +is obtained by _notariqon_(1) from the phrase <gr 'Ihsous Cristos Qeou +Uios, Swthr>--"JESUS CHRIST, the Son of God, the Saviour." Of course, +the obvious use of such a symbol was its entire unintelligibility to +those who had not yet been instructed in the mysteries of the Christian +faith, since in the days of persecution some degree of secrecy was +necessary. But the symbol has significance only in the Greek language, +and that of an entirely arbitrary nature. There is nothing in the nature +of the fish, apart from its name in Greek, which renders it suitable +to be used as a symbol of CHRIST. Contrast this pseudo-symbol, however, +with that of the Good Shepherd, the Lamb of God (fig. 34), or the Lion +of Judah. Here we have what may be regarded as true symbols, something +of whose meanings are clear to the smallest degree of spiritual sight, +even though the second of them has frequently been badly misinterpreted. + + +(2a) ARTHUR H. COLLINS, M.A.: _Symbolism of Animals and Birds +represented in English Church Architecture_ (1913). + +(1) A Kabalistic process by which a word is formed by taking the initial +letters of a sentence or phrase. + + +It was a belief in the spiritual or moral significance of nature similar +to that of the mystical expositors of the Bible, that inspired the +mediaeval naturalists. The Bestiaries almost invariably conclude the +account of each animal with the moral that might be drawn from its +behaviour. The interpretations are frequently very far-fetched, and +as the writers were more interested in the morals than in the facts +of natural history themselves, the supposed facts from which they drew +their morals were frequently very far from being of the nature of facts. +Sometimes the product of this inaccuracy is grotesque, as shown by the +following quotation: "The elephants are in an absurd way typical of Adam +and Eve, who ate of the forbidden fruit, and also have the dragon for +their enemy. It was supposed that the elephant... used to sleep by +leaning against a tree. The hunters would come by night, and cut the +trunk through. Down he would come, roaring helplessly. None of his +friends would be able to help him, until a small elephant should come +and lever him up with his trunk. This small elephant was symbolic of +Jesus Christ, Who came in great humility to rescue the human race which +had fallen 'through a tree.' "(1) + + +(1) A. H. COLLINS: _Symbolism of Animals, etc_., pp. 41 and 42. + + +In some cases, though the symbolism is based upon quite erroneous +notions concerning natural history, and is so far fantastic, it is not +devoid of charm. The use of the pelican to symbolise the Saviour is a +case in point. Legend tells us that when other food is unobtainable, the +pelican thrusts its bill into its breast (whence the red colour of the +bill) and feeds its young with its life-blood. Were this only a fact, +the symbol would be most appropriate. There is another and far less +charming form of the legend, though more in accord with current +perversions of Christian doctrine, according to which the pelican uses +its blood to revive its young, after having slain them through anger +aroused by the great provocation which they are supposed to give it. For +an example of the use of the pelican in church architecture see fig. 36. + +Mention must also be made of the purely fabulous animals of the +Bestiaries, such as the basilisk, centaur, dragon, griffin, hydra, +mantichora, unicorn, phoenix, _etc_. The centaur (fig. 39) was a beast, +half man, half horse. It typified the flesh or carnal mind of man, and +the legend of the perpetual war between the centaur and a certain tribe +of simple savages who were said to live in trees in India, symbolised +the combat between the flesh and the spirit.(1) + + +(1) A H. COLLINS: _Symbolism of Animals, etc_., pp. 150 and 153. + + +With bow and arrow in its hands the centaur forms the astrological +sign Sagittarius (or the Archer). An interesting example of this sign +occurring in church architecture is to be found on the western doorway +of Portchester Church--a most beautiful piece of Norman architecture. +"This sign of the Zodiac," writes the Rev. Canon VAUGHAN, M.A., a former +Vicar of Portchester, "was the badge of King Stephen, and its presence +on the west front (of Portchester Church) seems to indicate, what was +often the case elsewhere, that the elaborate Norman carving was not +carried out until after the completion of the building."(2) The facts, +however, that this Sagittarius is accompanied on the other side of the +doorway by a couple of fishes, which form the astrological sign Pisces +(or the Fishes), and that these two signs are what are termed, in +astrological phraseology, the "houses" of the planet Jupiter, the +"Major Fortune," suggest that the architect responsible for the design, +influenced by the astrological notions of his day, may have put the +signs there in order to attract Jupiter's beneficent influence. Or +he may have had the Sagittarius carved for the reason Canon VAUGHAN +suggests, and then, remembering how good a sign it was astrologically, +had the Pisces added to complete the effect.(1b) + + +(2) Rev. Canon VAUGHAN, M.A.: A Short History of Portchester Castle, p. +14. + +(1b) Two other possible explanations of the Pisces have been suggested +by the Rev. A. HEADLEY. In his MS. book written in 1888, when he was +Vicar of Portchester, he writes: "I have discovered an interesting proof +that it (the Church) was finished in Stephen's reign, namely, the figure +of Sagittarius in the Western Doorway. + +"Stephen adopted this as his badge for the double reason that it +formed part of the arms of the city of Blois, and that the sun was +in Sagittarius in December when he came to the throne. I, therefore, +conclude that this badge was placed where it is to mark the completion +of the church. + +"There is another sign of the Zodiac in the archway, apparently Pisces. +This may have been chosen to mark the month in which the church was +finished, or simply on account of its nearness to the sea. At one time +I fancied it might refer to March, the month in which Lady Day occurred, +thus referring to the Patron Saint, St Mary. As the sun leaves Pisces +just before Lady Day this does not explain it. Possibly in the old +calendar it might do so. This is a matter for further research." (I have +to thank the Rev. H. LAWRENCE FRY, present Vicar of Portchester, for +this quotation, and the Rev. A. HEADLEY for permission to utilise it.) + + +The phoenix and griffin we have encountered already in our excursions. +The latter, we are told, inhabits desert places in India, where it can +find nothing for its young to eat. It flies away to other regions +to seek food, and is sufficiently strong to carry off an ox. Thus it +symbolises the devil, who is ever anxious to carry away our souls to +the deserts of hell. Fig. 37 illustrates an example of the use of this +symbolic beast in church architecture. + +The mantichora is described by PLINY (whose statements were +unquestioningly accepted by the mediaeval naturalists), on the authority +of CTESIAS (_fl_. 400 B.C.), as having "A triple row of teeth, which fit +into each other like those of a comb, the face and ears of a man, and +azure eyes, is the colour of blood, has the body of the lion, and a tail +ending in a sting, like that of the scorpion. Its voice resembles the +union of the sound of the flute and the trumpet; it is of excessive +swiftness, and is particularly fond of human flesh."(1) + + +(1) PLINY: _Natural History_, bk. viii. chap. xxx. (BOSTOCK and RILEY'S +trans., vol. ii., 1855, p. 280.) + + +Concerning the unicorn, in an eighteenth-century work on natural history +we read that this is "a Beast, which though doubted of by many Writers, +yet is by others thus described: He has but one Horn, and that an +exceedingly rich one, growing out of the middle of his Forehead. His +Head resembles an Hart's, his Feet an Elephant's, his tail a Boar's, and +the rest of his Body an Horse's. The Horn is about a Foot and half in +length. His Voice is like the Lowing of an Ox. His Mane and Hair are +of a yellowish Colour. His Horn is as hard as Iron, and as rough as any +File, twisted or curled, like a flaming Sword; very straight, sharp, and +every where black, excepting the Point. Great Virtues are attributed to +it, in expelling of Poison and curing of several Diseases. He is not +a Beast of prey."(2) The method of capturing the animal believed in +by mediaeval writers was a curious one. The following is a literal +translation from the _Bestiary_ of PHILIPPE DE THAUN (12th century):-- + +(2) (THOMAS BOREMAN): _A Description of Three Hundred Animals_ (1730), +p. 6. + + "Monosceros is an animal which has one horn on its head, + Therefore it is so named; it has the form of a goat, + It is caught by means of a virgin, now hear in what manner. + When a man intends to hunt it and to take and ensnare it + He goes to the forest where is its repair; + There he places a virgin, with her breast uncovered, + And by its smell the monosceros perceives it; + Then it comes to the virgin, and kisses her breast, + Falls asleep on her lap, and so comes to its death; + The man arrives immediately, and kills it in its sleep, + Or takes it alive and does as he likes with it. + It signifies much, I will not omit to tell it you. + + "Monosceros is Greek, it means _one horn_ in French: + A beast of such a description signifies Jesus Christ; + One God he is and shall be, and was and will continue so; + He placed himself in the virgin, and took flesh for man's sake, + And for virginity to show chastity; + To a virgin he APPEARED and a virgin conceived him, + A virgin she is, and will be, and will remain always. + Now hear briefly the signification. + + "This animal in truth signifies God; + Know that the virgin signifies St Mary; + By her breast we understand similarly Holy Church; + And then by the kiss it ought to signify, + That a man when he sleeps is in semblance of death; + God slept as man, who suffered death on the cross, + And his destruction was our redemption, + And his labour our repose, + Thus God deceived the Devil by a proper semblance; + Soul and body were one, so was God and man, + And this is the signification of an animal of that description."(1) + + +(1) _Popular Treatises on Science written during the Middle Ages +in Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman, and English_, ed. by THOMAS WRIGHT +(Historical Society of Science, 1841), pp. 81-82. + +This being the current belief concerning the symbolism of the unicorn +in the Middle Ages, it is not surprising to find this animal utilised in +church architecture; for an example see fig. 35. + +The belief in the existence of these fabulous beasts may very probably +have been due to the materialising of what were originally nothing +more than mere arbitrary symbols, as I have already suggested of the +phoenix.(1) Thus the account of the mantichora may, as BOSTOCK has +suggested, very well be a description of certain hieroglyphic figures, +examples of which are still to be found in the ruins of Assyrian and +Persian cities. This explanation seems, on the whole, more likely +than the alternative hypothesis that such beliefs were due to +mal-observation; though that, no doubt, helped in their formation. + + +(1) "Superstitions concerning Birds." + + +It may be questioned, however, whether the architects and preachers +of the Middle Ages altogether believed in the strange fables of the +Bestiaries. As Mr COLLINS says in reply to this question: "Probably they +were credulous enough. But, on the whole, we may say that the truth of +the story was just what they did not trouble about, any more than some +clergymen are particular about the absolute truth of the stories they +tell children from the pulpit. The application, the lesson, is the +thing!" With their desire to interpret Nature spiritually, we ought, +I think, to sympathise. But there was one truth they had yet to learn, +namely, that in order to interpret Nature spiritually, it is necessary +first to understand her aright in her literal sense. + + + + +IX. THE QUEST OF THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE + +THE need of unity is a primary need of human thought. Behind the +varied multiplicity of the world of phenomena, primitive man, as I +have indicated on a preceding excursion, begins to seek, more or less +consciously, for that Unity which alone is Real. And this statement not +only applies to the first dim gropings of the primitive human mind, +but sums up almost the whole of science and philosophy; for almost all +science and philosophy is explicitly or implicitly a search for unity, +for one law or one love, one matter or one spirit. That which is the aim +of the search may, indeed, be expressed under widely different terms, +but it is always conceived to be the unity in which all multiplicity is +resolved, whether it be thought of as one final law of necessity, which +all things obey, and of which all the various other "laws of nature" are +so many special and limited applications; or as one final love for which +all things are created, and to which all things aspire; as one matter of +which all bodies are but varying forms; or as one spirit, which is the +life of all things, and of which all things are so many manifestations. +Every scientist and philosopher is a merchant seeking for goodly pearls, +willing to sell every pearl that he has, if he may secure the One Pearl +beyond price, because he knows that in that One Pearl all others are +included. + +This search for unity in multiplicity, however, is not confined to +the acknowledged scientist and philosopher. More or less unconsciously +everyone is engaged in this quest. Harmony and unity are the very +fundamental laws of the human mind itself, and, in a sense, all mental +activity is the endeavour to bring about a state of harmony and unity +in the mind. No two ideas that are contradictory of one another, and are +perceived to be of this nature, can permanently exist in any sane man's +mind. It is true that many people try to keep certain portions of their +mental life in water-tight compartments; thus some try to keep their +religious convictions and their business ideas, or their religious +faith and their scientific knowledge, separate from another one--and, it +seems, often succeed remarkably well in so doing. But, ultimately, the +arbitrary mental walls they have erected will break down by the force +of their own ideas. Contradictory ideas from different compartments will +then present themselves to consciousness at the same moment of time, +and the result of the perception of their contradictory nature will +be mental anguish and turmoil, persisting until one set of ideas is +conquered and overcome by the other, and harmony and unity are restored. + +It is true of all of us, then, that we seek for Unity--unity in mind and +life. Some seek it in science and a life of knowledge; some seek it in +religion and a life of faith; some seek it in human love and find it in +the life of service to their fellows; some seek it in pleasure and the +gratification of the senses' demands; some seek it in the harmonious +development of all the facets of their being. Many the methods, right +and wrong; many the terms under which the One is conceived, true +and false--in a sense, to use the phraseology of a bygone system of +philosophy, we are all, consciously or unconsciously, following paths +that lead thither or paths that lead away, seekers in the quest of the +Philosopher's Stone. + +Let us, in these excursions in the byways of thought, consider for a +while the form that the quest of fundamental unity took in the hands +of those curious mediaeval philosophers, half mystics, half +experimentalists in natural things--that are known by the name of +"alchemists." + +The common opinion concerning alchemy is that it was a pseudo-science or +pseudo-art flourishing during the Dark Ages, and having for its aim +the conversion of common metals into silver and gold by means of a most +marvellous and wholly fabulous agent called the Philosopher's Stone, +that its devotees were half knaves, half fools, whose views concerning +Nature were entirely erroneous, and whose objects were entirely +mercenary. This opinion is not absolutely destitute of truth; as a +science alchemy involved many fantastic errors; and in the course of its +history it certainly proved attractive to both knaves and fools. But if +this opinion involves some element of truth, it involves a far greater +proportion of error. Amongst the alchemists are numbered some of the +greatest intellects of the Middle Ages--ROGER BACON (_c_. 1214-1294), +for example, who might almost be called the father of experimental +science. And whether or not the desire for material wealth was a +secondary object, the true aim of the genuine alchemist was a much +nobler one than this as one of them exclaims with true scientific +fervour: "Would to God... all men might become adepts in our Art--for +then gold, the great idol of mankind, would lose its value, and we +should prize it only for its scientific teaching."(1) Moreover, recent +developments in physical and chemical science seem to indicate that the +alchemists were not so utterly wrong in their concept of Nature as has +formerly been supposed--that, whilst they certainly erred in both their +methods and their interpretations of individual phenomena, they did +intuitively grasp certain fundamental facts concerning the universe +ofthe very greatest importance. + + +(1) EIRENAEUS PHILALETHES: _An Open Entrance to the Closed Palace of the +King_. (See _The Hermetic Museum, Restored and Enlarged_, ed. by A. E. +WAITE, 1893, vol. ii. p. 178.) + + +Suppose, however, that the theories of the alchemists are entirely +erroneous from beginning to end, and are nowhere relieved by the merest +glimmer of truth. Still they were believed to be true, and this belief +had an important influence upon human thought. Many men of science +have, I am afraid, been too prone to regard the mystical views of the +alchemists as unintelligible; but, whatever their theories may be to us, +these theories were certainly very real to them: it is preposterous to +maintain that the writings of the alchemists are without meaning, even +though their views are altogether false. And the more false their views +are believed to be, the more necessary does it become to explain why +they should have gained such universal credit. Here we have problems +into which scientific inquiry is not only legitimate, but, I think, very +desirable,--apart altogether from the question of the truth or falsity +of alchemy as a science, or its utility as an art. What exactly was the +system of beliefs grouped under the term "alchemy," and what was its +aim? Why were the beliefs held? What was their precise influence upon +human thought and culture? + +It was in order to elucidate problems of this sort, as well as to +determine what elements of truth, if any, there are in the theories of +the alchemists, that The Alchemical Society was founded in 1912, mainly +through my own efforts and those of my confreres, and for the first time +something like justice was being done to the memory of the alchemists +when the Society's activities were stayed by that greatest calamity of +history, the European War. + +Some students of the writings of the alchemists have advanced a very +curious and interesting theory as to the aims of the alchemists, which +may be termed "the transcendental theory". According to this theory, the +alchemists were concerned only with the mystical processes affecting +the soul of man, and their chemical references are only to be understood +symbolically. In my opinion, however, this view of the subject is +rendered untenable by the lives of the alchemists themselves; for, as +Mr WAITE has very fully pointed out in his _Lives of Alchemystical +Philosophers_ (1888), the lives of the alchemists show them to have been +mainly concerned with chemical and physical processes; and, indeed, to +their labours we owe many valuable discoveries of a chemical nature. But +the fact that such a theory should ever have been formulated, and +should not be altogether lacking in consistency, may serve to direct our +attention to the close connection between alchemy and mysticism. + +If we wish to understand the origin and aims of alchemy we must +endeavour to recreate the atmosphere of the Middle Ages, and to look at +the subject from the point of view of the alchemists themselves. Now, +this atmosphere was, as I have indicated in a previous essay, surcharged +with mystical theology and mystical philosophy. Alchemy, so to speak, +was generated and throve in a dim religious light. We cannot open a book +by any one of the better sort of alchemists without noticing how closely +their theology and their chemistry are interwoven, and what a remarkably +religious view they take of their subject. Thus one alchemist writes: +"In the first place, let every devout and God-fearing chemist and +student of this Art consider that this arcanum should be regarded, not +only as a truly great, but as a most holy Art (seeing that it typifies +and shadows out the highest heavenly good). Therefore, if any man desire +to reach this great and unspeakable Mystery, he must remember that it is +obtained not by the might of man, but by the grace of God, and that not +our will or desire, but only the mercy of the Most High, can bestow it +upon us. For this reason you must first of all cleanse your heart, +lift it up to Him alone, and ask of Him this gift in true, earnest and +undoubting prayer. He alone can give and bestow it."(1) Whilst another +alchemist declares: "I am firmly persuaded that any unbeliever who +got truly to know this Art, would straightway confess the truth of +our Blessed Religion, and believe in the Trinity and in our Lord JESUS +CHRIST."(2) + + +(1) _The Sophic Hydrolith; or, Water Stone of the Wise_. (See _The +Hermetic Museum_, vol. i. pp. 74 and 75.) + +(2) PETER BONUS: _The New Pearl of Great Price_ (trans. by A. E. WAITE, +1894), p. 275. + + +Now, what I suggest is that the alchemists constructed their chemical +theories for the main part by means of _a priori_ reasoning, and that +the premises from which they started were (i.) the truth of mystical +theology, especially the doctrine of the soul's regeneration, and (ii.) +the truth of mystical philosophy, which asserts that the objects of +Nature are symbols of spiritual verities. There is, I think, abundant +evidence to show that alchemy was a more or less deliberate attempt +to apply, according to the principles of analogy, the doctrines of +religious mysticism to chemical and physical phenomena. Some of this +evidence I shall attempt to put forward in this essay. + +In the first place, however, I propose to say a few words more in +description of the theological and philosophical doctrines which so +greatly influenced the alchemists, and which, I believe, they borrowed +for their attempted explanations of chemical and physical phenomena. +This system of doctrine I have termed "mysticism"--a word which is +unfortunately equivocal, and has been used to denote various systems +of religious and philosophical thought, from the noblest to the most +degraded. I have, therefore, further to define my usage of the term. + +By mystical theology I mean that system of religious thought which +emphasises the unity between Creator and creature, though not +necessarily to the extent of becoming pantheistic. Man, mystical +theology asserts, has sprung from God, but has fallen away from Him +through self-love. Within man, however, is the seed of divine grace, +whereby, if he will follow the narrow road of self-renunciation, he may +be regenerated, born anew, becoming transformed into the likeness of God +and ultimately indissolubly united to God in love. God is at once the +Creator and the Restorer of man's soul, He is the Origin as well as the +End of all existence; and He is also the Way to that End. In Christian +mysticism, CHRIST is the Pattern, towards which the mystic strives; +CHRIST also is the means towards the attainment of this end. + +By mystical philosophy I mean that system of philosophical thought which +emphasises the unity of the Cosmos, asserting that God and the spiritual +may be perceived immanent in the things of this world, because all +things natural are symbols and emblems of spiritual verities. As one of +the _Golden Verses_ attributed to PYTHAGORAS, which I have quoted in a +previous essay, puts it: "The Nature of this Universe is in all things +alike"; commenting upon which, HIEROCLES, writing in the fifth or sixth +century, remarks that "Nature, in forming this Universe after the Divine +Measure and Proportion, made it in all things conformable and like to +itself, analogically in different manners. Of all the different species, +diffused throughout the whole, it made, as it were, an Image of the +Divine Beauty, imparting variously to the copy the perfections of the +Original."(1) We have, however, already encountered so many instances of +this belief, that no more need be said here concerning it. + + +(1) _Commentary of_ HIEROCLES _on the Golden Verses of_ PYTHAGORAS +(trans. by N. ROWE, 1906), pp. 101 and 102. + + +In fine, as Dean INGE well says: "Religious Mysticism may be defined as +the attempt to realise the presence of the living God in the soul and in +nature, or, more generally, as _the attempt to realise, in thought +and feeling, the immanence of the temporal in the eternal, and of the +eternal in the temporal_."(2) + + +(2) WILLIAM RALPH INGE, M.A.: _Christian Mysticism_ (the Bampton +Lectures, 1899), p. 5. + + +Now, doctrines such as these were not only very prevalent during the +Middle Ages, when alchemy so greatly flourished, but are of great +antiquity, and were undoubtedly believed in by the learned class in +Egypt and elsewhere in the East in those remote days when, as some +think, alchemy originated, though the evidence, as will, I hope, become +plain as we proceed, points to a later and post-Christian origin for the +central theorem of alchemy. So far as we can judge from their writings, +the more important alchemists were convinced of the truth of these +doctrines, and it was with such beliefs in mind that they commenced +their investigations of physical and chemical phenomena. Indeed, if we +may judge by the esteem in which the Hermetic maxim, "What is above +is as that which is below, what is below is as that which is above, to +accomplish the miracles of the One Thing," was held by every alchemist, +we are justified in asserting that the mystical theory of the spiritual +significance of Nature--a theory with which, as we have seen, is closely +connected the Neoplatonic and Kabalistic doctrine that all things +emanate in series from the Divine Source of all Being--was at the very +heart of alchemy. As writes one alchemist: "... the Sages have been +taught of God that this natural world is only an image and material copy +of a heavenly and spiritual pattern; that the very existence of this +world is based upon the reality of its celestial archetype; and that God +has created it in imitation of the spiritual and invisible universe, in +order that men might be the better enabled to comprehend His heavenly +teaching, and the wonders of His absolute and ineffable power and +wisdom. Thus the sage sees heaven reflected in Nature as in a mirror; +and he pursues this Art, not for the sake of gold or silver, but for the +love of the knowledge which it reveals; he jealously conceals it from +the sinner and the scornful, lest the mysteries of heaven should be laid +bare to the vulgar gaze."(1) + + +(1) MICHAEL SENDIVOGIUS (?): _The New Chemical Light, Pt. II., +Concerning Sulphur_. (See _The Hermetic Museum_, vol. ii. p. 138.) + + +The alchemists, I hold, convinced of the truth of this view of Nature, +_i.e_. that principles true of one plane of being are true also of all +other planes, adopted analogy as their guide in dealing with the facts +of chemistry and physics known to them. They endeavoured to explain +these facts by an application to them of the principles of mystical +theology, their chief aim being to prove the truth of these principles +as applied to the facts of the natural realm, and by studying natural +phenomena to become instructed in spiritual truth. They did not proceed +by the sure, but slow, method of modern science, _i.e_. the method of +induction, which questions experience at every step in the construction +of a theory; but they boldly allowed their imaginations to leap ahead +and to formulate a complete theory of the Cosmos on the strength of but +few facts. This led them into many fantastic errors, but I would not +venture to deny them an intuitive perception of certain fundamental +truths concerning the constitution of the Cosmos, even if they distorted +these truths and dressed them in a fantastic garb. + +Now, as I hope to make plain in the course of this excursion, the +alchemists regarded the discovery of the Philosopher's Stone and the +transmutation of "base" metals into gold as the consummation of the +proof of the doctrines of mystical theology as applied to chemical +phenomena, and it was as such that they so ardently sought to achieve +the _magnum opus_, as this transmutation was called. Of course, it +would be useless to deny that many, accepting the truth of the great +alchemical theorem, sought for the Philosopher's Stone because of what +was claimed for it in the way of material benefits. But, as I have +already indicated, with the nobler alchemists this was not the case, and +the desire for wealth, if present at all, was merely a secondary object. + +The idea expressed in DALTON'S atomic hypothesis (1802), and universally +held during the nineteenth century, that the material world is made up +of a certain limited number of elements unalterable in quantity, subject +in themselves to no change or development, and inconvertible one into +another, is quite alien to the views of the alchemists. The alchemists +conceived the universe to be a unity; they believed that all material +bodies had been developed from one seed; their elements are merely +different forms of one matter and, therefore, convertible one into +another. They were thoroughgoing evolutionists with regard to the things +of the material world, and their theory concerning the evolution of the +metals was, I believe, the direct outcome of a metallurgical application +of the mystical doctrine of the soul's development and regeneration. The +metals, they taught, all spring from the same seed in Nature's womb, +but are not all equally matured and perfect; for, as they say, although +Nature always intends to produce only gold, various impurities impede +the process. In the metals the alchemists saw symbols of man in the +various stages of his spiritual development. Gold, the most beautiful +as well as the most untarnishable metal, keeping its beauty permanently, +unaffected by sulphur, most acids, and fire--indeed, purified by such +treatment,--gold, to the alchemist, was the symbol of regenerate man, +and therefore he called it "a noble metal". Silver was also termed +"noble"; but it was regarded as less mature than gold, for, although +it is undoubtedly beautiful and withstands the action of fire, it is +corroded by nitric acid and is blackened by sulphur; it was, therefore, +considered to be analogous to the regenerate man at a lower stage of his +development. Possibly we shall not be far wrong in using SWEDENBORG'S +terms, "celestial" to describe the man of gold, "spiritual" to designate +him of silver. Lead, on the other hand, the alchemists regarded as a +very immature and impure metal: heavy and dull, corroded by sulphur and +nitric acid, and converted into a calx by the action of fire,--lead, +to the alchemists, was a symbol of man in a sinful and unregenerate +condition. + +The alchemists assumed the existence of three principles in the metals, +their obvious reason for so doing being the mystical threefold division +of man into body, soul (_i.e_. affections and will), and spirit +(_i.e_. intelligence), though the principle corresponding to body was +a comparatively late introduction in alchemical philosophy. This latter +fact, however, is no argument against my thesis; because, of course, +I do not maintain that the alchemists started out with their chemical +philosophy ready made, but gradually worked it out, by incorporating in +it further doctrines drawn from mystical theology. The three principles +just referred to were called "mercury," "sulphur," and "salt"; and they +must be distinguished from the common bodies so designated (though the +alchemists themselves seem often guilty of confusing them). "Mercury" +is the metallic principle _par excellence_, conferring on metals +their brightness and fusibility, and corresponding to the spirit or +intelligence in man.(1) "Sulphur," the principle of combustion and +colour, is the analogue of the soul. Many alchemists postulated two +sulphurs in the metals, an inward and an outward.(1b) The outward +sulphur was thought to be the chief cause of metallic impurity, and the +reason why all (known) metals, save gold and silver, were acted on by +fire. The inward sulphur, on the other hand, was regarded as essential +to the development of the metals: pure mercury, we are told, matured by +a pure inward sulphur yields pure gold. Here again it is evident that +the alchemists borrowed their theories from mystical theology; for, +clearly, inward sulphur is nothing else than the equivalent to love of +God; outward sulphur to love of self. Intelligence (mercury) matured by +love to God (inward sulphur) exactly expresses the spiritual state of +the regenerate man according to mystical theology. There is no reason, +other than their belief in analogy, why the alchemists should have held +such views concerning the metals. "Salt," the principle of solidity +and resistance to fire, corresponding to the body in man, plays a +comparatively unimportant part in alchemical theory, as does its +prototype in mystical theology. + + +(1) The identification of the god MERCURY with THOTH, the Egyptian god +of learning, is worth noticing in this connection. + +(1b) Pseudo-GEBER, whose writings were highly esteemed, for instance. +See R. RUSSEL'S translation of his works (1678), p. 160. + + +Now, as I have pointed out already, the central theorem of mystical +theology is, in Christian terminology, that of the regeneration of the +soul by the Spirit of CHRIST. The corresponding process in alchemy is +that of the transmutation of the "base" metals into silver and gold by +the agency of the Philosopher's Stone. Merely to remove the evil sulphur +of the "base" metals, thought the alchemists, though necessary, is not +sufficient to transmute them into "noble" metals; a maturing process is +essential, similar to that which they supposed was effected in Nature's +womb. Mystical theology teaches that the powers and life of the soul +are not inherent in it, but are given by the free grace of God. Neither, +according to the alchemists, are the powers and life of nature in +herself, but in that immanent spirit, the Soul of the World, that +animates her. As writes the famous alchemist who adopted the pleasing +pseudonym of "BASIL VALENTINE" (_c_. 1600), "the power of growth... is +imparted not by the earth, but by the life-giving spirit that is in +it. If the earth were deserted by this spirit, it would be dead, and +no longer able to afford nourishment to anything. For its sulphur or +richness would lack the quickening spirit without which there can be +neither life nor growth."(1a) To perfect the metals, therefore, the +alchemists argued, from analogy with mystical theology, which teaches +that men can be regenerated only by the power of CHRIST within the soul, +that it is necessary to subject them to the action of this world-spirit, +this one essence underlying all the varied powers of nature, this One +Thing from which "all things were produced... by adaption, and which +is the cause of all perfection throughout the whole world."(2a) "This," +writes one alchemist, "is the Spirit of Truth, which the world cannot +comprehend without the interposition of the Holy Ghost, or without the +instruction of those who know it. The same is of a mysterious nature, +wondrous strength, boundless power.... By Avicenna this Spirit is named +the Soul of the World. For, as the Soul moves all the limbs of the Body, +so also does this Spirit move all bodies. And as the Soul is in all +the limbs of the Body, so also is this Spirit in all elementary created +things. It is sought by many and found by few. It is beheld from afar +and found near; for it exists in every thing, in every place, and at all +times. It has the powers of all creatures; its action is found in all +elements, and the qualities of all things are therein, even in the +highest perfection... it heals all dead and living bodies without other +medicine... converts all metallic bodies into gold, and there is nothing +like unto it under Heaven."(1b) It was this Spirit, concentrated in all +its potency in a suitable material form, which the alchemists sought +under the name of "the Philosopher's Stone". Now, mystical theology +teaches that the Spirit of CHRIST, by which alone the soul of man can be +tinctured and transmuted into the likeness of God, is Goodness itself; +consequently, the alchemists argued that the Philosopher's Stone must +be, so to speak, Gold itself, or the very essence of Gold: it was to +them, as CHRIST is of the soul's perfection, at once the pattern and +the means of metallic perfection. "The Philosopher's Stone," declares +"EIRENAEUS PHILALETHES" (_nat. c_. 1623), "is a certain heavenly, +spiritual, penetrative, and fixed substance, which brings all metals +to the perfection of gold or silver (according to the quality of the +Medicine), and that by natural methods, which yet in their effects +transcend Nature.... Know, then, that it is called a stone, not because +it is like a stone, but only because, by virtue of its fixed nature, it +resists the action of fire as successfully as any stone. In species it +is gold, more pure than the purest; it is fixed and incombustible like +a stone (_i.e_. it contains no outward sulphur, but only inward, fixed +sulphur), but its appearance is that of a very fine powder, impalpable +to the touch, sweet to the taste, fragrant to the smell, in potency a +most penetrative spirit, apparently dry and yet unctuous, and easily +capable of tingeing a plate of metal.... If we say that its nature is +spiritual, it would be no more than the truth; if we described it as +corporeal the expression would be equally correct; for it is subtle, +penetrative, glorified, spiritual gold. It is the noblest of all created +things after the rational soul, and has virtue to repair all defects +both in animal and metallic bodies, by restoring them to the most exact +and perfect temper; wherefore is it a spirit or 'quintessence.'"(1c) + + +(1a) BASIL VALENTINE: _The Twelve Keys_. (See _The Hermetic Museum_, +vol. i. pp. 333 and 334.) + +(2a) From the "Smaragdine Table," attributed to HERMES TRISMEGISTOS +(_ie_. MERCURY or THOTH). + +(1b) _The Book of the Revelation of_ HERMES, _interpreted by_ +THEOPHRASTUS PARACELSUS, _concerning the Supreme Secret of the World_. +(See BENEDICTUS FIGULUS, _A Golden and Blessed Casket of Nature's +Marvels_, trans. by A. E. WAITE, 1893, pp. 36, 37, and 41.) + +(1c) EIRENAEUS PHILALETHES: _A Brief Guide to the Celestial Ruby_. (See +_The Hermetic Museum_, vol. ii. pp. 246 and 249.) + + +In other accounts the Philosopher's Stone, or at least the _materia +prima_ of which it is compounded, is spoken of as a despised substance, +reckoned to be of no value. Thus, according to one curious alchemistic +work, "This matter, so precious by the excellent Gifts, wherewith Nature +has enriched it, is truly mean, with regard to the Substances from +whence it derives its Original. Their price is not above the Ability of +the Poor. Ten Pence is more than sufficient to purchase the Matter of +the Stone.... The matter therefore is mean, considering the Foundation +of the Art because it costs very little; it is no less mean, if one +considers exteriourly that which gives it Perfection, since in that +regard it costs nothing at all, in as much as _all the World has it in +its Power_... so that... it is a constant Truth, that the Stone is a +Thing mean in one Sense, but that in another it is most precious, and +that there are none but Fools that despise it, by a just Judgment of +God."(1) And JACOB BOEHME (1575--1624) writes: "The _philosopher's +stone_ is a very dark, disesteemed stone, of a grey colour, but therein +lieth the highest tincture."(2) In these passages there is probably some +reference to the ubiquity of the Spirit of the World, already referred +to in a former quotation. But this fact is not, in itself, sufficient +to account for them. I suggest that their origin is to be found in the +religious doctrine that God's Grace, the Spirit of CHRIST that is the +means of the transmutation of man's soul into spiritual gold, is free to +all; that it is, at once, the meanest and the most precious thing in the +whole Universe. Indeed, I think it quite probable that the alchemists +who penned the above-quoted passages had in mind the words of ISAIAH, +"He was despised and we esteemed him not." And if further evidence +is required that the alchemists believed in a correspondence between +CHRIST--"the Stone which the builders rejected"--and the Philosopher's +Stone, reference may be made to the alchemical work called _The Sophic +Hydrolith: or Water Stone of the Wise_, a tract included in _The +Hermetic Museum_, in which this supposed correspondence is explicitly +asserted and dealt with in some detail. + + +(1) _A Discourse between Eudoxus and Pyrophilus, upon the Ancient War +of the Knights_. See _The Hermetical Triumph: or, the Victorious +Philosophical Stone_ (1723), pp. 101 and 102. + +(2) JACOB BOEHME: _Epistles_ (trans. by J. E., 1649, reprinted 1886), +Ep. iv., SE III. + + +Apart from the alchemists' belief in the analogy between natural and +spiritual things, it is, I think, incredible that any such theories of +the metals and the possibility of their transmutation or "regeneration" +by such an extraordinary agent as the Philosopher's Stone would have +occurred to the ancient investigators of Nature's secrets. When they +had started to formulate these theories, facts(1) were discovered which +appeared to support them; but it is, I suggest, practically impossible +to suppose that any or all of these facts would, in themselves, have +been sufficient to give rise to such wonderfully fantastic theories as +these: it is only from the standpoint of the theory that alchemy was +a direct offspring of mysticism that its origin seems to be capable of +explanation. + + + +(1) One of those facts, amongst many others, that appeared to confirm +the alchemical doctrines, was the ease with which iron could apparently +be transmuted into copper. It was early observed that iron vessels +placed in contact with a solution of blue vitriol became converted (at +least, so far as their surfaces were concerned) into copper. This we now +know to be due to the fact that the copper originally contained in the +vitriol is thrown out of solution, whilst the iron takes its place. And +we know, also, that no more copper can be obtained in this way from the +blue vitriol than is actually used up in preparing it; and, further, +that all the iron which is apparently converted into copper can be got +out of the residual solution by appropriate methods, if such be desired; +so that the facts really support DALTON'S theory rather than the +alchemical doctrines. But to the alchemist it looked like a real +transmutation of iron into copper, confirmation of his fond belief that +iron and other base metals could be transmuted into silver and gold by +the aid of the Great Arcanum of Nature. + + +In all the alchemical doctrines mystical connections are evident, and +mystical origins can generally be traced. I shall content myself here +with giving a couple of further examples. Consider, in the first place, +the alchemical doctrine of purification by putrefaction, that the metals +must die before they can be resurrected and truly live, that through +death alone are they purified--in the more prosaic language of modern +chemistry, death becomes oxidation, and rebirth becomes reduction. In +many alchemical books there are to be found pictorial symbols of the +putrefaction and death of metals and their new birth in the state of +silver or gold, or as the Stone itself, together with descriptions of +these processes. The alchemists sought to kill or destroy the body +or outward form of the metals, in the hope that they might get at and +utilise the living essence they believed to be immanent within. As +PARACELSUS put it: "Nothing of true value is located in the body of a +substance, but in the virtue... the less there is of body, the more in +proportion is the virtue." It seems to me quite obvious that in such +ideas as these we have the application to metallurgy of the mystic +doctrine of self-renunciation--that the soul must die to self before it +can live to God; that the body must be sacrificed to the spirit, and the +individual will bowed down utterly to the One Divine Will, before it can +become one therewith. + +In the second place, consider the directions as to the colours that +must be obtained in the preparation of the Philosopher's Stone, if +a successful issue to the Great Work is desired. Such directions are +frequently given in considerable detail in alchemical works; and, +without asserting any exact uniformity, I think that I may state that +practically all the alchemists agree that three great colour-stages are +necessary--(i.) an inky blackness, which is termed the "Crow's Head" and +is indicative of putrefaction; (ii.) a white colour indicating that +the Stone is now capable of converting "base" metals into silver; this +passes through orange into (iii.) a red colour, which shows that the +Stone is now perfect, and will transmute "base" metals into gold. Now, +what was the reason for the belief in these three colour-stages, and +for their occurrence in the above order? I suggest that no alchemist +actually obtained these colours in this order in his chemical +experiments, and that we must look for a speculative origin for the +belief in them. We have, I think, only to turn to religious mysticism +for this origin. For the exponents of religious mysticism unanimously +agree to a threefold division of the life of the mystic. The first stage +is called "the dark night of the soul," wherein it seems as if the soul +were deserted by God, although He is very near. It is the time of trial, +when self is sacrificed as a duty and not as a delight. Afterwards, +however, comes the morning light of a new intelligence, which marks the +commencement of that stage of the soul's upward progress that is called +the "illuminative life". All the mental powers are now concentrated on +God, and the struggle is transferred from without to the inner man, good +works being now done, as it were, spontaneously. The disciple, in this +stage, not only does unselfish deeds, but does them from unselfish +motives, being guided by the light of Divine Truth. The third stage, +which is the consummation of the process, is termed "the contemplative +life". It is barely describable. The disciple is wrapped about with the +Divine Love, and is united thereby with his Divine Source. It is the +life of love, as the illuminative life is that of wisdom. I suggest that +the alchemists, believing in this threefold division of the regenerative +process, argued that there must be three similar stages in the +preparation of the Stone, which was the pattern of all metallic +perfection; and that they derived their beliefs concerning the +colours, and other peculiarities of each stage in the supposed chemical +process, from the characteristics of each stage in the psychological +process according to mystical theology. + +Moreover, in the course of the latter process many flitting thoughts and +affections arise and deeds are half-wittingly done which are not of the +soul's true character; and in entire agreement with this, we read of +the alchemical process, in the highly esteemed "Canons" of D'ESPAGNET: +"Besides these decretory signs (_i.e_. the black, white, orange, and +red colours) which firmly inhere in the matter, and shew its essential +mutations, almost infinite colours appear, and shew themselves in +vapours, as the Rainbow in the clouds, which quickly pass away and are +expelled by those that succeed, more affecting the air than the earth: +the operator must have a gentle care of them, because they are not +permanent, and proceed not from the intrinsic disposition of the matter, +but from the fire painting and fashioning everything after its pleasure, +or casually by heat in slight moisture."(1) That D'ESPAGNET is arguing, +not so much from actual chemical experiments, as from analogy with +psychological processes in man, is, I think, evident. + + +(1) JEAN D'ESPAGNET: _Hermetic Arcanum_, canon 65. (See _Collectanea +Hermetica_, ed. by W. WYNN WESTCOTT, vol. i., 1893, pp. 28 and 29.) + + +As well as a metallic, the alchemists believed in a physiological, +application of the fundamental doctrines of mysticism: their physiology +was analogically connected with their metallurgy, the same principles +holding good in each case. PARACELSUS, as we have seen, taught that +man is a microcosm, a world in miniature; his spirit, the Divine Spark +within, is from God; his soul is from the Stars, extracted from the +Spirit of the World; and his body is from the earth, extracted from the +elements of which all things material are made. This view of man was +shared by many other alchemists. The Philosopher's Stone, therefore (or, +rather, a solution of it in alcohol) was also regarded as the Elixir of +Life; which, thought the alchemists, would not endow man with physical +immortality, as is sometimes supposed, but restore him again to the +flower of youth, "regenerating" him physiologically. Failing this, of +course, they regarded gold in a potable form as the next most powerful +medicine--a belief which probably led to injurious effects in some +cases. + +Such are the facts from which I think we are justified in concluding, +as I have said, "that the alchemists constructed their chemical theories +for the main part by means of _a priori_ reasoning, and that the +premises from which they started were (i.) the truth of mystical +theology, especially the doctrine of the soul's regeneration, and (ii.) +the truth of mystical philosophy, which asserts that the objects of +nature are symbols of spiritual verities."(1) + + +(1) In the following excursion we will wander again in the alchemical +bypaths of thought, and certain objections to this view of the origin +and nature of alchemy will be dealt with and, I hope, satisfactorily +answered. + + +It seems to follow, _ex hypothesi_, that every alchemical work ought to +permit of two interpretations, one physical, the other transcendental. +But I would not venture to assert this, because, as I think, many of +the lesser alchemists knew little of the origin of their theories, +nor realised their significance. They were concerned merely with +these theories in their strictly metallurgical applications, and any +transcendental meaning we can extract from their works was not intended +by the writers themselves. However, many alchemists, I conceive, +especially the better sort, realised more or less clearly the dual +nature of their subject, and their books are to some extent intended to +permit of a double interpretation, although the emphasis is laid upon +the physical and chemical application of mystical doctrine. And there +are a few writers who adopted alchemical terminology on the principle +that, if the language of theology is competent to describe chemical +processes, then, conversely, the language of alchemy must be competent +to describe psychological processes: this is certainly and entirely true +of JACOB BOEHME, and, to some extent also, I think, of HENRY KHUNRATH +(1560-1605) and THOMAS VAUGHAN (1622-1666). + +As may be easily understood, many of the alchemists led most romantic +lives, often running the risk of torture and death at the hands +of avaricious princes who believed them to be in possession of the +Philosopher's Stone, and adopted such pleasant methods of extorting (or, +at least, of trying to extort) their secrets. A brief sketch, which I +quote from my _Alchemy: Ancient and Modern_ (1911), SE 54, of the lives +of ALEXANDER SETHON and MICHAEL SENDIVOGIUS, will serve as an example:-- + +"The date and birthplace of ALEXANDER SETHON, a Scottish alchemist, do +not appear to have been recorded, but MICHAEL SENDIVOGIUS was probably +born in Moravia about 1566. Sethon, we are told, was in possession of +the arch-secrets of Alchemy. He visited Holland in 1602, proceeded after +a time to Italy, and passed through Basle to Germany; meanwhile he +is said to have performed many transmutations. Ultimately arriving +at Dresden, however, he fell into the clutches of the young Elector, +Christian II., who, in order to extort his secret, cast him into prison +and put him to the torture, but without avail. Now it so happened that +Sendivogius, who was in quest of the Philosopher's Stone, was staying +at Dresden, and hearing of Sethon's imprisonment obtained permission to +visit him. Sendivogius offered to effect Sethon's escape in return +for assistance in his alchemistic pursuits, to which arrangement the +Scottish alchemist willingly agreed. After some considerable outlay of +money in bribery, Sendivogius's plan of escape was successfully carried +out, and Sethon found himself a free man; but he refused to betray the +high secrets of Hermetic philosophy to his rescuer. However, before his +death, which occurred shortly afterwards, he presented him with an ounce +of the transmutative powder. Sendivogius soon used up this powder, we +are told, in effecting transmutations and cures, and, being fond of +expensive living, he married Sethon's widow, in the hope that she was +in the possession of the transmutative secret. In this, however, he was +disappointed; she knew nothing of the matter, but she had the manuscript +of an alchemistic work written by her late husband. Shortly afterwards +Sendivogius printed at Prague a book entitled _The New Chemical Light_ +under the name of 'Cosmopolita,' which is said to have been this work of +Sethon's, but which Sendivogius claimed for his own by the insertion +of his name on the title page, in the form of an anagram. The tract _On +Sulphur_ which was printed at the end of the book in later editions, +however, is said to have been the genuine work of the Moravian. Whilst +his powder lasted, Sendivogius travelled about, performing, we are told, +many transmutations. He was twice imprisoned in order to extort the +secrets of alchemy from him, on one occasion escaping, and on the other +occasion obtaining his release from the Emperor Rudolph. Afterwards, he +appears to have degenerated into an impostor, but this is said to have +been a _finesse_ to hide his true character as an alchemistic adept. He +died in 1646." + +However, all the alchemists were not of the apparent character of +SENDIVOGIUS--many of them leading holy and serviceable lives. The +alchemist-physician J. B. VAN HELMONT (1577-1644), who was a man of +extraordinary benevolence, going about treating the sick poor freely, +may be particularly mentioned. He, too, claimed to have performed the +transmutation of "base" metal into gold, as did also HELVETIUS (whom we +have already met), physician to the Prince of Orange, with a wonderful +preparation given to him by a stranger. The testimony of these two +latter men is very difficult either to explain or to explain away, but +I cannot deal with this question here, but must refer the reader to a +paper on the subject by Mr GASTON DE MENGEL, and the discussion thereon, +published in vol. i. of _The Journal of the Alchemical Society_. + +In conclusion, I will venture one remark dealing with a matter outside +of the present inquiry. Alchemy ended its days in failure and fraud; +charlatans and fools were attracted to it by purely mercenary objects, +who knew nothing of the high aims of the genuine alchemists, and +scientific men looked elsewhere for solutions of Nature's problems. +Why did alchemy fail? Was it because its fundamental theorems were +erroneous? I think not. I consider the failure of the alchemical theory +of Nature to be due rather to the misapplication of these fundamental +concepts, to the erroneous use of _a priori_ methods of reasoning, to a +lack of a sufficiently wide knowledge of natural phenomena to which +to apply these concepts, to a lack of adequate apparatus with which to +investigate such phenomena experimentally, and to a lack of mathematical +organons of thought with which to interpret such experimental results +had they been obtained. As for the basic concepts of alchemy themselves, +such as the fundamental unity of the Cosmos and the evolution of the +elements, in a word, the applicability of the principles of mysticism to +natural phenomena: these seem to me to contain a very valuable element +of truth--a statement which, I think, modern scientific research +justifies me in making,--though the alchemists distorted this truth and +expressed it in a fantastic form. I think, indeed, that in the modern +theories of energy and the all-pervading ether, the etheric and +electrical origin and nature of matter and the evolution of the +elements, we may witness the triumphs of mysticism as applied to the +interpretation of Nature. Whether or not we shall ever transmute lead +into gold, I believe there is a very true sense in which we may say +that alchemy, purified by its death, has been proved true, whilst the +materialistic view of Nature has been proved false. + + + + +X. THE PHALLIC ELEMENT IN ALCHEMICAL DOCTRINE + +THE problem of alchemy presents many aspects to our view, but, to my +mind, the most fundamental of these is psychological, or, perhaps I +should say, epistemological. It has been said that the proper study of +mankind is man; and to study man we must study the beliefs of man. Now +so long as we neglect great tracts of such beliefs, because they have +been, or appear to have been, superseded, so long will our study be +incomplete and ineffectual. And this, let me add, is no mere excuse for +the study of alchemy, no mere afterthought put forward in justification +of a predilection, but a plain statement of fact that renders this study +an imperative need. There are other questions of interest--of very great +interest--concerning alchemy: questions, for instance, as to the +scope and validity of its doctrines; but we ought not to allow their +fascination and promise to distract our attention from the fundamental +problem, whose solution is essential to their elucidation. + +In the preceding essay on "The Quest of the Philosopher's Stone," which +was written from the standpoint I have sketched in the foregoing words, +my thesis was "that the alchemists constructed their chemical theories +for the main part by means of _a priori_ reasoning, and that the +premises from which they started were (i.) the truth of mystical +theology, especially the doctrine of the soul's regeneration, and (ii.) +the truth of mystical philosophy, which asserts that the objects of +nature are symbols of spiritual verities." Now, I wish to treat my +present thesis, which is concerned with a further source from which the +alchemists derived certain of their views and modes of expression by +means of _a priori_ reasoning, in connection with, and, in a sense, +as complementary to, my former thesis. I propose in the first place, +therefore, briefly to deal with certain possible objections to this view +of alchemy. + +It has, for instance, been maintained(1) that the assimilation of +alchemical doctrines concerning the metals to those of mysticism +concerning the soul was an event late in the history of alchemy, and was +undertaken in the interests of the latter doctrines. Now we know that +certain mystics of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries did borrow +from the alchemists much of their terminology with which to discourse +of spiritual mysteries--JACOB BOEHME, HENRY KHUNRATH, and perhaps THOMAS +VAUGHAN, may be mentioned as the most prominent cases in point. But how +was this possible if it were not, as I have suggested, the repayment, in +a sense, of a sort of philological debt? Transmutation was an admirable +vehicle of language for describing the soul's regeneration, just because +the doctrine of transmutation was the result of an attempt to apply +the doctrine of regeneration in the sphere of metallurgy; and similar +remarks hold of the other prominent doctrines of alchemy. + + +(1) See, for example, Mr A. E. WAITE'S paper, "The Canon of Criticism +in respect of Alchemical Literature," _The Journal of the Alchemical +Society_, vol. i. (1913), pp. 17-30. + + +The wonderful fabric of alchemical doctrine was not woven in a day, and +as it passed from loom to loom, from Byzantium to Syria, from Syria to +Arabia, from Arabia to Spain and Latin Europe, so its pattern changed; +but it was always woven _a priori_, in the belief that that which is +below is as that which is above. In its final form, I think, it is +distinctly Christian. + +In the _Turba Philosophorum_, the oldest known work of Latin alchemy--a +work which, claiming to be of Greek origin, whilst not that, is +certainly Greek in spirit,--we frequently come across statements of a +decidedly mystical character. "The regimen," we read, "is greater than +is perceived by reason, except through divine inspiration."(1) Copper, +it is insisted upon again and again, has a soul as well as a body; and +the Art, we are told, is to be defined as "the liquefaction of the body +and the separation of the soul from the body, seeing that copper, like +a man, has a soul and a body."(2) Moreover, other doctrines are here +propounded which, although not so obviously of a mystical character, +have been traced to mystical sources in the preceding excursion. There +is, for instance, the doctrine of purification by means of putrefaction, +this process being likened to that of the resurrection of man. "These +things being done," we read, "God will restore unto it (the matter +operated on) both the soul and the spirit thereof, and the weakness +being taken away, that matter will be made strong, and after corruption +will be improved, even as a man becomes stronger after resurrection +and younger than he was in this world."(1b) The three stages in the +alchemical work--black, white, and red--corresponding to, and, as I +maintain, based on the three stages in the life of the mystic, are also +more than once mentioned. "Cook them (the king and his wife), therefore, +until they become black, then white, afterwards red, and finally until a +tingeing venom is produced."(2b) + + +(1) _The Turba Philosophorum, or Assembly of the Sages_ (trans. by A. E. +WAITE, 1896), p. 128. + +(2) _Ibid_., p. 193, _cf_. pp. 102 and 152. + +(1b) _The Turba Philosophorum, or Assembly of the Sages_ (trans. by A. +E. WAITE), p. 101, _cf_. pp. 27 and 197. + +(2b) _Ibid_., p. 98, _cf_. p. 29. + + +In view of these quotations, the alliance (shall I say?) between alchemy +and mysticism cannot be asserted to be of late origin. And we shall +find similar statements if we go further back in time. To give but one +example: "Among the earliest authorities," writes Mr WAITE, "the _Book +of Crates_ says that copper, like man, has a spirit, soul, and body," +the term "copper" being symbolical and applying to a stage in the +alchemical work. But nowhere in the _Turba_ do we meet with the concept +of the Philosopher's Stone as the medicine of the metals, a concept +characteristic of Latin alchemy, and, to quote Mr WAITE again, "it does +not appear that the conception of the Philosopher's Stone as a medicine +of metals and of men was familiar to Greek alchemy;"(3) + +(3) _Ibid_., p. 71. + +All this seems to me very strongly to support my view of the origin of +alchemy, which requires a specifically Christian mysticism only for this +specific concept of the Philosopher's Stone in its fully-fledged form. +At any rate, the development of alchemical doctrine can be seen to have +proceeded concomitantly with the development of mystical philosophy and +theology. Those who are not prepared here to see effect and cause may be +asked not only to formulate some other hypothesis in explanation of +the origin of alchemy, but also to explain this fact of concomitant +development. + +From the standpoint of the transcendental theory of alchemy it has been +urged "that the language of mystical theology seemed to be hardly so +suitable to the exposition (as I maintain) or concealment of chemical +theories, as the language of a definite and generally credited branch of +science was suited to the expression of a veiled and symbolical process +such as the regeneration of man."(1) But such a statement is only +possible with respect to the latest days of alchemy, when there WAS a +science of chemistry, definite and generally credited. The science of +chemistry, it must be remembered, had no growth separate from alchemy, +but evolved therefrom. Of the days before this evolution had been +accomplished, it would be in closer accord with the facts to say that +theology, including the doctrine of man's regeneration, was in the +position of "a definite and generally credited branch of science," +whereas chemical phenomena were veiled in deepest mystery and tinged +with the dangers appertaining to magic. As concerns the origin of +alchemy, therefore, the argument as to suitability of language +appears to support my own theory; it being open to assume that after +formulation--that is, in alchemy's latter days--chemical nomenclature +and theories were employed by certain writers to veil heterodox +religious doctrine. + + +(1) PHILIP S. WELLBY, M.A., in _The Journal of the Alchemical Society_, +vol. ii. (1914), p. 104. + + +Another recent writer on the subject, my friend the late Mr ABDUL-ALI, +has remarked that "he thought that, in the mind of the alchemist at +least, there was something more than analogy between metallic and +psychic transformations, and that the whole subject might well be +assigned to the doctrinal category of ineffable and transcendent +Oneness. This Oneness comprehended all--soul and body, spirit and +matter, mystic visions and waking life--and the sharp metaphysical +distinction between the mental and the non-mental realms, so prominent +during the history of philosophy, was not regarded by these early +investigators in the sphere of nature. There was the sentiment, perhaps +only dimly experienced, that not only the law, but the substance of +the Universe, was one; that mind was everywhere in contact with its own +kindred; and that metallic transmutation would, somehow, so to speak, +signalise and seal a hidden transmutation of the soul."(1) + + +(1) SIJIL ABDUL-ALI, in _The Journal of the Alchemical Society_, vol. +ii. (1914), p. 102. + + +I am to a large extent in agreement with this view. Mr ABDUL-ALI +quarrels with the term "analogy," and, if it is held to imply any merely +superficial resemblance, it certainly is not adequate to my own +needs, though I know not what other word to use. SWEDENBORG'S term +"correspondence" would be better for my purpose, as standing for an +essential connection between spirit and matter, arising out of the +causal relationship of the one to the other. But if SWEDENBORG believed +that matter and spirit were most intimately related, he nevertheless had +a very precise idea of their distinctness, which he formulated in his +Doctrine of Degrees--a very exact metaphysical doctrine indeed. The +alchemists, on the other hand, had no such clear ideas on the subject. +It would be even more absurd to attribute to them a Cartesian dualism. +To their ways of thinking, it was by no means impossible to grasp +the spiritual essences of things by what we should now call chemical +manipulations. For them a gas was still a ghost and air a spirit. One +could quote pages in support of this, but I will content myself with a +few words from the _Turba_--the antiquity of the book makes it of value, +and anyway it is near at hand. "Permanent water," whatever that may be, +being pounded with the body, we are told, "by the will of God it +turns that body into spirit." And in another place we read that "the +Philosophers have said: Except ye turn bodies into not-bodies, and +incorporeal things into bodies, ye have not yet discovered the rule of +operation."(1a) No one who could write like this, and believe it, could +hold matter and spirit as altogether distinct. But it is equally obvious +that the injunction to convert body into spirit is meaningless if spirit +and body are held to be identical. I have been criticised for crediting +the alchemists "with the philosophic acumen of Hegel,"(1b) but that is +just what I think one ought to avoid doing. At the same time, however, +it is extremely difficult to give a precise account of views which are +very far from being precise themselves. But I think it may be said, +without fear of error, that the alchemist who could say, "As above, so +below," _ipso facto_ recognised both a very close connection between +spirit and matter, and a distinction between them. Moreover, the +division thus implied corresponded, on the whole, to that between the +realms of the known (or what was thought to be known) and the unknown. +The Church, whether Christian or pre-Christian, had very precise +(comparatively speaking) doctrine concerning the soul's origin, +duties, and destiny, backed up by tremendous authority, and speculative +philosophy had advanced very far by the time PLATO began to concern +himself with its problems. Nature, on the other hand, was a mysterious +world of magical happenings, and there was nothing deserving of the +name of natural science until alchemy was becoming decadent. It is not +surprising, therefore, that the alchemists--these men who wished to +probe Nature's hidden mysteries--should reason from above to +below; indeed, unless they had started _de novo_--as babes knowing +nothing,--there was no other course open to them. And that they did +adopt the obvious course is all that my former thesis amounts to. In +passing, it is interesting to note that a sixteenth-century alchemist, +who had exceptional opportunities and leisure to study the works of the +old masters of alchemy, seems to have come to a similar conclusion as +to the nature of their reasoning. He writes: "The Sages... after having +conceived in their minds a Divine idea of the relations of the whole +universe... selected from among the rest a certain substance, from which +they sought to elicit the elements, to separate and purify them, +and then again put them together in a manner suggested by a keen and +profound observation of Nature."(1c) + + +(1a) _op cit_., pp,. 65 and 110, _cf_. p. 154. + +(1b) _Vide_ a rather frivolous review of my _Alchemy: Ancient and +Modern_ in _The Outlook_ for 14th January 1911. + +(1c) EDWARD KELLY: _The Humid Path_. (See _The Alchemical Writings_ of +EDWARD KELLY, edited by A. E. WAITE, 1893, pp. 59-60.) + + +In describing the realm of spirit as _ex hypothesi_ known, that of +Nature unknown, to the alchemists, I have made one important omission, +and that, if I may use the name of a science to denominate a complex of +crude facts, is the realm of physiology, which, falling within that of +Nature, must yet be classed as _ex hypothesi_ known. But to elucidate +this point some further considerations are necessary touching the +general nature of knowledge. Now, facts may be roughly classed, +according to their obviousness and frequency of occurrence, into four +groups. There are, first of all, facts which are so obvious, to put +it paradoxically, that they escape notice; and these facts are the +commonest and most frequent in their occurrence. I think it is Mr +CHESTERTON who has said that, looking at a forest one cannot see the +trees because of the forest; and, in _The Innocence of Father Brown_, he +has a good story ("The Invisible Man") illustrating the point, in which +a man renders himself invisible by dressing up in a postman's uniform. +At any rate, we know that when a phenomenon becomes persistent it tends +to escape observation; thus, continuous motion can only be appreciated +with reference to a stationary body, and a noise, continually repeated, +becomes at last inaudible. The tendency of often-repeated actions to +become habitual, and at last automatic, that is to say, carried +out without consciousness, is a closely related phenomenon. We +can understand, therefore, why a knowledge of the existence of the +atmosphere, as distinct from the wind, came late in the history of +primitive man, as, also, many other curious gaps in his knowledge. In +the second group we may put those facts which are common, that is, of +frequent occurrence, and are classed as obvious. Such facts are accepted +at face-value by the primitive mind, and are used as the basis of +explanation of facts in the two remaining groups, namely, those facts +which, though common, are apt to escape the attention owing to their +inconspicuousness, and those which are of infrequent occurrence. When +the mind takes the trouble to observe a fact of the third group, or +is confronted by one of the fourth, it feels a sense of surprise. Such +facts wear an air of strangeness, and the mind can only rest satisfied +when it has shown them to itself as in some way cases of the second +group of facts, or, at least, brought them into relation therewith. That +is what the mind--at least the primitive mind--means by "explanation". +"It is obvious," we say, commencing an argument, thereby proclaiming +our intention to bring that which is at first in the category of the +not-obvious, into the category of the obvious. It remains for a more +sceptical type of mind--a later product of human evolution--to question +obvious facts, to explain them, either, as in science, by establishing +deeper and more far-reaching correlations between phenomena, or in +philosophy, by seeking for the source and purpose of such facts, or, +better still, by both methods. + +Of the second class of facts--those common and obvious facts which +the primitive mind accepts at face-value and uses as the basis of +its explanations of such things as seem to it to stand in need of +explanation--one could hardly find a better instance than sex. The +universality of sex, and the intermittent character of its phenomena, +are both responsible for this. Indeed, the attitude of mind I have +referred to is not restricted to primitive man; how many people +to-day, for instance, just accept sex as a fact, pleasant or unpleasant +according to their predilections, never querying, or feeling the need +to query, its why and wherefore? It is by no means surprising, that when +man first felt the need of satisfying himself as to the origin of the +universe, he should have done so by a theory founded on what he knew +of his own generation. Indeed, as I queried on a former occasion, what +other source of explanation was open to him? Of what other form of +origin was he aware? Seeing Nature springing to life at the kiss of the +sun, what more natural than that she should be regarded as the divine +Mother, who bears fruits because impregnated by the Sun-God? It is +not difficult to understand, therefore, why primitive man paid divine +honours to the organs of sex in man and woman, or to such things as +he considered symbolical of them--that is to say, to understand the +extensiveness of those religions which are grouped under the term +"phallicism". Nor, to my mind, is the symbol of sex a wholly inadequate +one under which to conceive of the origin of things. And, as I have +said before, that phallicism usually appears to have degenerated into +immorality of a very pronounced type is to be deplored, but an immoral +view of human relations is by no means a necessary corollary to a sexual +theory of the universe.(1) + + +(1) "The reverence as well as the worship paid to the phallus, in early +and primitive days, had nothing in it which partook of indecency; all +ideas connected with it were of a reverential and religious kind.... + +"The indecent ideas attached to the representation of the phallus were, +though it seems a paradox to say so, the results of a more advanced +civilization verging towards its decline, as we have evidence at Rome +and Pompeii.... + +"To the primitive man (the reproductive force which pervades all nature) +was the most mysterious of all manifestations. The visible physical +powers of nature--the sun, the sky, the storm--naturally claimed his +reverence, but to him the generative power was the most mysterious of +all powers. In the vegetable world, the live seed placed in the ground, +and hence germinating, sprouting up, and becoming a beautiful and +umbrageous tree, was a mystery. In the animal world, as the cause of all +life, by which all beings came into existence, this power was a mystery. +In the view of primitive man generation was the action of the Deity +itself. It was the mode in which He brought all things into existence, +the sun, the moon, the stars, the world, man were generated by Him. +To the productive power man was deeply indebted, for to it he owed the +harvests and the flocks which supported his life; hence it naturally +became an object of reverence and worship. + +"Primitive man wants some object to worship, for an abstract idea +is beyond his comprehension, hence a visible representation of the +generative Deity was made, with the organs contributing to generation +most prominent, and hence the organ itself became a symbol of the +power."--H, M. WESTROPP: _Primitive Symbolism as Illustrated in Phallic +Worship, or the Reproductive Principle_ (1885), pp. 47, 48, and 57. {End +of long footnote} + + +The Aruntas of Australia, I believe, when discovered by Europeans, had +not yet observed the connection between sexual intercourse and birth. +They believed that conception was occasioned by the woman passing near +a _churinga_--a peculiarly shaped piece of wood or stone, in which a +spirit-child was concealed, which entered into her. But archaeological +research having established the fact that phallicism has, at one time +or another, been common to nearly all races, it seems probable that +the Arunta tribe represents a deviation from the normal line of mental +evolution. At any rate, an isolated phenomenon, such as this, cannot be +held to controvert the view that regards phallicism as in this normal +line. Nor was the attitude of mind that not only accepts sex at +face-value as an obvious fact, but uses the concept of it to explain +other facts, a merely transitory one. We may, indeed, not difficultly +trace it throughout the history of alchemy, giving rise to what I may +term "The Phallic Element in Alchemical Doctrine". + +In aiming to establish this, I may be thought to be endeavouring to +establish a counter-thesis to that of the preceding essay on alchemy, +but, in virtue of the alchemists' belief in the mystical unity of all +things, in the analogical or correspondential relationship of all parts +of the universe to each other, the mystical and the phallic views of +the origin of alchemy are complementary, not antagonistic. Indeed, the +assumption that the metals are the symbols of man almost necessitates +the working out of physiological as well as mystical analogies, and +these two series of analogies are themselves connected, because the +principle "As above, so below" was held to be true of man himself. We +might, therefore, expect to find a more or less complete harmony between +the two series of symbols, though, as a matter of fact, contradictions +will be encountered when we come to consider points of detail. The +undoubtable antiquity of the phallic element in alchemical doctrine +precludes the idea that this element was an adventitious one, that +it was in any sense an afterthought; notwithstanding, however, the +evidence, as will, I hope, become apparent as we proceed, indicates that +mystical ideas played a much more fundamental part in the genesis of +alchemical doctrine than purely phallic ones--mystical interpretations +fit alchemical processes and theories far better than do sexual +interpretations; in fact, sex has to be interpreted somewhat mystically +in order to work out the analogies fully and satisfactorily. + +As concerns Greek alchemy, I shall content myself with a passage from +a work _On the Sacred Art_, attributed to OLYMPIODORUS (sixth century +A.D.), followed by some quotations from and references to the _Turba_. +In the former work it is stated on the authority of HORUS that "The +proper end of the whole art is to obtain the semen of the male secretly, +seeing that all things are male and female. Hence (we read further) +Horus says in a certain place: Join the male and the female, and you +will find that which is sought; as a fact, without this process of +re-union, nothing can succeed, for Nature charms Nature," _etc_. The +_Turba_ insistently commands those who would succeed in the Art, to +conjoin the male with the female,(1) and, in one place, the male is said +to be lead and the female orpiment.(2) We also find the alchemical work +symbolised by the growth of the embryo in the womb. "Know," we are +told, "... that out of the elect things nothing becomes useful without +conjunction and regimen, because sperma is generated out of blood and +desire. For the man mingling with the woman, the sperm is nourished by +the humour of the womb, and by the moistening blood, and by heat, +and when forty nights have elapsed the sperm is formed.... God has +constituted that heat and blood for the nourishment of the sperm until +the foetus is brought forth. So long as it is little, it is nourished +with milk, and in proportion as the vital heat is maintained, the bones +are strengthened. Thus it behoves you also to act in this Art."(3) + + +(1) _Vide_ pp. 60 92, 96 97, 134, 135 and elsewhere in Mr WAITE'S +translation. + +(2) _Ibid_., p. 57 + +(3) _Ibid_., pp. 179-181 (second recension); _cf_. pp. 103-104. + + +The use of the mystical symbols of death (putrefaction) and resurrection +or rebirth to represent the consummation of the alchemical work, and +that of the phallic symbols of the conjunction of the sexes and the +development of the foetus, both of which we have found in the _Turba_, +are current throughout the course of Latin alchemy. In _The Chymical +Marriage of Christian Rosencreutz_, that extraordinary document of what +is called "Rosicrucianism"--a symbolic romance of considerable ability, +whoever its author was,(1)--an attempt is made to weld the two sets of +symbols--the one of marriage, the other of death and resurrection unto +glory--into one allegorical narrative; and it is to this fusion of +seemingly disparate concepts that much of its fantasticality is due. Yet +the concepts are not really disparate; for not only is the second +birth like unto the first, and not only is the resurrection unto glory +described as the Bridal Feast of the Lamb, but marriage is, in a manner, +a form of death and rebirth. To justify this in a crude sense, I might +say that, from the male standpoint at least, it is a giving of the +life-substance to the beloved that life may be born anew and increase. +But in a deeper sense it is, or rather should be, as an ideal, a mutual +sacrifice of self for each other's good--a death of the self that it may +arise with an enriched personality. + + +(1) See Mr WAITE'S _The Real History of the Rosicrucians_ (1887) for +translation and discussion as to origin and significance. The work was +first published (in German) at Strassburg in 1616. + + +It is when we come to an examination of the ideas at the root of, and +associated with, the alchemical concept of "principles," that we find +some difficulty in harmonising the two series of symbols--the mystical +and the phallic. In one place in the _Turba_ we are directed "to take +quicksilver, in which is the male potency or strength";(2a) and this +concept of mercury as male is quite in accord with the mystical origin +I have assigned in the preceding excursion to the doctrine of the +alchemical principles. I have shown, I think, that salt, sulphur, and +mercury are the analogues _ex hypothesi_ of the body, soul (affection +and volition), and spirit (intelligence or understanding) in man; and +the affections are invariably regarded as especially feminine, the +understanding as especially masculine. But it seems that the more common +opinion, amongst Latin alchemists at any rate, was that sulphur was +male and mercury female. Writes BERNARD of TREVISAN: "For the Matter +suffereth, and the Form acteth assimulating the Matter to itself, and +according to this manner the Matter naturally thirsteth after a Form, +as a Woman desireth an Husband, and a Vile thing a precious one, and +an impure a pure one, so also _Argent-vive_ coveteth a Sulphur, as that +which should make perfect which is imperfect: So also a Body +freely desireth a Spirit, whereby it may at length arrive at its +perfection."(1b) At the same time, however, Mercury was regarded as +containing in itself both male and female potencies--it was the product +of male and female, and, thus, the seed of all the metals. "Nothing in +the World can be generated," to repeat a quotation from BERNARD, +without these two Substances, to wit a Male and Female: From whence it +appeareth, that although these two substances are not of one and the +same species, yet one Stone doth thence arise, and although they appear +and are said to be two Substances, yet in truth it is but one, to wit, +_Argent-vive_. But of this _Argent-vive_ a certain part is fixed and +digested, Masculine, hot, dry and secretly informing. But the other, +which is the Female, is volatile, crude, cold, and moyst."(2b) EDWARD +KELLY (1555-1595), who is valuable because he summarises authoritative +opinion, says somewhat the same thing, though in clearer words: "The +active elements... these are water and fire... may be called male, +while the passive elements... earth and air... represent the female +principle.... Only two elements, water and earth, are visible, and earth +is called the hiding-place of fire, water the abode of air. In these two +elements we have the broad law of limitation which divides the male from +the female. ... The first matter of minerals is a kind of viscous water, +mingled with pure and impure earth... Of this viscous water and fusible +earth, or sulphur, is composed that which is called quicksilver, the +first matter of the metals. Metals are nothing but Mercury digested +by different degrees of heat."(1c) There is one difference, however, +between these two writers, inasmuch as BERNARD says that "the Male and +Female abide together in closed Natures; the Female truly as it were +Earth and Water, the Male as Air and Fire." Mercury for him arises +from the two former elements, sulphur from the two latter.(2c) And the +difference is important as showing beyond question the _a priori_ nature +of alchemical reasoning. The idea at the back of the alchemists' minds +was undoubtedly that of the ardour of the male in the act of coition and +the alleged, or perhaps I should say apparent, passivity of the female. +Consequently, sulphur, the fiery principle of combustion, and such +elements as were reckoned to be active, were denominated "male," whilst +mercury, the principle acted on by sulphur, and such elements as were +reckoned to be passive, were denominated "female". As to the question +of origin, I do not think that the palm can be denied to the mystical +as distinguished from the phallic theory. And in its final form +the doctrine of principles is incapable of a sexual interpretation. +Mystically understood, man is capable of analysis into two +principles--since "body" may be neglected as unimportant (a false view, +I think, by the way) or "soul" and "spirit" may be united under one +head--OR into three; whereas the postulation of THREE principles on +a sexual basis is impossible. JOANNES ISAACUS HOLLANDUS (fifteenth +century) is the earliest author in whose works I have observed explicit +mention of THREE principles, though he refers to them in a manner +seeming to indicate that the doctrine was no new one in his day. I have +only read one little tract of his; there is nothing sexual in it, and +the author's mental character may be judged from his remarks concerning +"the three flying spirits"--taste, smell, and colour. These, he writes, +"are the life, soule, and quintessence of every thing, neither can these +three spirits be one without the other, as the Father, the Son, and +the Holy Ghost are one, yet three Persons, and one is not without the +other."(1d) + + +(2a) Mr WAITE's translation, p. 79. + +(1b) BERNARD, Earl of TREVISAN: _A Treatise of the Philosopher's Stone_, +1683. (See _Collectanea Chymica: A Collection of Ten Several Treatises +in Chymistry_, 1684, p. 92.) + +(2b) _Ibid_., p. 91. + +(1c) EDWARD KELLY: _The Stone of the Philosophers_. (See _The Alchemical +Writings of_ EDWARD KELLY, edited by A. E. WAITE, 1893, pp. 9 and 11 to +13.) + +(2c) _The Answer of_ BERNARDUS TREVISANUS, _to the Epistle of Thomas +of Bononira, Physician to K. Charles the 8th_. (See JOHN FREDERICK +HOUPREGHT: _Aurifontina Chymica_, 1680, p. 208.) + +(1d) _One Hundred and Fourteen Experiments and Cures of the Famous +Physitian_ THEOPHRASTUS PARACELSUS. _Whereunto is added... certain +Secrets of_ ISAAC HOLLANDUS, _concerning the Vegetall and Animall Work_ +(1652), pp. 29 and 30. + +When the alchemists described an element or principle as male or female, +they meant what they said, as I have already intimated, to the extent, +at least, of firmly believing that seed was produced by the two metallic +sexes. By their union metals were thought to be produced in the womb of +the earth; and mines were shut in order that by the birth and growth of +new metal the impoverished veins might be replenished. In this way, too, +was the _magnum opus_, the generation of the Philosopher's Stone--in +species gold, but purer than the purest--to be accomplished. To conjoin +that which Nature supplied, to foster the growth and development of that +which was thereby produced; such was the task of the alchemist. "For +there are Vegetables," says BERNARD of TREVISAN in his _Answer to Thomas +of Bononia_, "but Sensitives more especially, which for the most part +beget their like, by the Seeds of the Male and Female for the most +part concurring and conmixt by copulation; which work of Nature the +Philosophick Art imitates in the generation of gold."(1) + + +(1) _Op. cit_., p. 216. + + +Mercury, as I have said, was commonly regarded as the seed of the +metals, or as especially the female seed, there being two seeds, one the +male, according to BERNARD, more ripe, perfect and active, the other the +female. "more immature and in a sort passive(2) "... our Philosophick +Art," he says in another place, following a description of the +generation of man, "... is like this procreation of Man; for as in +_Mercury_ (of which Gold is by Nature generated in Mineral Vessels) a +natural conjunction + + +(2) _Ibid_., p. 217; _cf_. p. 236 + +is made of both the Seeds, Male and Female, so by our artifice, an +artificial and like conjunction is made of Agents and Patients."(1) "All +teaching," says KELLY, "that changes Mercury is false and vain, for this +is the original sperm of metals, and its moisture must not be dried +up, for otherwise it will not dissolve,"(2) and quotes ARNOLD (_ob. c_. +1310) to a similar effect.(3) One wonders how far the fact that human +and animal seed is fluid influenced the alchemists in their choice of +mercury, the only metal liquid at ordinary temperatures, as the seed of +the metals. There are, indeed, other good reasons for this choice, but +that this idea played some part in it, and, at least, was present at the +back of the alchemists' minds, I have little doubt. + +The most philosophic account of metallic seed is that, perhaps, of the +mysterious adept "EIRENAEUS PHILALETHES," who distinguishes between +it and mercury in a rather interesting manner. He writes: "Seed is the +means of generic propagation given to all perfect things here below; +it is the perfection of each body; and anybody that has no seed must be +regarded as imperfect. Hence there can be no doubt that there is such +a thing as metallic seed.... All metallic seed is the seed of gold; for +gold is the intention of Nature in regard to all metals. If the base +metals are not gold, it is only through some accidental hindrance; they +are-all potentially gold. But, of course, this seed of gold is most +easily obtainable from well-matured gold itself.... Remember that I am +now speaking of metallic seed, and not of Mercury.... The seed of metals +is hidden out of sight still more completely than that of animals; +nevertheless, it is within the compass of our Art to extract it. The +seed of animals and vegetables is something separate, and may be cut +out, or otherwise separately exhibited; but metallic seed is diffused +throughout the metal, and contained in all its smallest parts; neither +can it be discerned from its body: its extraction is therefore a task +which may well tax the ingenuity of the most experienced philosopher; +the virtues of the whole metal have to be intensified, so as to convert +it into the sperm of our seed, which, by circulation, receives the +virtues of superiors and inferiors, then next becomes wholly form, or +heavenly virtue, which can communicate this to others related to it +by homogeneity of matter. ... The place in which the seed resides +is--approximately speaking--water; for, to speak properly and exactly, +the seed is the smallest part of the metal, and is invisible; but as +this invisible presence is diffused throughout the water of its kind, +and exerts its virtue therein, nothing being visible to the eye but +water, we are left to conclude from rational induction that this inward +agent (which is, properly speaking, the seed) is really there. Hence we +call the whole of the water seed, just as we call the whole of the +grain seed, though the germ of life is only a smallest particle of the +grain."(1b) + + +(1) _The Answer of_ BERNARDUS TREVISANUS, _etc_. _Op. cit_. p. 218. + +(2) _op. cit_., p. 22. + +(3) _Ibid_., p. 16. + +(1b) EIRENAEUS PHILALETHES: _The Metamorphosis of Metals_. (See _The +Hermetic Museum_, vol. ii. pp. 238-240.) + + +To say that "PHILALETHES'" seed resembles the modern electron is, +perhaps, to draw a rather fanciful analogy, since the electron is a +very precise idea, the result of the mathematical interpretation of the +results of exact experimentation. But though it would be absurd to speak +of this concept of the one seed of all metals as an anticipation of the +electron, to apply the expression "metallic seed" to the electron, now +that the concept of it has been reached, does not seem so absurd. + +According to "PHILALETHES," the extraction of the seed is a very +difficult process, accomplishable, however, by the aid of mercury--the +water homogeneous therewith. Mercury, again, is the form of the seed +thereby obtained. He writes: "When the sperm hidden in the body of +gold is brought out by means of our Art, it appears under the form +of Mercury, whence it is exalted into the quintessence which is first +white, and then, by means of continuous coction, becomes red." And +again: "There is a womb into which the gold (if placed therein) will, of +its own accord, emit its seed, until it is debilitated and dies, and +by its death is renewed into a most glorious King, who thenceforward +receives power to deliver all his brethren from the fear of death."(1) + + +(1) EIRENAEUS PHILALETHES: _The Metamorphosis of Metals_. (See _The +Hermetic Museum_, vol. ii. pp. 241 and 244.) + + +The fifteenth-century alchemist THOMAS NORTON was peculiar in his views, +inasmuch as he denied that metals have seed. He writes: "Nature never +multiplies anything, except in either one or the other of these two +ways: either by decay, which we call putrefaction, or, in the case of +animate creatures, by propagation. In the case of metals there can be no +propagation, though our Stone exhibits something like it.... Nothing +can be multiplied by inward action unless it belong to the vegetable +kingdom, or the family of sensitive creatures. But the metals are +elementary objects, and possess neither seed nor sensation."(1) + + +(1) THOMAS NORTON: _The Ordinal of Alchemy_. (See _The Hermetic Museum_, +vol. ii. pp. 15 and 16.) + + +His theory of the origin of the metals is astral rather than phallic. +"The only efficient cause of metals," he says, "is the mineral virtue, +which is not found in every kind of earth, but only in certain places +and chosen mines, into which the celestial sphere pours its rays in a +straight direction year by year, and according to the arrangement of +the metallic substance in these places, this or that metal is gradually +formed."(2) + + +(2) _Ibid_., pp. 15 and 16. + + +In view of the astrological symbolism of these metals, that gold should +be masculine, silver feminine, does not surprise us, because the idea +of the masculinity of the sun and the femininity of the moon is a bit +of phallicism that still remains with us. It was by the marriage of gold +and silver that very many alchemists considered that the _magnum opus_ +was to be achieved. Writes BERNARD of TREVISAN: "The subject of this +admired Science (alchemy) is _Sol_ and _Luna_, or rather Male and +Female, the Male is hot and dry, the Female cold and moyst." The aim of +the work, he tells us, is the extraction of the spirit of gold, which +alone can enter into bodies and tinge them. Both _Sol_ and _Luna_ are +absolutely necessary, and "whoever...shall think that a Tincture can be +made without these two Bodyes,... he proceedeth to the Practice like one +that is blind."(1) + + +(1) BERNARD, Earl of TREVISAN: _A Treatise, etc., Op. cit_. pp. 83 and +87. + + +KELLY has teaching to the same effect, the Mercury of the Philosophers +being for him the menstruum or medium wherein the copulation of Gold +with Silver is to be accomplished. Mercury, in fact, seems to have been +everything and to have been capable of effecting everything in the eyes +of the alchemists. Concerning gold and silver, KELLY writes: "Only one +metal, viz. gold, is absolutely perfect and mature. Hence it is called +the perfect male body... Silver is less bounded by aqueous immaturity +than the rest of the metals, though it may indeed be regarded as to +a certain extent impure, still its water is already covered with the +congealing vesture of its earth, and it thus tends to perfection. This +condition is the reason why silver is everywhere called by the Sages +the perfect female body." And later he writes: "In short, our whole +Magistery consists in the union of the male and female, or active and +passive, elements through the mediation of our metallic water and a +proper degree of heat. Now, the male and female are two metallic bodies, +and this I will again prove by irrefragable quotations from the Sages." +Some of the quotations will be given: "Avicenna: 'Purify husband and +wife separately, in order that they may unite more intimately; for if +you do not purify them, they cannot love each other. By conjunction +of the two natures you get a clear and lucid nature, which, when it +ascends, becomes bright and serviceable.'... Senior: 'I, the Sun, am +hot and dry, and thou, the Moon, are cold and moist; when we are wedded +together in a closed chamber, I will gently steal away thy soul.'... +Rosinus: 'When the Sun, my brother, for the love of me (silver) pours +his sperm (_i.e_. his solar fatness) into the chamber (_i.e_. my Lunar +body), namely, when we become one in a strong and complete complexion +and union, the child of our wedded love will be born.... 'Rosary': 'The +ferment of the Sun is the sperm of the man, the ferment of the Moon, +the sperm of the woman. Of both we get a chaste union and a true +generation.'... Aristotle: 'Take your beloved son, and wed him to his +sister, his white sister, in equal marriage, and give them the cup of +love, for it is a food which prompts to union.' "(1a) KELLY, of course, +accepts the traditional authorship of the works from which he quotes, +though in many cases such authorship is doubtful, to say the least. The +alchemical works ascribed to ARISTOTLE (384-322 B.C.), for instance, are +beyond question forgeries. Indeed, the symbol of a union between brother +and sister, here quoted, could hardly be held as acceptable to Greek +thought, to which incest was the most abominable and unforgiveable sin. +It seems likelier that it originated with the Egyptians, to whom such +unions were tolerable in fact. The symbol is often met with in Latin +alchemy. MICHAEL MAIER (1568-1622) also says: "_conjunge fratrem cum +sorore et propina illis poculum amoris_," the words forming a motto to +a picture of a man and woman clasped in each other's arms, to whom an +older man offers a goblet. This symbolic picture occurs in his _Atalanta +Fugiens, hoc est, Emblemata nova de Secretis Naturae Chymica, etc_. +(Oppenheim, 1617). This work is an exceedingly curious one. It consists +of a number of carefully executed pictures, each accompanied by a motto, +a verse of poetry set to music, with a prose text. Many of the +pictures are phallic in conception, and practically all of them are +anthropomorphic. Not only the primary function of sex, but especially +its secondary one of lactation, is made use of. The most curious of +these emblematic pictures, perhaps, is one symbolising the conjunction +of gold and silver. It shows on the right a man and woman, representing +the sun and moon, in the act of coition, standing up to the thighs in a +lake. On the left, on a hill above the lake, a woman (with the moon as +halo) gives birth to a child. A boy is coming out of the water towards +her. The verse informs us that: "The bath glows red at the conception +of the boy, the air at his birth." We learn also that "there is a stone, +and yet there is not, which is the noble gift of God. If God grants it, +fortunate will be he who shall receive it."(1) + + +(1a) EDWARD KELLY: _The Stone of the Philosophers, Op. cit_., pp 13, 14, +33, 35, 36, 38-40, and 47. + +(1) _Op. Cit_., p. 145 + + +Concerning the nature of gold, there is a discussion in _The Answer of_ +BERNARDUS TREVISANUS _to the Epistle of Thomas of Bononia_, with which +I shall close my consideration of the present aspect of the subject. +Its interest for us lies in the arguments which are used and held to be +valid. "Besides, you say that Gold, as most think, is nothing else than +_Quick-silver_ coagulated naturally by the force of _Sulphur_; yet so, +that nothing of the _Sulphur_ which generated the Gold, doth remain +in the substance of the Gold: as in an humane _Embryo_, when it is +conceived in the Womb, there remains nothing of the Father's Seed, +according to _Aristotle's_ opinion, but the Seed of the Man doth only +coagulate the _menstrual_ blood of the Woman: in the same manner you +say, that after _Quick-silver_ is so coagulated, the form of Gold is +perfected in it, by virtue of the Heavenly Bodies, and especially of the +Sun."(1) BERNARD, however, decides against this view, holding that gold +contains both mercury and sulphur, for "we must not imagine, according +to their mistake who say, that the Male Agent himself approaches the +Female in the coagulation, and departs afterwards; because, as is known +in every generation, the conception is active and passive: Both the +active and the passive, that is, all the four Elements, must always +abide together, otherwise there would be no mixture, and the hope of +generating an off-spring would be extinguished."(2) + + +(1) _Op. cit_., pp. 206 and 207. + +(2) _Ibid_., pp. 212 and 213. + + +In conclusion, I wish to say something of the role of sex in spiritual +alchemy. But in doing this I am venturing outside the original field of +inquiry of this essay and making a by no means necessary addition to my +thesis; and I am anxious that what follows should be understood as such, +so that no confusion as to the issues may arise. + +In the great alchemical collection of J. J. MANGET, there is a curious +work (originally published in 1677), entitled _Mutus Liber_, which +consists entirely of plates, without letterpress. Its interest for us in +our present concern is that the alchemist, from the commencement of +the work until its achievement, is shown working in conjunction with a +woman. We are reminded of NICOLAS FLAMEL (1330-1418), who is reputed to +have achieved the _magnum opus_ together with his wife PERNELLE, as well +as of the many other women workers in the Art of whom we read. It would +be of interest in this connection to know exactly what association of +ideas was present in the mind of MICHAEL MAIER when he commanded the +alchemist: "Perform a work of women on the molten white lead, that is, +cook,"(1a) and illustrated his behest with a picture of a pregnant woman +watching a fire over which is suspended a cauldron and on which are +three jars. There is a cat in the background, and a tub containing two +fish in the foreground, the whole forming a very curious collection of +emblems. Mr WAITE, who has dealt with some of these matters, luminously, +though briefly, says: "The evidences with which we have been dealing +concern solely the physical work of alchemy and there is nothing of its +mystical aspects. The _Mutus Liber_ is undoubtedly on the literal side +of metallic transmutation; the memorials of Nicholas Flamel are also +on that side," _etc_. He adds, however, that "It is on record that an +unknown master testified to his possession of the mystery, but he added +that he had not proceeded to the work because he had failed to meet +with an elect woman who was necessary thereto"; and proceeds to say: "I +suppose that the statement will awaken in most minds only a vague sense +of wonder, and I can merely indicate in a few general words that which +I see behind it. Those Hermetic texts which bear a spiritual +interpretation and are as if a record of spiritual experience present, +like the literature of physical alchemy, the following aspects of +symbolism: (_a_) the marriage of sun and moon; (_b_) of a mystical king +and queen; (_c_) an union between natures which are one at the root but +diverse in manifestation; (_d_) a transmutation which follows this union +and an abiding glory therein. It is ever a conjunction between male and +female in a mystical sense; it is ever the bringing together by art +of things separated by an imperfect order of things; it is ever the +perfection of natures by means of this conjunction. But if the mystical +work of alchemy is an inward work in consciousness, then the union +between male and female is an union in consciousness; and if we remember +the traditions of a state when male and female had not as yet been +divided, it may dawn upon us that the higher alchemy was a practice for +the return into this ineffable mode of being. The traditional doctrine +is set forth in the _Zohar_ and it is found in writers like Jacob +Boehme; it is intimated in the early chapters of Genesis and, according +to an apocryphal saying of Christ, the kingdom of heaven will be +manifested when two shall be as one, or when that state has been once +again attained. In the light of this construction we can understand why +the mystical adept went in search of a wise woman with whom the work +could be performed; but few there be that find her, and he confessed to +his own failure. The part of woman in the physical practice of alchemy +is like a reflection at a distance of this more exalted process, and +there is evidence that those who worked in metals and sought for a +material elixir knew that there were other and greater aspects of the +Hermetic mystery."(1b) + + +(1a) MICHAEL MATER: _Atalanta Fugiens_ (1617), p. 97. + +(1b) A E. WAITE: "Woman and the Hermetic Mystery," _The Occult Review_ +(June 1912), vol. xv. pp. 325 and 326. + + +So far Mr WAITE, whose impressive words I have quoted at some length; +and he has given us a fuller account of the theory as found in the +_Zohar_ in his valuable work on _The Secret Doctrine in Israel_ (1913). +The _Zohar_ regards marriage and the performance of the sexual function +in marriage as of supreme importance, and this not merely because +marriage symbolises a divine union, unless that expression is held to +include all that logically follows from the fact, but because, as it +seems, the sexual act in marriage may, in fact, become a ritual of +transcendental magic. + +At least three varieties of opinion can be traced from the view of sex +we have under consideration, as to the nature of the perfect man, and +hence of the most adequate symbol for transmutation. According to one, +and this appears to have been JACOB BOEHME'S view, the perfect man is +conceived of as non-sexual, the male and female elements united in him +having, as it were, neutralised each other. According to another, he is +pictured as a hermaphroditic being, a concept we frequently come across +in alchemical literature. It plays a prominent part in MAIER'S book +_Atalanta Fugiens_, to which reference has already been made. MAIER'S +hermaphrodite has two heads, one male, one female, but only one body, +one pair of arms, and one pair of legs. The two sexual organs, which +are placed side by side, are delineated in the illustrations with +considerable care, showing the importance MAIER attached to the idea. +This concept seems to me not only crude, but unnatural and repellent. +But it may be said of both the opinions I have mentioned, that they +confuse between union and identity. It is the old mistake, with respect +to a lesser goal, of those who hope for absorption in the Divine Nature +and consequent loss of personality. It seems to be forgotten that +a certain degree of distinction is necessary to the joy of union. +"Distinction" and "separation," it should be remembered, have different +connotations. If the supreme joy is that of self-sacrifice, then the +self must be such that it can be continually sacrificed, else the joy +is a purely transitory one, or rather, is destroyed at the moment of +its consummation. Hence, though sacrificed, the self must still remain +itself. + +The third view of perfection, to which these remarks naturally lead, +is that which sees it typified in marriage. The mystic-philosopher +SWEDENBORG has some exceedingly suggestive things to say on the matter +in his extraordinary work on _Conjugial Love_, which, curiously enough, +seem largely to have escaped the notice of students of these high +mysteries. + +SWEDENBORG'S heaven is a sexual heaven, because for him sex is primarily +a spiritual fact, and only secondarily, and because of what it is +primarily, a physical fact; and salvation is hardly possible, according +to him, apart from a genuine marriage (whether achieved here or +hereafter). Man and woman are considered as complementary beings, and +it is only through the union of one man with one woman that the perfect +angel results. The altruistic tendency of such a theory as contrasted +with the egotism of one in which perfection is regarded as obtainable +by each personality of itself alone, is a point worth emphasising. As +to the nature of this union, it is, to use SWEDENBORG'S own terms, a +conjunction of the will of the wife with the understanding of the man, +and reciprocally of the understanding of the man with the will of the +wife. It is thus a manifestation of that fundamental marriage between +the good and the true which is at the root of all existence; and it is +because of this fundamental marriage that all men and women are born +into the desire to complete themselves by conjunction. The symbol +of sexual intercourse is a legitimate one to use in speaking of this +heavenly union; indeed, we may describe the highest bliss attainable +by the soul, or conceivable by the mind, as a spiritual orgasm. Into +conjugal love "are collected," says SWEDENBORG, "all the blessednesses, +blissfulnesses, delightsomenesses, pleasantnesses, and pleasures, which +could possibly be conferred upon man by the Lord the Creator."(1) In +another place he writes: "Married partners (in heaven) enjoy similar +intercourse with each other as in the world, but more delightful and +blessed; yet without prolification, for which, or in place of which, +they have spiritual prolification, which is that of love and wisdom." +"The reason," he adds, "why the intercourse then is more delightful and +blessed is, that when conjugial love becomes of the spirit, it becomes +more interior and pure, and consequently more perceptible; and every +delightsomeness grows according to the perception, and grows even until +its blessedness is discernible in its delightsomeness."(1b) Such love, +however, he says, is rarely to be found on earth. + + +(1) EMANUEL SWEDENBORG: _The Delights of Wisdom relating to Conjugial +Love_ (trans. by A. H. SEARLE, 1891), SE 68. + +(1b) EMANUEL SWEDENBORG: _Op. cit_., SE 51. + + +A learned Japanese speaks with approval of Idealism as a "dream where +sensuousness and spirituality find themselves to be blood brothers or +sisters."(2) It is a statement which involves either the grossest +and most dangerous error, or the profoundest truth, according to the +understanding of it. Woman is a road whereby man travels either to God +or the devil. The problem of sex is a far deeper problem than appears at +first sight, involving mysteries both the direst and most holy. It is +by no means a fantastic hypothesis that the inmost mystery of what a +certain school of mystics calls "the Secret Tradition" was a sexual +one. At any rate, the fact that some of those, at least, to whom alchemy +connoted a mystical process, were alive to the profound spiritual +significance of sex, renders of double interest what they have to +intimate of the achievement of the _Magnum Opus_ in man. + + +(2) YONE NOGUCHI: _The Spirit of Japanese Art_ (1915), p. 37. + + + + +XI. ROGER BACON: AN APPRECIATION + +IT has been said that "a prophet is not without honour, save in his own +country." Thereto might be added, "and in his own time"; for, whilst +there is continuity in time, there is also evolution, and England of +to-day, for instance, is not the same country as England of the Middle +Ages. In his own day ROGER BACON was accounted a magician, whose +heretical views called for suppression by the Church. And for many a +long day afterwards was he mainly remembered as a co-worker in the black +art with Friar BUNGAY, who together with him constructed, by the aid of +the devil and diabolical rites, a brazen head which should possess the +power of speech--the experiment only failing through the negligence of +an assistant.(1) Such was ROGER BACON in the memory of the later Middle +Ages and many succeeding years; he was the typical alchemist, where that +term carries with it the depth of disrepute, though indeed alchemy was +for him but one, and that not the greatest, of many interests. + + +(1) The story, of course, is entirely fictitious. For further +particulars see Sir J. E. SANDYS' essay on "Roger Bacon in English +Literature," in _Roger Bacon Essays_ (1914), referred to below. + + +Ilchester, in Somerset, claims the honour of being the place of ROGER +BACON'S birth, which interesting and important event occurred, probably, +in 1214. Young BACON studied theology, philosophy, and what then passed +under the name of "science," first at Oxford, then the centre of liberal +thought, and afterwards at Paris, in the rigid orthodoxy of whose +professors he found more to criticise than to admire. Whilst at Oxford +he joined the Franciscan Order, and at Paris he is said, though this +is probably an error, to have graduated as Doctor of Theology. During +1250-1256 we find him back in England, no doubt engaged in study and +teaching. About the latter year, however, he is said to have been +banished--on a charge of holding heterodox views and indulging in +magical practices--to Paris, where he was kept in close confinement and +forbidden to write. Mr LITTLE,(1) however, believes this to be an error, +based on a misreading of a passage in one of BACON'S works, and that +ROGER was not imprisoned, but stricken with sickness. At any rate it is +not improbable that some restrictions as to his writing were placed on +him by his superiors of the Franciscan Order. In 1266 BACON received a +letter from Pope CLEMENT asking him to send His Holiness his works in +writing without delay. This letter came as a most pleasant surprise to +BACON; but he had nothing of importance written, and in great haste +and excitement, therefore, he composed three works explicating his +philosophy, the _Opus Majus_, the _Opus Minus_, and the _Opus Tertium_, +which were completed and dispatched to the Pope by the end of the +following year. This, as Mr ROWBOTTOM remarks, is "surely one of the +literary feats of history, perhaps only surpassed by Swedenborg when he +wrote six theological and philosophical treatises in one year."(1b) + + +(1) See his contribution, "On Roger Bacon's Life and Works," to _Roger +Bacon Essays_. + +(1b) B. R. ROWBOTTOM: "Roger Bacon," _The Journal of the Alchemical +Society_, vol. ii. (1914), p. 77. + + + +The works appear to have been well received. We next find BACON at +Oxford writing his _Compendium Studii Philosophiae_, in which work he +indulged in some by no means unjust criticisms of the clergy, for which +he fell under the condemnation of his order, and was imprisoned in +1277 on a charge of teaching "suspected novelties". In those days any +knowledge of natural phenomena beyond that of the quasi-science of +the times was regarded as magic, and no doubt some of ROGER BACON'S +"suspected novelties" were of this nature; his recognition of the +value of the writings of non-Christian moralists was, no doubt, another +"suspected novelty". Appeals for his release directed to the Pope +proved fruitless, being frustrated by JEROME D'ASCOLI, General of the +Franciscan Order, who shortly afterwards succeeded to the Holy See under +the title of NICHOLAS IV. The latter died in 1292, whereupon RAYMOND +GAUFREDI, who had been elected General of the Franciscan Order, and +who, it is thought, was well disposed towards BACON, because of certain +alchemical secrets the latter had revealed to him, ordered his release. +BACON returned to Oxford, where he wrote his last work, the _Compendium +Studii Theologiae_. He died either in this year or in 1294.(1) + + +(1) For further details concerning BACON'S life, EMILE CHARLES: _Roger +Bacon, sa Vie, ses Ouvrages, ses Doctrines_ (1861); J. H. BRIDGES: _The +Life & Work of Roger Bacon, an Introduction to the Opus Majus_ (edited +by H. G. JONES, 1914); and Mr A. G. LITTLE'S essay in _Roger Bacon +Essays_, may be consulted. + + +It was not until the publication by Dr SAMUEL JEBB, in 1733, of the +greater part of BACON'S _Opus Majus_, nearly four and a half centuries +after his death, that anything like his rightful position in the history +of philosophy began to be assigned to him. But let his spirit be no +longer troubled, if it were ever troubled by neglect or slander, for the +world, and first and foremost his own country, has paid him due honour. +His septcentenary was duly celebrated in 1914 at his _alma mater_, +Oxford, his statue has there been raised as a memorial to his greatness, +and savants have meted out praise to him in no grudging tones.(2) +Indeed, a voice has here and there been heard depreciating his +better-known namesake FRANCIS,(3) so that the later luminary should not, +standing in the way, obscure the light of the earlier; though, for my +part, I would suggest that one need not be so one-eyed as to fail to see +both lights at once. + +(2) See _Roger Bacon, Essays contributed by various Writers on the +Occasion of the Commemoration of the Seventh Centenary of his Birth_. +Collected and edited by A. G. LITTLE (1914); also Sir J. E. SANDYS' +_Roger Bacon_ (from _The Proceedings of the British Association_, vol. +vi., 1914). + +(3) For example, that of ERNST DUHRING. See an article entitled "The Two +Bacons," translated from his _Kritische Geschichte der Philosophie_ in +_The Open Court_ for August 1914. + + +To those who like to observe coincidences, it may be of interest that +the septcentenary of the discoverer of gunpowder should have coincided +with the outbreak of the greatest war under which the world has yet +groaned, even though gunpowder is no longer employed as a military +propellant. + +BACON'S reference to gunpowder occurs in his _Epistola de Secretis +Operibus Artis et Naturae, et de Nullitate Magiae_ (Hamburg, 1618) a +little tract written against magic, in which he endeavours to show, and +succeeds very well in the first eight chapters, that Nature and art can +perform far more extraordinary feats than are claimed by the workers +in the black art. The last three chapters are written in an alchemical +jargon of which even one versed in the symbolic language of alchemy can +make no sense. They are evidently cryptogramic, and probably deal with +the preparation and purification of saltpetre, which had only recently +been discovered as a distinct body.(1) In chapter xi. there is reference +to an explosive body, which can only be gunpowder; by means of it, says +BACON, you may, "if you know the trick, produce a bright flash and a +thundering noise." He mentions two of the ingredients, saltpetre and +sulphur, but conceals the third (_i.e_. charcoal) under an anagram. +Claims have, indeed, been put forth for the Greek, Arab, Hindu, and +Chinese origins of gunpowder, but a close examination of the original +ancient accounts purporting to contain references to gunpowder, shows +that only incendiary and not explosive bodies are really dealt with. But +whilst ROGER BACON knew of the explosive property of a mixture in right +proportions of sulphur, charcoal, and pure saltpetre (which he no doubt +accidentally hit upon whilst experimenting with the last-named body), he +was unaware of its projective power. That discovery, so detrimental +to the happiness of man ever since, was, in all probability, due to +BERTHOLD SCHWARZ about 1330. + + +(1) For an attempted explanation of this cryptogram, and evidence that +BACON was the discoverer of gunpowder, see Lieut.-Col. H. W. L. HIME'S +_Gunpowder and Ammunition: their Origin and Progress_ (1904). + + +ROGER BACON has been credited(1) with many other discoveries. In the +work already referred to he allows his imagination freely to speculate +as to the wonders that might be accomplished by a scientific utilisation +of Nature's forces--marvellous things with lenses, in bringing distant +objects near and so forth, carriages propelled by mechanical means, +flying machines...--but in no case is the word "discovery" in any +sense applicable, for not even in the case of the telescope does BACON +describe means by which his speculations might be realised. + +(1) For instance by Mr M. M. P. MUIR. See his contribution, on "Roger +Bacon: His Relations to Alchemy and Chemistry," to _Roger Bacon Essays_. + + +On the other hand, ROGER BACON has often been maligned for his beliefs +in astrology and alchemy, but, as the late Dr BRIDGES (who was quite +sceptical of the claims of both) pointed out, not to have believed +in them in BACON'S day would have been rather an evidence of mental +weakness than otherwise. What relevant facts were known supported +alchemical and astrological hypotheses. Astrology, Dr BRIDGES writes, +"conformed to the first law of Comte's _philosophia prima_, as being the +best hypothesis of which ascertained phenomena admitted."(1) And in his +alchemical speculations BACON was much in advance of his contemporaries, +and stated problems which are amongst those of modern chemistry. + + +(1) _Op. cit_., p.84. + + +ROGER BACON'S greatness does not lie in the fact that he discovered +gunpowder, nor in the further fact that his speculations have been +validated by other men. His greatness lies in his secure grip of +scientific method as a combination of mathematical reasoning and +experiment. Men before him had experimented, but none seemed to have +realised the importance of the experimental method. Nor was he, of +course, by any means the first mathematician--there was a long line of +Greek and Arabian mathematicians behind him, men whose knowledge of the +science was in many cases much greater than his--or the most learned +mathematician of his day; but none realised the importance of +mathematics as an organon of scientific research as he did; and he was +assuredly the priest who joined mathematics to experiment in the bonds +of sacred matrimony. We must not, indeed, look for precise rules of +inductive reasoning in the works of this pioneer writer on scientific +method. Nor do we find really satisfactory rules of induction even in +the works of FRANCIS BACON. Moreover, the latter despised mathematics, +and it was not until in quite recent years that the scientific world +came to realise that ROGER'S method is the more fruitful--witness the +modern revolution in chemistry produced by the adoption of mathematical +methods. + +ROGER BACON, it may be said, was many centuries in advance of his time; +but it is equally true that he was the child of his time; this may +account for his defects judged by modern standards. He owed not a little +to his contemporaries: for his knowledge and high estimate of philosophy +he was largely indebted to his Oxford master GROSSETESTE (_c_. +1175-1253), whilst PETER PEREGRINUS, his friend at Paris, fostered his +love of experiment, and the Arab mathematicians, whose works he knew, +inclined his mind to mathematical studies. He was violently opposed to +the scholastic views current in Paris at his time, and attacked great +thinkers like THOMAS AQUINAS (_c_. 1225-1274) and ALBERTUS MAGNUS +(1193-1280), as well as obscurantists, such as ALEXANDER of HALES (_ob_. +1245). But he himself was a scholastic philosopher, though of no servile +type, taking part in scholastic arguments. If he declared that he would +have all the works of ARISTOTLE burned, it was not because he hated +the Peripatetic's philosophy--though he could criticise as well as +appreciate at times,--but because of the rottenness of the translations +that were then used. It seems commonplace now, but it was a truly +wonderful thing then: ROGER BACON believed in accuracy, and was by no +means destitute of literary ethics. He believed in correct translation, +correct quotation, and the acknowledgment of the sources of one's +quotations--unheard-of things, almost, in those days. But even he was +not free from all the vices of his age: in spite of his insistence upon +experimental verification of the conclusions of deductive reasoning, +in one place, at least, he adopts a view concerning lenses from another +writer, of which the simplest attempt at such verification would have +revealed the falsity. For such lapses, however, we can make allowances. + +Another and undeniable claim to greatness rests on ROGER BACON'S +broad-mindedness. He could actually value at their true worth the moral +philosophies of non-Christian writers--SENECA (_c_. 5 B.C.-A.D. 65) and +AL GHAZZALI (1058-1111), for instance. But if he was catholic in the +original meaning of that term, he was also catholic in its restricted +sense. He was no heretic: the Pope for him was the Vicar of CHRIST, whom +he wished to see reign over the whole world, not by force of arms, +but by the assimilation of all that was worthy in that world. To his +mind--and here he was certainly a child of his age, in its best sense, +perhaps--all other sciences were handmaidens to theology, queen of +them all. All were to be subservient to her aims: the Church he called +"Catholic" was to embrace in her arms all that was worthy in the works +of "profane" writers--true prophets of God, he held, in so far as +writing worthily they unconsciously bore testimony to the truth of +Christianity,--and all that Nature might yield by patient experiment and +speculation guided by mathematics. Some minds see in this a defect in +his system, which limited his aims and outlook; others see it as the +unifying principle giving coherence to the whole. At any rate, the +Church, as we have seen, regarded his views as dangerous, and restrained +his pen for at least a considerable portion of his life. + +ROGER BACON may seem egotistic in argument, but his mind was humble to +learn. He was not superstitious, but he would listen to common folk who +worked with their hands, to astrologers, and even magicians, denying +nothing which seemed to him to have some evidence in experience: if he +denied much of magical belief, it was because he found it lacking in +such evidence. He often went astray in his views; he sometimes failed +to apply his own method, and that method was, in any case, primitive and +crude. But it was the RIGHT method, in embryo at least, and ROGER BACON, +in spite of tremendous opposition, greater than that under which any man +of science may now suffer, persisted in that method to the end, calling +upon his contemporaries to adopt it as the only one which results in +right knowledge. Across the centuries--or, rather, across the gulf that +divides this world from the next--let us salute this great and noble +spirit. + + + + +XII. THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS + +THERE is an opinion, unfortunately very common, that religious mysticism +is a product of the emotional temperament, and is diametrically opposed +to the spirit of rationalism. No doubt this opinion is not without some +element of justification, and one could quote the works of not a few +religious mystics to the effect that self-surrender to God implies, not +merely a giving up of will, but also of reason. But that this teaching +is not an essential element in mysticism, that it is, indeed, rather its +perversion, there is adequate evidence to demonstrate. SWEDENBORG is, +I suppose, the outstanding instance of an intellectual mystic; but the +essential unity of mysticism and rationalism is almost as forcibly made +evident in the case of the Cambridge Platonists. That little band of +"Latitude men," as their contemporaries called them, constitutes one of +the finest schools of philosophy that England has produced; yet their +works are rarely read, I am afraid, save by specialists. Possibly, +however, if it were more commonly known what a wealth of sound +philosophy and true spiritual teaching they contain, the case would be +otherwise. + +The Cambridge Platonists--BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE, JOHN SMITH, NATHANAEL +CULVERWEL, RALPH CUDWORTH, and HENRY MORE are the more outstanding +names--were educated as Puritans; but they clearly realised the +fundamental error of Puritanism, which tended to make a man's eternal +salvation depend upon the accuracy and extent of his beliefs; nor could +they approve of the exaggerated import given by the High Church party to +matters of Church polity. The term "Cambridge Platonists" is, perhaps, +less appropriate than that of "Latitudinarians," which latter name +emphasises their broad-mindedness (even if it carries with it something +of disapproval). For although they owed much to PTATO, and, perhaps, +more to PLOTINUS (_c_. A.D. 203-262), they were Christians first and +Platonists afterwards, and, with the exception, perhaps, of MORE, they +took nothing from these philosophers which was not conformable to the +Scriptures. + +BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE was born in 1609, at Whichcote Hall, in the parish of +Stoke, Shropshire. In 1626 he entered Emmanuel College, Cambridge, +then regarded as the chief Puritan college of the University. Here his +college tutor was ANTHONY TUCKNEY (1599-1670), a man of rare character, +combining learning, wit, and piety. Between WHICHCOTE and TUCKNEY there +grew up a firm friendship, founded on mutual affection and esteem. But +TUCKNEY was unable to agree with all WHICHCOTE'S broad-minded views +concerning reason and authority; and in later years this gave rise to +a controversy between them, in which TUCKNEY sought to controvert +WHICHCOTE'S opinions: it was, however, carried on without acrimony, and +did not destroy their friendship. + +WHICHCOTE became M.A., and was elected a fellow of his college, in 1633, +having obtained his B.A. four years previously. He was ordained by +JOHN WILLIAMS in 1636, and received the important appointment of Sunday +afternoon lecturer at Trinity Church. His lectures, which he gave with +the object of turning men's minds from polemics to the great moral and +spiritual realities at the basis of the Christian religion, from mere +formal discussions to a true searching into the reason of things, were +well attended and highly appreciated; and he held the appointment for +twenty years. In 1634 he became college tutor at Emmanuel. He possessed +all the characteristics that go to make up an efficient and well-beloved +tutor, and his personal influence was such as to inspire all his +pupils, amongst whom were both JOHN SMITH and NATHANAEL CULVERWEL, who +considerably amplified his philosophical and religious doctrines. In +1640 he became B.D., and nine years after was created D.D. The college +living of North Cadbury, in Somerset, was presented to him in 1643, +and shortly afterwards he married. In the next year, however, he was +recalled to Cambridge, and installed as Provost of King's College in +place of the ejected Dr SAMUEL COLLINS. But it was greatly against his +wish that he received the appointment, and he only consented to do so on +the condition that part of his stipend should be paid to COLLINS--an act +which gives us a good insight into the character of the man. In 1650 he +resigned North Cadbury, and the living was presented to CUDWORTH (see +below), and towards the end of this year he was elected Vice-Chancellor +of the University in succession to TUCKNEY. It was during his +Vice-Chancellorship that he preached the sermon that gave rise to the +controversy with the latter. About this time also he was presented +with the living of Milton, in Cambridgeshire. At the Restoration he +was ejected from the Provostship, but, having complied with the Act +of Uniformity, he was, in 1662, appointed to the cure of St Anne's, +Blackfriars. This church being destroyed in the Great Fire, WHICHCOTE +retired to Milton, where he showed great kindness to the poor. But some +years later he returned to London, having received the vicarage of St +Lawrence, Jewry. His friends at Cambridge, however, still saw him on +occasional visits, and it was on one such visit to CUDWORTH, in 1683, +that he caught the cold which caused his death. + +JOHN SMITH was born at Achurch, near Oundle, in 1618. He entered +Emmanuel College in 1636, became B.A. in 1640, and proceeded to M.A. in +1644, in which year he was appointed a fellow of Queen's College. Here +he lectured on arithmetic with considerable success. He was noted for +his great learning, especially in theology and Oriental languages, +as well as for his justness, uprightness, and humility. He died of +consumption in 1652. + +NATHANAEL CULVERWEL was probably born about the same year as SMITH. He +entered Emmanuel College in 1633, gained his B.A. in 1636, and became +M.A. in 1640. Soon afterwards he was elected a fellow of his college. +He died about 1651. Beyond these scant details, nothing is known of his +life. He was a man of very great erudition, as his posthumous treatise +on _The Light of Nature_ makes evident. + +HENRY MORE was born at Grantham in 1614. From his earliest days he +was interested in theological problems, and his precociousness in this +respect appears to have brought down on him the wrath of an uncle. +His early education was conducted at Eton. In 1631 he entered Christ's +College, Cambridge, graduated B.A. in 1635, and received his M.A. +in 1639. In the latter year he was elected a fellow of Christ's and +received Holy Orders. He lived a very retired life, refusing all +preferment, though many valuable and honourable appointments were +offered to him. Indeed, he rarely left Christ's, except to visit +his "heroine pupil," Lady CONWAY, whose country seat, Ragley, was in +Warwickshire. Lady CONWAY (_ob_. 1679) appears to be remembered only for +the fact that, dying whilst her husband was away, her physician, F. M. +VAN HELMONT (1618-1699) (son of the famous alchemist, J. B. VAN HELMONT, +whom we have met already on these excursions), preserved her body in +spirits of wine, so that he could have the pleasure of beholding it on +his return. She seems to have been a woman of considerable learning, +though not free from fantastic ideas. Her ultimate conversion to +Quakerism was a severe blow to MORE, who, whilst admiring the holy lives +of the Friends, regarded them as enthusiasts. MORE died in 1687. + +MORE'S earliest works were in verse, and exhibit fine feeling. The +following lines, quoted from a poem on "Charitie and Humilitie," are +full of charm, and well exhibit MORE'S character:-- + + "Farre have I clambred in my mind + But nought so great as love I find: + Deep-searching wit, mount-moving might, + Are nought compar'd to that great spright. + Life of Delight and soul of blisse! + Sure source of lasting happinesse! + Higher than Heaven! lower than hell! + What is thy tent? Where maist thou dwell? + My mansion highs humilitie, + Heaven's vastest capabilitie + The further it doth downward tend + The higher up it doth ascend; + If it go down to utmost nought + It shall return with that it sought."(1) + + +(1) See _The Life of the Learned and Pious Dr Henry More... by_ RICHARD +WARD, A.M., _to which are annexed Divers Philosophical Poems and Hymns_. +Edited by M. F. HOWARD (1911), pp. 250 and 251. + + + +Later he took to prose, and it must be confessed that he wrote too much +and frequently descended to polemics (for example, his controversy +with the alchemist THOMAS VAUGHAN, in which both combatants freely used +abuse). + +Although in his main views MORE is thoroughly characteristic of the +school to which he belonged, many of his less important opinions are +more or less peculiar to himself. + +The relation between MORE's and DESCARTES' (1596-1650) theories as to +the nature of spirit is interesting. When MORE first read DESCARTES' +works he was favourably impressed with his views, though without +entirely agreeing with him on all points; but later the difference +became accentuated. DESCARTES regarded extension as the chief +characteristic of matter, and asserted that spirit was extra-spatial. To +MORE this seemed like denying the existence of spirit, which he regarded +as extended, and he postulated divisibility and impenetrability as the +chief characteristics of matter. In order, however, to get over some of +the inherent difficulties of this view, he put forward the suggestion +that spirit is extended in four dimensions: thus, its apparent (_i.e_. +three-dimensional) extension can change, whilst its true (_i.e_. +four-dimensional) extension remains constant; just as the surface of a +piece of metal can be increased by hammering it out, without increasing +the volume of the metal. Here, I think, we have a not wholly inadequate +symbol of the truth; but it remained for BERKELEY (1685-1753) to show + position, by demonstrating that, since space and extension are +perceptions of the mind, and thus exist only in the mind as ideas, space +exists in spirit: not spirit in space. + +MORE was a keen believer in witchcraft, and eagerly investigated all +cases of these and like marvels that came under his notice. In this +he was largely influenced by JOSEPH GLANVIL (1636-1680), whose book +on witchcraft, the well-known _Saducismus Triumphatus_, MORE largely +contributed to, and probably edited. MORE was wholly unsuited for +psychical research; free from guile himself, he was too inclined +to judge others to be of this nature also. But his common sense and +critical attitude towards enthusiasm saved him, no doubt, from many +falls into the mire of fantasy. + +As Principal TULLOCH has pointed out, whilst MORE is the most +interesting personality amongst the Cambridge Platonists, his works +are the least interesting of those of his school. They are dull and +scholastic, and MORE'S retired existence prevented him from grasping in +their fulness some of the more acute problems of life. His attempt to +harmonise catastrophes with Providence, on the ground that the evil of +certain parts may be necessary for the good of the whole, just as dark +colours, as well as bright, are essential to the beauty of a +picture--a theory which is practically the same as that of modern +Absolutism,(1)--is a case in point. No doubt this harmony may be +accomplished, but in another key. + + +(1) Cf. BERNARD BOSANQUET, LL.D., D.C.L.: _The Principle of +Individuality and Value_ (1912). + + +RALPH CUDWORTH was born at Aller, in Somersetshire, in 1617. He entered +Emmanuel College in 1632, three years afterwards gained his B.A., and +became M.A. in 1639. In the latter year he was elected a fellow of his +college. Later he obtained the B.D. degree. In 1645 he was appointed +Master of Clare Hall, in place of the ejected Dr PASHE, and was elected +Regius Professor of Hebrew. On 31st March 1647 he preached a sermon +of remarkable eloquence and power before the House of Commons, which +admirably expresses the attitude of his school as concerns the nature +of true religion. I shall refer to it again later. In 1650 CUDWORTH was +presented with the college living of North Cadbury, which WHICHCOTE +had resigned, and was made D.D. in the following year. In 1654 he was +elected Master of Christ's College, with an improvement in his financial +position, there having been some difficulty in obtaining his stipend at +Clare Hall. In this year he married. In 1662 Bishop SHELDON presented +him with the rectory of Ashwell, in Hertfordshire. He died in 1688. He +was a pious man of fine intellect; but his character was marred by a +certain suspiciousness which caused him wrongfully to accuse MORE, in +1665, of attempting to forestall him in writing a work on ethics, which +should demonstrate that the principles of Christian morality are not +based on any arbitrary decrees of God, but are inherent in the nature +and reason of things. CUDWORTH'S great work--or, at least, the first +part, which alone was completed,--_The Intellectual System of the +World_, appeared in 1678. In it CUDWORTH deals with atheism on +the ground of reason, demonstrating its irrationality. The book is +remarkable for the fairness and fulness with which CUDWORTH states the +arguments in favour of atheism. + +So much for the lives and individual characteristics of the Cambridge +Platonists: what were the great principles that animated both their +lives and their philosophy? These, I think, were two: first, the +essential unity of religion and morality; second, the essential unity of +revelation and reason. + +With clearer perception of ethical truth than either Puritan or High +Churchman, the Cambridge Platonists saw that true Christianity is +neither a matter of mere belief, nor consists in the mere performance +of good works; but is rather a matter of character. To them Christianity +connoted regeneration. "Religion," says WHICHCOTE, "is the Frame and +TEMPER of our Minds, and the RULE of our Lives"; and again, "Heaven is +FIRST a Temper, and THEN a Place."(1) To the man of heavenly temper, +they taught, the performance of good works would be no irksome matter +imposed merely by a sense of duty, but would be done spontaneously as a +delight. To drudge in religion may very well be necessary as an initial +stage, but it is not its perfection. + + +(1) My quotations from WHICHCOTE and SMITH are taken from the selection +of their discourses edited by E. T. CAMPAGNAC, M.A. (1901). + + +In his sermon before the House of Commons, CUDWORTH well exposes +the error of those who made the mere holding of certain beliefs the +essential element in Christianity. There are many passages I should like +to quote from this eloquent discourse, but the following must suffice: +"We must not judge of our knowing of Christ, by our skill in Books +and Papers, but by our keeping of his Commandments... He is the best +Christian, whose heart beats with the truest pulse towards heaven; not +he whose head spinneth out the finest cobwebs. He that endeavours really +to mortifie his lusts, and to comply with that truth in his life, which +his Conscience is convinced of; is neerer a Christian, though he never +heard of Christ; then he that believes all the vulgar Articles of the +Christian faith, and plainly denyeth Christ in his life.... The great +Mysterie of the Gospel, it doth not lie only in CHRIST WITHOUT US, +(though we must know also what he hath done for us) but the very Pith +and Kernel of it, consists in _*Christ inwardly formed_ in our hearts. +Nothing is truly Ours, but what lives in our Spirits. SALVATION it self +cannot SAVE us, as long as it is onely without us; no more then HEALTH +can cure us, and make us sound, when it is not within us, but somewhere +at distance from us; no more than _Arts and Sciences_, whilst they lie +onely in Books and Papers without us; can make us learned."(1) + + +(1) RALPH CUDWORTH, B.D.: _A Sermon Preached before the Honourable House +of Commons at Westminster, Mar_. 31, 1647 (1st edn.), pp. 3, 14, 42, and +43. + + +The Cambridge Platonists were not ascetics; their moral doctrine was one +of temperance. Their sound wisdom on this point is well evident in +the following passage from WHICHCOTE: "What can be alledged for +Intemperance; since Nature is content with very few things? Why should +any one over-do in this kind? A Man is better in Health and Strength, if +he be temperate. We enjoy ourselves more in a sober and temperate Use of +ourselves."(2) + + +(2) BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE: _The Venerable Nature and Transcendant Benefit +of Christian Religion. Op. cit_., p. 40. + + +The other great principle animating their philosophy was, as I have +said, the essential unity of reason and revelation. To those who argued +that self-surrender implied a giving up of reason, they replied that "To +go against REASON, is to go against GOD: it is the self same thing, to +do that which the Reason of the Case doth require; and that which God +Himself doth appoint: Reason is the DIVINE Governor of Man's Life; it +is the very Voice of God."(3) Reason, Conscience, and the Scriptures, +these, taught the Cambridge Platonists, testify of one another and are +the true guides which alone a man should follow. All other authority +they repudiated. But true reason is not merely sensuous, and the only +way whereby it may be gained is by the purification of the self from the +desires that draw it away from the Source of all Reason. "God," writes +MORE, "reserves His choicest secrets for the purest Minds," adding his +conviction that "true Holiness (is) the only safe Entrance into Divine +Knowledge." Or as SMITH, who speaks of "a GOOD LIFE as the PROLEPSIS and +Fundamental principle of DIVINE SCIENCE," puts it, "... if... KNOWLEDGE +be not attended with HUMILITY and a deep sense of SELF-PENURY and +_*Self-emptiness_, we may easily fall short of that True Knowledge of +God which we seem to aspire after."(1b) Right Reason, however, they +taught, is the product of the sight of the soul, the true mystic vision. + + +(3) BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE: _Moral and Religious Aphorisms OP. cit_., p. 67. + +(1b) JOHN SMITH: _A Discourse concerning the true Way or Method of +attaining to Divine Knowledge. Op. cit_., pp. 80 and 96. + + +In what respects, it may be asked in conclusion, is the philosophy of +the Cambridge Platonists open to criticism? They lacked, perhaps, a +sufficiently clear concept of the Church as a unity, and although they +clearly realised that Nature is a symbol which it is the function of +reason to interpret spiritually, they failed, I think, to appreciate +the value of symbols. Thus they have little to teach with respect to the +Sacraments of the Church, though, indeed, the highest view, perhaps, +is that which regards every act as potentially a sacrament; and, whilst +admiring his morality, they criticised BOEHME as an enthusiast. But, +although he spoke in a very different language, spiritually he had much +in common with them. Compared with what is of positive value in their +philosophy, however, the defects of the Cambridge Platonists are but +comparatively slight. I commend their works to lovers of spiritual +wisdom. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Bygone Beliefs, by H. Stanley Redgrove + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BYGONE BELIEFS *** + +***** This file should be named 1271-8.txt or 1271-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/7/1271/ + +Produced by Charles Keller + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/old/1271-8.zip b/old/1271-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..769fc39 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/1271-8.zip diff --git a/old/1271-h.zip b/old/1271-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d3b9153 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/1271-h.zip diff --git a/old/1271-h/1271-h.htm b/old/1271-h/1271-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..03fa960 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/1271-h/1271-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,6471 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> + <head> + <title> + Bygone Beliefs Being a Series of Excursions in the Byways Of Thought, by + Stanley Redgrove + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; + margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; + text-align: right;} + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Bygone Beliefs, by H. Stanley Redgrove + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Bygone Beliefs + +Author: H. Stanley Redgrove + +Release Date: August 15, 2008 [EBook #1271] +Last Updated: January 25, 2013 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BYGONE BELIEFS *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Keller, and David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h1> + BYGONE BELIEFS BEING<br /> A SERIES OF EXCURSIONS<br />IN THE BYWAYS OF + THOUGHT + </h1> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h2> + By H. Stanley Redgrove + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h5> + <i>Alle Erfahrung ist Magic, und nur magisch erklarbar</i>.<br /> NOVALIS + (Friedrich von Hardenberg).<br /> <br /> Everything possible to be believ'd + is an image of truth.<br /> WILLIAM BLAKE. + </h5> + <h4> + TO MY WIFE + </h4> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + Transcriber's Note: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + [.] = coordinate covalent bond. + [#s] = subscripted #. + [#S] = superscripted #. + {} mark non-ascii characters. + "Emphasis" <i>italics</i> have a * mark. + @@@ marks a reference to internal page numbers. + Comments and guessed at characters in {braces} need stripped/fixed. + Footnotes have not been re-numbered, however, (#) are moved to EOParagraph. + The footnotes that have duplicate numbers across 2 pages are "a" and "b". + "Protected" indentations have a space before the [Tab]. + EOL - have been converted to ([Soft Hyphen]). + Greek letters are encoded in [gr ] brackets, and the letters are + based on Adobe's Symbol font. + Hebrew letters are encoded in [hb ] brackets. +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_PREF" id="link2H_PREF"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + PREFACE + </h2> + <p> + THESE Excursions in the Byways of Thought were undertaken at different + times and on different occasions; consequently, the reader may be able to + detect in them inequalities of treatment. He may feel that I have lingered + too long in some byways and hurried too rapidly through others, taking, as + it were, but a general view of the road in the latter case, whilst + examining everything that could be seen in the former with, perhaps, undue + care. As a matter of fact, how ever, all these excursions have been + undertaken with one and the same object in view, that, namely, of + understanding aright and appreciating at their true worth some of the more + curious byways along which human thought has travelled. It is easy for the + superficial thinker to dismiss much of the thought of the past (and, + indeed, of the present) as <i>mere</i> superstition, not worth the trouble + of investigation: but it is not scientific. There is a reason for every + belief, even the most fantastic, and it should be our object to discover + this reason. How far, if at all, the reason in any case justifies us in + holding a similar belief is, of course, another question. Some of the + beliefs I have dealt with I have treated at greater length than others, + because it seems to me that the truths of which they are the images—vague + and distorted in many cases though they be—are truths which we have + either forgotten nowadays, or are in danger of forgetting. We moderns may, + indeed, learn something from the thought of the past, even in its most + fantastic aspects. In one excursion at least, namely, the essay on "The + Cambridge Platonists," I have ventured to deal with a higher phase—perhaps + I should say the highest phase—of the thought of a bygone age, to + which the modern world may be completely debtor. + </p> + <p> + "Some Characteristics of Mediaeval Thought," and the two essays on + Alchemy, have appeared in <i>The Journal of the Alchemical Society</i>. In + others I have utilised material I have contributed to <i>The Occult Review</i>, + to the editor of which journal my thanks are due for permission so to do. + I have also to express my gratitude to the Rev. A. H. COLLINS, and others + to be referred to in due course, for permission here to reproduce + illustrations of which they are the copyright holders. I have further to + offer my hearty thanks to Mr B. R. ROWBOTTOM and my wife for valuable + assistance in reading the proofs. H. S. R. + </p> + <p> + BLETCHLEY, BUCKS, <i>December</i> 1919. + </p> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="toc"> + <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_PREF"> PREFACE </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> <b>BYGONE BELIEFS</b> </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> I. SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF MEDAEVAL THOUGHT + </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> II. PYTHAGORAS AND HIS PHILOSOPHY </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> III. MEDICINE AND MAGIC </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> IV. SUPERSTITIONS CONCERNING BIRDS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> V. THE POWDER OF SYMPATHY: A CURIOUS MEDICAL + SUPERSTITION </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> VI. THE BELIEF IN TALISMANS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> VII. CEREMONIAL MAGIC IN THEORY AND PRACTICE + </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> VIII. ARCHITECTURAL SYMBOLISM </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> IX. THE QUEST OF THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0012"> X. THE PHALLIC ELEMENT IN ALCHEMICAL DOCTRINE + </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0013"> XI. ROGER BACON: AN APPRECIATION </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0014"> XII. THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS </a> + </p> + </blockquote> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <h1> + BYGONE BELIEFS + </h1> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I. SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF MEDAEVAL THOUGHT + </h2> + <p> + IN the earliest days of his upward evolution man was satisfied with a very + crude explanation of natural phenomena—that to which the name + "animism" has been given. In this stage of mental development all the + various forces of Nature are personified: the rushing torrent, the + devastating fire, the wind rustling the forest leaves—in the mind of + the animistic savage all these are personalities, spirits, like himself, + but animated by motives more or less antagonistic to him. + </p> + <p> + I suppose that no possible exception could be taken to the statement that + modern science renders animism impossible. But let us inquire in exactly + what sense this is true. It is not true that science robs natural + phenomena of their spiritual significance. The mistake is often made of + supposing that science explains, or endeavours to explain, phenomena. But + that is the business of philosophy. The task science attempts is the + simpler one of the correlation of natural phenomena, and in this effort + leaves the ultimate problems of metaphysics untouched. A universe, + however, whose phenomena are not only capable of some degree of + correlation, but present the extraordinary degree of harmony and unity + which science makes manifest in Nature, cannot be, as in animism, the + product of a vast number of inco-ordinated and antagonistic wills, but + must either be the product of one Will, or not the product of will at all. + </p> + <p> + The latter alternative means that the Cosmos is inexplicable, which not + only man's growing experience, but the fact that man and the universe form + essentially a unity, forbid us to believe. The term "anthropomorphic" is + too easily applied to philosophical systems, as if it constituted a + criticism of their validity. For if it be true, as all must admit, that + the unknown can only be explained in terms of the known, then the universe + must either be explained in terms of man—<i>i.e</i>. in terms of + will or desire—or remain incomprehensible. That is to say, a + philosophy must either be anthropomorphic, or no philosophy at all. + </p> + <p> + Thus a metaphysical scrutiny of the results of modern science leads us to + a belief in God. But man felt the need of unity, and crude animism, though + a step in the right direction, failed to satisfy his thought, long before + the days of modern science. The spirits of animism, however, were not + discarded, but were modified, co-ordinated, and worked into a system as + servants of the Most High. Polytheism may mark a stage in this process; + or, perhaps, it was a result of mental degeneracy. + </p> + <p> + What I may term systematised as distinguished from crude animism persisted + throughout the Middle Ages. The work of systematisation had already been + accomplished, to a large extent, by the Neo-Platonists and whoever were + responsible for the Kabala. It is true that these main sources of magical + or animistic philosophy remained hidden during the greater part of the + Middle Ages; but at about their close the youthful and enthusiastic + CORNELIUS AGRIPPA (1486-1535)(1) slaked his thirst thereat and produced + his own attempt at the systematisation of magical belief in the famous <i>Three + Books of Occult Philosophy</i>. But the waters of magical philosophy + reached the mediaeval mind through various devious channels, traditional + on the one hand and literary on the other. And of the latter, the works of + pseudo-DIONYSIUS,(2) whose immense influence upon mediaeval thought has + sometimes been neglected, must certainly be noted. + </p> + <p> + (1) The story of his life has been admirably told by HENRY MORLEY (2 + vols., 1856). + </p> + <p> + (2) These writings were first heard of in the early part of the sixth + century, and were probably the work of a Syrian monk of that date, who + fathered them on to DIONYSIUS the Areopagite as a pious fraud. See Dean + INGE'S <i>Christian Mysticism</i> (1899), pp. 104—122, and VAUGHAN'S + <i>Hours with the Mystics</i> (7th ed., 1895), vol. i. pp. 111-124. The + books have been translated into English by the Rev. JOHN PARKER (2 + vols.1897-1899), who believes in the genuineness of their alleged + authorship. + </p> + <p> + The most obvious example of a mediaeval animistic belief is that in + "elementals"—the spirits which personify the primordial forces of + Nature, and are symbolised by the four elements, immanent in which they + were supposed to exist, and through which they were held to manifest their + powers. And astrology, it must be remembered, is essentially a + systematised animism. The stars, to the ancients, were not material bodies + like the earth, but spiritual beings. PLATO (427-347 B.C.) speaks of them + as "gods". Mediaeval thought did not regard them in quite this way. But + for those who believed in astrology, and few, I think, did not, the stars + were still symbols of spiritual forces operative on man. Evidences of the + wide extent of astrological belief in those days are abundant, many + instances of which we shall doubtless encounter in our excursions. + </p> + <p> + It has been said that the theological and philosophical atmosphere of the + Middle Ages was "scholastic," not mystical. No doubt "mysticism," as a + mode of life aiming at the realisation of the presence of God, is as + distinct from scholasticism as empiricism is from rationalism, or + "tough-minded" philosophy (to use JAMES' happy phrase) is from + "tender-minded". But no philosophy can be absolutely and purely deductive. + It must start from certain empirically determined facts. A man might be an + extreme empiricist in religion (<i>i.e</i>. a mystic), and yet might + attempt to deduce all other forms of knowledge from the results of his + religious experiences, never caring to gather experience in any other + realm. Hence the breach between mysticism and scholasticism is not really + so wide as may appear at first sight. Indeed, scholasticism officially + recognised three branches of theology, of which the MYSTICAL was one. I + think that mysticism and scholasticism both had a profound influence on + the mediaeval mind, sometimes acting as opposing forces, sometimes + operating harmoniously with one another. As Professor WINDELBAND puts it: + "We no longer onesidedly characterise the philosophy of the middle ages as + scholasticism, but rather place mysticism beside it as of equal rank, and + even as being the more fruitful and promising movement."(1) + </p> + <p> + (1) Professor WILHELM WINDELBAND, Ph.D.: "Present-Day Mysticism," <i>The + Quest</i>, vol. iv. (1913), P. 205. + </p> + <p> + Alchemy, with its four Aristotelian or scholastic elements and its three + mystical principles—sulphur, mercury, salt,—must be cited as + the outstanding product of the combined influence of mysticism and + scholasticism: of mysticism, which postulated the unity of the Cosmos, and + hence taught that everything natural is the expressive image and type of + some supernatural reality; of scholasticism, which taught men to rely upon + deduction and to restrict experimentation to the smallest possible limits. + </p> + <p> + The mind naturally proceeds from the known, or from what is supposed to be + known, to the unknown. Indeed, as I have already indicated, it must so + proceed if truth is to be gained. Now what did the men of the Middle Ages + regard as falling into the category of the known? Why, surely, the truths + of revealed religion, whether accepted upon authority or upon the evidence + of their own experience. The realm of spiritual and moral reality: there, + they felt, they were on firm ground. Nature was a realm unknown; but they + had analogy to guide, or, rather, misguide them. Nevertheless if, as we + know, it misguided, this was not, I think, because the mystical doctrine + of the correspondence between the spiritual and the natural is unsound, + but because these ancient seekers into Nature's secrets knew so little, + and so frequently misapplied what they did know. So alchemical philosophy + arose and became systematised, with its wonderful endeavour to perfect the + base metals by the Philosopher's Stone—the concentrated Essence of + Nature,—as man's soul is perfected through the life-giving power of + JESUS CHRIST. + </p> + <p> + I want, in conclusion to these brief introductory remarks, to say a few + words concerning phallicism in connection with my topic. For some + "tender-minded"(1) and, to my thought, obscure, reason the subject is + tabooed. Even the British Museum does not include works on phallicism in + its catalogue, and special permission has to be obtained to consult them. + Yet the subject is of vast importance as concerns the origin and + development of religion and philosophy, and the extent of phallic worship + may be gathered from the widespread occurrence of obelisks and similar + objects amongst ancient relics. Our own maypole dances may be instanced as + one survival of the ancient worship of the male generative principle. + </p> + <p> + (1) I here use the term with the extended meaning Mr H. G. WELLS has given + to it. See <i>The New Machiavelli</i>. + </p> + <p> + What could be more easy to understand than that, when man first questioned + as to the creation of the earth, he should suppose it to have been + generated by some process analogous to that which he saw held in the case + of man? How else could he account for its origin, if knowledge must + proceed from the known to the unknown? No one questions at all that the + worship of the human generative organs as symbols of the dual generative + principle of Nature degenerated into orgies of the most frightful + character, but the view of Nature which thus degenerated is not, I think, + an altogether unsound one, and very interesting remnants of it are to be + found in mediaeval philosophy. + </p> + <p> + These remnants are very marked in alchemy. The metals, as I have + suggested, are there regarded as types of man; hence they are produced + from seed, through the combination of male and female principles—mercury + and sulphur, which on the spiritual plane are intelligence and love. The + same is true of that Stone which is perfect Man. As BERNARD of TREVISAN + (1406-1490) wrote in the fifteenth century: "This Stone then is compounded + of a Body and Spirit, or of a volatile and fixed Substance, and that is + therefore done, because nothing in the World can be generated and brought + to light without these two Substances, to wit, a Male and Female: From + whence it appeareth, that although these two Substances are not of one and + the same species, yet one Stone doth thence arise, and although they + appear and are said to be two Substances, yet in truth it is but one, to + wit, <i>Argent-vive</i>."(1) No doubt this sounds fantastic; but with all + their seeming intellectual follies these old thinkers were no fools. The + fact of sex is the most fundamental fact of the universe, and is a + spiritual and physical as well as a physiological fact. I shall deal with + the subject as concerns the speculations of the alchemists in some detail + in a later excursion. + </p> + <p> + (1) BERNARD, Earl of TREVISAN: <i>A Treatise of the Philosopher's Stone</i>, + 1683. (See <i>Collectanea Chymica: A Collection of Ten Several Treatises + in Chemistry</i>, 1684, p. 91.) + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II. PYTHAGORAS AND HIS PHILOSOPHY + </h2> + <p> + IT is a matter for enduring regret that so little is known to us + concerning PYTHAGORAS. What little we do know serves but to enhance for us + the interest of the man and his philosophy, to make him, in many ways, the + most attractive of Greek thinkers; and, basing our estimate on the extent + of his influence on the thought of succeeding ages, we recognise in him + one of the world's master-minds. + </p> + <p> + PYTHAGORAS was born about 582 B.C. at Samos, one of the Grecian isles. In + his youth he came in contact with THALES—the Father of Geometry, as + he is well called,—and though he did not become a member of THALES' + school, his contact with the latter no doubt helped to turn his mind + towards the study of geometry. This interest found the right ground for + its development in Egypt, which he visited when still young. Egypt is + generally regarded as the birthplace of geometry, the subject having, it + is supposed, been forced on the minds of the Egyptians by the necessity of + fixing the boundaries of lands against the annual overflowing of the Nile. + But the Egyptians were what is called an essentially practical people, and + their geometrical knowledge did not extend beyond a few empirical rules + useful for fixing these boundaries and in constructing their temples. + Striking evidence of this fact is supplied by the AHMES papyrus, compiled + some little time before 1700 B.C. from an older work dating from about + 3400 B.C.,(1) a papyrus which almost certainly represents the highest + mathematical knowledge reached by the Egyptians of that day. Geometry is + treated very superficially and as of subsidiary interest to arithmetic; + there is no ordered series of reasoned geometrical propositions given—nothing, + indeed, beyond isolated rules, and of these some are wanting in accuracy. + </p> + <p> + (1) See AUGUST EISENLOHR: <i>Ein mathematisches Handbuch der alten + Aegypter</i> (1877); J. Gow: <i>A Short History of Greek Mathematics</i> + (1884); and V. E. JOHNSON: <i>Egyptian Science from the Monuments and + Ancient Books</i> (1891). + </p> + <p> + One geometrical fact known to the Egyptians was that if a triangle be + constructed having its sides 3, 4, and 5 units long respectively, then the + angle opposite the longest side is exactly a right angle; and the Egyptian + builders used this rule for constructing walls perpendicular to each + other, employing a cord graduated in the required manner. The Greek mind + was not, however, satisfied with the bald statement of mere facts—it + cared little for practical applications, but sought above all for the + underlying REASON of everything. Nowadays we are beginning to realise that + the results achieved by this type of mind, the general laws of Nature's + behaviour formulated by its endeavours, are frequently of immense + practical importance—of far more importance than the mere + rules-of-thumb beyond which so-called practical minds never advance. The + classic example of the utility of seemingly useless knowledge is afforded + by Sir WILLIAM HAMILTON'S discovery, or, rather, invention of + Quarternions, but no better example of the utilitarian triumph of the + theoretical over the so-called practical mind can be adduced than that + afforded by PYTHAGORAS. Given this rule for constructing a right angle, + about whose reason the Egyptian who used it never bothered himself, and + the mind of PYTHAGORAS, searching for its full significance, made that + gigantic geometrical discovery which is to this day known as the Theorem + of PYTHAGORAS—the law that in every right-angled triangle the square + on the side opposite the right angle is equal in area to the sum of the + squares on the other two sides.(1) The importance of this discovery can + hardly be overestimated. It is of fundamental importance in most branches + of geometry, and the basis of the whole of trigonometry—the special + branch of geometry that deals with the practical mensuration of triangles. + EUCLID devoted the whole of the first book of his <i>Elements of Geometry</i> + to establishing the truth of this theorem; how PYTHAGORAS demonstrated it + we unfortunately do not know. + </p> + <p> + (1) Fig. 3 affords an interesting practical demonstration of the truth of + this theorem. If the reader will copy this figure, cut out the squares on + the two shorter sides of the triangle and divide them along the lines AD, + BE, EF, he will find that the five pieces so obtained can be made exactly + to fit the square on the longest side as shown by the dotted lines. The + size and shape of the triangle ABC, so long as it has a right angle at C, + is immaterial. The lines AD, BE are obtained by continuing the sides of + the square on the side AB, <i>i.e</i>. the side opposite the right angle, + and EF is drawn at right angles to BE. + </p> + <p> + After absorbing what knowledge was to be gained in Egypt, PYTHAGORAS + journeyed to Babylon, where he probably came into contact with even + greater traditions and more potent influences and sources of knowledge + than in Egypt, for there is reason for believing that the ancient + Chaldeans were the builders of the Pyramids and in many ways the + intellectual superiors of the Egyptians. + </p> + <p> + At last, after having travelled still further East, probably as far as + India, PYTHAGORAS returned to his birthplace to teach the men of his + native land the knowledge he had gained. But CROESUS was tyrant over + Samos, and so oppressive was his rule that none had leisure in which to + learn. Not a student came to PYTHAGORAS, until, in despair, so the story + runs, he offered to pay an artisan if he would but learn geometry. The man + accepted, and later, when PYTHAGORAS pretended inability any longer to + continue the payments, he offered, so fascinating did he find the subject, + to pay his teacher instead if the lessons might only be continued. + PYTHAGORAS no doubt was much gratified at this; and the motto he adopted + for his great Brotherhood, of which we shall make the acquaintance in a + moment, was in all likelihood based on this event. It ran, "Honour a + figure and a step before a figure and a tribolus"; or, as a freer + translation renders it:— + </p> + <p> + "A figure and a step onward Not a figure and a florin." + </p> + <p> + "At all events," as Mr FRANKLAND remarks, "the motto is a lasting witness + to a very singular devotion to knowledge for its own sake."(1) + </p> + <p> + (1) W. B. FRANKLAND, M.A.: <i>The Story of Euclid</i> (1902), p. 33 + </p> + <p> + But PYTHAGORAS needed a greater audience than one man, however + enthusiastic a pupil he might be, and he left Samos for Southern Italy, + the rich inhabitants of whose cities had both the leisure and inclination + to study. Delphi, far-famed for its Oracles, was visited <i>en route</i>, + and PYTHAGORAS, after a sojourn at Tarentum, settled at Croton, where he + gathered about him a great band of pupils, mainly young people of the + aristocratic class. By consent of the Senate of Croton, he formed out of + these a great philosophical brotherhood, whose members lived apart from + the ordinary people, forming, as it were, a separate community. They were + bound to PYTHAGORAS by the closest ties of admiration and reverence, and, + for years after his death, discoveries made by Pythagoreans were + invariably attributed to the Master, a fact which makes it very difficult + exactly to gauge the extent of PYTHAGORAS' own knowledge and achievements. + The regime of the Brotherhood, or Pythagorean Order, was a strict one, + entailing "high thinking and low living" at all times. A restricted diet, + the exact nature of which is in dispute, was observed by all members, and + long periods of silence, as conducive to deep thinking, were imposed on + novices. Women were admitted to the Order, and PYTHAGORAS' asceticism did + not prohibit romance, for we read that one of his fair pupils won her way + to his heart, and, declaring her affection for him, found it reciprocated + and became his wife. + </p> + <p> + SCHURE writes: "By his marriage with Theano, Pythagoras affixed <i>the + seal of realization</i> to his work. The union and fusion of the two lives + was complete. One day when the master's wife was asked what length of time + elapsed before a woman could become pure after intercourse with a man, she + replied: 'If it is with her husband, she is pure all the time; if with + another man, she is never pure.'" "Many women," adds the writer, "would + smilingly remark that to give such a reply one must be the wife of + Pythagoras, and love him as Theano did. And they would be in the right, + for it is not marriage that sanctifies love, it is love which justifies + marriage."(1) + </p> + <p> + (1) EDOUARD SCHURE: <i>Pythagoras and the Delphic Mysteries</i>, trans. by + F. ROTHWELL, B.A. (1906), pp. 164 and 165. + </p> + <p> + PYTHAGORAS was not merely a mathematician, he was first and foremost a + philosopher, whose philosophy found in number the basis of all things, + because number, for him, alone possessed stability of relationship. As I + have remarked on a former occasion, "The theory that the Cosmos has its + origin and explanation in Number... is one for which it is not difficult + to account if we take into consideration the nature of the times in which + it was formulated. The Greek of the period, looking upon Nature, beheld no + picture of harmony, uniformity and fundamental unity. The outer world + appeared to him rather as a discordant chaos, the mere sport and plaything + of the gods. The theory of the uniformity of Nature—that Nature is + ever like to herself—the very essence of the modern scientific + spirit, had yet to be born of years of unwearied labour and unceasing + delving into Nature's innermost secrets. Only in Mathematics—in the + properties of geometrical figures, and of numbers—was the reign of + law, the principle of harmony, perceivable. Even at this present day when + the marvellous has become commonplace, that property of right-angled + triangles... already discussed... comes to the mind as a remarkable and + notable fact: it must have seemed a stupendous marvel to its discoverer, + to whom, it appears, the regular alternation of the odd and even numbers, + a fact so obvious to us that we are inclined to attach no importance to + it, seemed, itself, to be something wonderful. Here in Geometry and + Arithmetic, here was order and harmony unsurpassed and unsurpassable. What + wonder then that Pythagoras concluded that the solution of the mighty + riddle of the Universe was contained in the mysteries of Geometry? What + wonder that he read mystic meanings into the laws of Arithmetic, and + believed Number to be the explanation and origin of all that is?"(1) + </p> + <p> + (1) <i>A Mathematical Theory of Spirit</i> (1912), pp. 64-65. + </p> + <p> + No doubt the Pythagorean theory suffers from a defect similar to that of + the Kabalistic doctrine, which, starting from the fact that all words are + composed of letters, representing the primary sounds of language, + maintained that all the things represented by these words were created by + God by means of the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. But at the + same time the Pythagorean theory certainly embodies a considerable element + of truth. Modern science demonstrates nothing more clearly than the + importance of numerical relationships. Indeed, "the history of science + shows us the gradual transformation of crude facts of experience into + increasingly exact generalisations by the application to them of + mathematics. The enormous advances that have been made in recent years in + physics and chemistry are very largely due to mathematical methods of + interpreting and co-ordinating facts experimentally revealed, whereby + further experiments have been suggested, the results of which have + themselves been mathematically interpreted. Both physics and chemistry, + especially the former, are now highly mathematical. In the biological + sciences and especially in psychology it is true that mathematical methods + are, as yet, not so largely employed. But these sciences are far less + highly developed, far less exact and systematic, that is to say, far less + scientific, at present, than is either physics or chemistry. However, the + application of statistical methods promises good results, and there are + not wanting generalisations already arrived at which are expressible + mathematically; Weber's Law in psychology, and the law concerning the + arrangement of the leaves about the stems of plants in biology, may be + instanced as cases in point."(1) + </p> + <p> + (1) Quoted from a lecture by the present writer on "The Law of + Correspondences Mathematically Considered," delivered before The + Theological and Philosophical Society on 26th April 1912, and published in + <i>Morning Light</i>, vol. xxxv (1912), p. 434 <i>et seq</i>. + </p> + <p> + The Pythagorean doctrine of the Cosmos, in its most reasonable form, + however, is confronted with one great difficulty which it seems incapable + of overcoming, namely, that of continuity. Modern science, with its atomic + theories of matter and electricity, does, indeed, show us that the + apparent continuity of material things is spurious, that all material + things consist of discrete particles, and are hence measurable in + numerical terms. But modern science is also obliged to postulate an ether + behind these atoms, an ether which is wholly continuous, and hence + transcends the domain of number.(1) It is true that, in quite recent + times, a certain school of thought has argued that the ether is also + atomic in constitution—that all things, indeed, have a grained + structure, even forces being made up of a large number of quantums or + indivisible units of force. But this view has not gained general + acceptance, and it seems to necessitate the postulation of an ether beyond + the ether, filling the interspaces between its atoms, to obviate the + difficulty of conceiving of action at a distance. + </p> + <p> + (1) Cf. chap. iii., "On Nature as the Embodiment of Number," of my <i>A + Mathematical Theory of Spirit</i>, to which reference has already been + made. + </p> + <p> + According to BERGSON, life—the reality that can only be lived, not + understood—is absolutely continuous (<i>i.e</i>. not amenable to + numerical treatment). It is because life is absolutely continuous that we + cannot, he says, understand it; for reason acts discontinuously, grasping + only, so to speak, a cinematographic view of life, made up of an immense + number of instantaneous glimpses. All that passes between the glimpses is + lost, and so the true whole, reason can never synthesise from that which + it possesses. On the other hand, one might also argue—extending, in + a way, the teaching of the physical sciences of the period between the + postulation of DALTON'S atomic theory and the discovery of the + significance of the ether of space—that reality is essentially + discontinuous, our idea that it is continuous being a mere illusion + arising from the coarseness of our senses. That might provide a complete + vindication of the Pythagorean view; but a better vindication, if not of + that theory, at any rate of PYTHAGORAS' philosophical attitude, is + forthcoming, I think, in the fact that modern mathematics has transcended + the shackles of number, and has enlarged her kingdom, so as to include + quantities other than numerical. PYTHAGORAS, had he been born in these + latter centuries, would surely have rejoiced in this, enlargement, whereby + the continuous as well as the discontinuous is brought, if not under the + rule of number, under the rule of mathematics indeed. + </p> + <p> + PYTHAGORAS' foremost achievement in mathematics I have already mentioned. + Another notable piece of work in the same department was the discovery of + a method of constructing a parallelogram having a side equal to a given + line, an angle equal to a given angle, and its area equal to that of a + given triangle. PYTHAGORAS is said to have celebrated this discovery by + the sacrifice of a whole ox. The problem appears in the first book of + EUCLID'S <i>Elements of Geometry</i> as proposition 44. In fact, many of + the propositions of EUCLID'S first, second, fourth, and sixth books were + worked out by PYTHAGORAS and the Pythagoreans; but, curiously enough, they + seem greatly to have neglected the geometry of the circle. + </p> + <p> + The symmetrical solids were regarded by PYTHAGORAS, and by the Greek + thinkers after him, as of the greatest importance. To be perfectly + symmetrical or regular, a solid must have an equal number of faces meeting + at each of its angles, and these faces must be equal regular polygons, <i>i.e</i>. + figures whose sides and angles are all equal. PYTHAGORAS, perhaps, may be + credited with the great discovery that there are only five such solids. + These are as follows:— + </p> + <p> + The Tetrahedron, having four equilateral triangles as faces. + </p> + <p> + The Cube, having six squares as faces. + </p> + <p> + The Octahedron, having eight equilateral triangles as faces. + </p> + <p> + The Dodecahedron, having twelve regular pentagons (or five-sided figures) + as faces. + </p> + <p> + The Icosahedron, having twenty equilateral triangles as faces.(1) + </p> + <p> + (1) If the reader will copy figs. 4 to 8 on cardboard or stiff paper, bend + each along the dotted lines so as to form a solid, fastening together the + free edges with gummed paper, he will be in possession of models of the + five solids in question. + </p> + <p> + Now, the Greeks believed the world to be composed of four elements—earth, + air, fire, water,—and to the Greek mind the conclusion was + inevitable(2a) that the shapes of the particles of the elements were those + of the regular solids. Earth-particles were cubical, the cube being the + regular solid possessed of greatest stability; fire-particles were + tetrahedral, the tetrahedron being the simplest and, hence, lightest + solid. Water-particles were icosahedral for exactly the reverse reason, + whilst air-particles, as intermediate between the two latter, were + octahedral. The dodecahedron was, to these ancient mathematicians, the + most mysterious of the solids: it was by far the most difficult to + construct, the accurate drawing of the regular pentagon necessitating a + rather elaborate application of PYTHAGORAS' great theorem.(1) Hence the + conclusion, as PLATO put it, that "this (the regular dodecahedron) the + Deity employed in tracing the plan of the Universe."(2b) Hence also the + high esteem in which the pentagon was held by the Pythagoreans. By + producing each side of this latter figure the five-pointed star (fig. 9), + known as the pentagram, is obtained. This was adopted by the Pythagoreans + as the badge of their Society, and for many ages was held as a symbol + possessed of magic powers. The mediaeval magicians made use of it in their + evocations, and as a talisman it was held in the highest esteem. + </p> + <p> + (2a) <i>Cf</i>. PLATO: The Timaeus, SESE xxviii—xxx. + </p> + <p> + (1) In reference to this matter FRANKLAND remarks: "In those early days + the innermost secrets of nature lay in the lap of geometry, and the + extraordinary inference follows that Euclid's <i>Elements</i>, which are + devoted to the investigation of the regular solids, are therefore in + reality and at bottom an attempt to 'solve the universe.' Euclid, in fact, + made this goal of the Pythagoreans the aim of his <i>Elements</i>."—<i>Op. + cit</i>., p. 35. + </p> + <p> + (2b) <i>Op. cit</i>., SE xxix. + </p> + <p> + Music played an important part in the curriculum of the Pythagorean + Brotherhood, and the important discovery that the relations between the + notes of musical scales can be expressed by means of numbers is a + Pythagorean one. It must have seemed to its discoverer—as, in a + sense, it indeed is—a striking confirmation of the numerical theory + of the Cosmos. The Pythagoreans held that the positions of the heavenly + bodies were governed by similar numerical relations, and that in + consequence their motion was productive of celestial music. This concept + of "the harmony of the spheres" is among the most celebrated of the + Pythagorean doctrines, and has found ready acceptance in many + mystically-speculative minds. "Look how the floor of heaven," says Lorenzo + in SHAKESPEARE'S <i>The Merchant of Venice</i>— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "... Look how the floor of heaven + Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold: + There's not the smallest orb which thou behold's" + But in his motion like an angel sings, + Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins; + Such harmony is in immortal souls; + But whilst this muddy vesture of decay + Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it."(1) +</pre> + <p> + (1) Act v. scene i. + </p> + <p> + Or, as KINGSLEY writes in one of his letters, "When I walk the fields I am + oppressed every now and then with an innate feeling that everything I see + has a meaning, if I could but understand it. And this feeling of being + surrounded with truths which I cannot grasp, amounts to an indescribable + awe sometimes! Everything seems to be full of God's reflex, if we could + but see it. Oh! how I have prayed to have the mystery unfolded, at least + hereafter. To see, if but for a moment, the whole harmony of the great + system! To hear once the music which the whole universe makes as it + performs His bidding!"(1) In this connection may be mentioned the very + significant fact that the Pythagoreans did not consider the earth, in + accordance with current opinion, to be a stationary body, but believed + that it and the other planets revolved about a central point, or fire, as + they called it. + </p> + <p> + (1) CHARLES KINGSLEY: <i>His Letters and Memories of His Life</i>, edited + by his wife (1883), p. 28. + </p> + <p> + As concerns PYTHAGORAS' ethical teaching, judging from the so-called <i>Golden + Verses</i> attributed to him, and no doubt written by one of his + disciples,(2) this would appear to be in some respects similar to that of + the Stoics who came later, but free from the materialism of the Stoic + doctrines. Due regard for oneself is blended with regard for the gods and + for other men, the atmosphere of the whole being at once rational and + austere. One verse—"Thou shalt likewise know, according to Justice, + that the nature of this Universe is in all things alike"(3)—is of + particular interest, as showing PYTHAGORAS' belief in that principle of + analogy—that "What is below is as that which is above, what is above + is as that which is below"—which held so dominant a sway over the + minds of ancient and mediaeval philosophers, leading them—in spite, + I suggest, of its fundamental truth—into so many fantastic errors, + as we shall see in future excursions. Metempsychosis was another of the + Pythagorean tenets, a fact which is interesting in view of the modern + revival of this doctrine. PYTHAGORAS, no doubt, derived it from the East, + apparently introducing it for the first time to Western thought. + </p> + <p> + (2) It seems probable, though not certain, that PYTHAGORAS wrote nothing + himself, but taught always by the oral method. + </p> + <p> + (3) Cf. the remarks of HIEROCLES on this verse in his <i>Commentary</i>. + </p> + <p> + Such, in brief, were the outstanding doctrines of the Pythagorean + Brotherhood. Their teachings included, as we have seen, what may justly be + called scientific discoveries of the first importance, as well as + doctrines which, though we may feel compelled—perhaps rightly—to + regard them as fantastic now, had an immense influence on the thought of + succeeding ages, especially on Greek philosophy as represented by PLATO + and the Neo-Platonists, and the more speculative minds—the occult + philosophers, shall I say?—of the latter mediaeval period and + succeeding centuries. The Brotherhood, however, was not destined to + continue its days in peace. As I have indicated, it was a philosophical, + not a political, association; but naturally PYTHAGORAS' philosophy + included political doctrines. At any rate, the Brotherhood acquired a + considerable share in the government of Croton, a fact which was greatly + resented by the members of the democratic party, who feared the loss of + their rights; and, urged thereto, it is said, by a rejected applicant for + membership of the Order, the mob made an onslaught on the Brotherhood's + place of assembly and burnt it to the ground. One account has it that + PYTHAGORAS himself died in the conflagration, a sacrifice to the mad fury + of the mob. According to another account—and we like to believe that + this is the true one—he escaped to Tarentum, from which he was + banished, to find an asylum in Metapontum, where he lived his last years + in peace. + </p> + <p> + The Pythagorean Order was broken up, but the bonds of brotherhood still + existed between its members. "One of them who had fallen upon sickness and + poverty was kindly taken in by an innkeeper. Before dying he traced a few + mysterious signs (the pentagram, no doubt) on the door of the inn and said + to the host: 'Do not be uneasy, one of my brothers will pay my debts.' A + year afterwards, as a stranger was passing by this inn he saw the signs + and said to the host: 'I am a Pythagorean; one of my brothers died here; + tell me what I owe you on his account.'"(1) + </p> + <p> + (1) EDOUARD SCHURE: <i>Op. cit</i>., p. 174. + </p> + <p> + In endeavouring to estimate the worth of PYTHAGORAS' discoveries and + teaching, Mr FRANKLAND writes, with reference to his achievements in + geometry: "Even after making a considerable allowance for his pupils' + share, the Master's geometrical work calls for much admiration"; and, "... + it cannot be far wrong to suppose that it was Pythagoras' wont to insist + upon proofs, and so to secure that rigour which gives to mathematics its + honourable position amongst the sciences." And of his work in arithmetic, + music, and astronomy, the same author writes: "... everywhere he appears + to have inaugurated genuinely scientific methods, and to have laid the + foundations of a high and liberal education"; adding, "For nearly a score + of centuries, to the very close of the Middle Ages, the four Pythagorean + subjects of study—arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music—were + the staple educational course, and were bound together into a fourfold way + of knowledge—the Quadrivium."(1) With these words of due praise, our + present excursion may fittingly close. + </p> + <p> + (1) <i>Op. cit</i>., pp. 35, 37, and 38. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III. MEDICINE AND MAGIC + </h2> + <p> + THERE are few tasks at once so instructive and so fascinating as the + tracing of the development of the human mind as manifested in the + evolution of scientific and philosophical theories. And this is, perhaps, + especially true when, as in the case of medicine, this evolution has + followed paths so tortuous, intersected by so many fantastic byways, that + one is not infrequently doubtful as to the true road. The history of + medicine is at once the history of human wisdom and the history of human + credulity and folly, and the romantic element (to use the expression in + its popular acceptation) thus introduced, whilst making the subject more + entertaining, by no means detracts from its importance considered + psychologically. + </p> + <p> + To whom the honour of having first invented medicines is due is unknown, + the origins of pharmacy being lost in the twilight of myth. OSIRIS and + ISIS, BACCHUS, APOLLO father of the famous physician AESCULAPIUS, and + CHIRON the Centaur, tutor of the latter, are among the many mythological + personages who have been accredited with the invention of physic. It is + certain that the art of compounding medicines is extraordinarily ancient. + There is a papyrus in the British Museum containing medical prescriptions + which was written about 1200 B.C.; and the famous EBERS papyrus, which is + devoted to medical matters, is reckoned to date from about the year 1550 + B.C. It is interesting to note that in the prescriptions given in this + latter papyrus, as seems to have been the case throughout the history of + medicine, the principle that the efficacy of a medicine is in proportion + to its nastiness appears to have been the main idea. Indeed, many old + medicines contained ingredients of the most disgusting nature imaginable: + a mediaeval remedy known as oil of puppies, made by cutting up two + newly-born puppies and boiling them with one pound of live earthworms, may + be cited as a comparatively pleasant example of the remedies (?) used in + the days when all sorts of excreta were prescribed as medicines.(1) + </p> + <p> + (1) See the late Mr A. C. WOOTTON'S excellent work, <i>Chronicles of + Pharmacy</i> (2 vols, 1910), to which I gladly acknowledge my + indebtedness. + </p> + <p> + Presumably the oldest theory concerning the causation of disease is that + which attributes all the ills of mankind to the malignant operations of + evil spirits, a theory which someone has rather fancifully suggested is + not so erroneous after all, if we may be allowed to apply the term "evil + spirits" to the microbes of modern bacteriology. Remnants of this theory + (which does—shall I say?—conceal a transcendental truth), that + is, in its original form, still survive to the present day in various + superstitious customs, whose absurdity does not need emphasising: for + example, the use of red flannel by old-fashioned folk with which to tie up + sore throats—red having once been supposed to be a colour very + angatonistic to evil spirits; so much so that at one time red cloth hung + in the patient's room was much employed as a cure for smallpox! + </p> + <p> + Medicine and magic have always been closely associated. Indeed, the + greatest name in the history of pharmacy is also what is probably the + greatest name in the history of magic—the reference, of course, + being to PARACELSUS (1493-1541). Until PARACELSUS, partly by his vigorous + invective and partly by his remarkable cures of various diseases, + demolished the old school of medicine, no one dared contest the authority + of GALEN (130-<i>circa</i> 205) and AVICENNA (980—1037). GALEN'S + theory of disease was largely based upon that of the four humours in man—bile, + blood, phlegm, and black bile,—which were regarded as related to + (but not identical with) the four elements—fire, air, water, and + earth,—being supposed to have characters similar to these. Thus, to + bile, as to fire, were attributed the properties of hotness and dryness; + to blood and air those of hotness and moistness; to phlegm and water those + of coldness and moistness; and, finally, black bile, like earth, was said + to be cold and dry. GALEN supposed that an alteration in the due + proportion of these humours gives rise to disease, though he did not + consider this to be its only cause; thus, cancer, it was thought, might + result from an excess of black bile, and rheumatism from an excess of + phlegm. Drugs, GALEN argued, are of efficiency in the curing of disease, + according as they possess one or more of these so-called fundamental + properties, hotness, dryness, coldness, and moistness, whereby it was + considered that an excess of any humour might be counteracted; moreover, + it was further assumed that four degrees of each property exist, and that + only those drugs are of use in curing a disease which contain the + necessary property or properties in the degree proportionate to that in + which the opposite humour or humours are in excess in the patient's + system. + </p> + <p> + PARACELSUS' views were based upon his theory (undoubtedly true in a sense) + that man is a microcosm, a world in miniature.(1) Now, all things + material, taught PARACELSUS, contain the three principles termed in + alchemistic phraseology salt, sulphur, and mercury. This is true, + therefore, of man: the healthy body, he argued, is a sort of chemical + compound in which these three principles are harmoniously blended (as in + the Macrocosm) in due proportion, whilst disease is due to a preponderance + of one principle, fevers, for example, being the result of an excess of + sulphur (<i>i.e</i>. the fiery principle), <i>etc</i>. PARACELSUS, + although his theory was not so different from that of GALEN, whose views + he denounced, was thus led to seek for CHEMICAL remedies, containing these + principles in varying proportions; he was not content with medicinal herbs + and minerals in their crude state, but attempted to extract their + effective essences; indeed, he maintained that the preparation of new and + better drugs is the chief business of chemistry. + </p> + <p> + (1) See the "Note on the Paracelsian Doctrine of the Microcosm" below. + </p> + <p> + This theory of disease and of the efficacy of drugs was complicated by + many fantastic additions;(1) thus there is the "Archaeus," a sort of + benevolent demon, supposed by PARACELSUS to look after all the unconscious + functions of the bodily organism, who has to be taken into account. + PARACELSUS also held the Doctrine of Signatures, according to which the + medicinal value of plants and minerals is indicated by their external + form, or by some sign impressed upon them by the operation of the stars. A + very old example of this belief is to be found in the use of mandrake + (whose roots resemble the human form) by the Hebrews and Greeks as a cure + for sterility; or, to give an instance which is still accredited by some, + the use of eye-bright (<i>Euphrasia officinalis</i>, L., a plant with a + black pupil-like spot in its corolla) for complaints of the eyes.(2) + Allied to this doctrine are such beliefs, once held, as that the lungs of + foxes are good for bronchial troubles, or that the heart of a lion will + endow one with courage; as CORNELIUS AGRIPPA put it, "It is well known + amongst physicians that brain helps the brain, and lungs the lungs."(3) + </p> + <p> + (1) The question of PARACELSUS' pharmacy is further complicated by the + fact that this eccentric genius coined many new words (without regard to + the principles of etymology) as names for his medicines, and often used + the same term to stand for quite different bodies. Some of his disciples + maintained that he must not always be understood in a literal sense, in + which probably there is an element of truth. See, for instance, <i>A + Golden and Blessed Casket of Nature's Marvels</i>, by BENEDICTUS FIGULUS + (trans. by A. E. WAITE, 1893). + </p> + <p> + (2) See Dr ALFRED C. HADDON'S <i>Magic and Fetishism</i> (1906), p. 15. + </p> + <p> + (3) HENRY CORNELIUS AGRIPPA: <i>Occult Philosophy</i>, bk. i. chap. xv. + (WHITEHEAD'S edition, Chicago, 1898, P. 72). + </p> + <p> + In modern times homoeopathy—according to which a drug is a cure, if + administered in small doses, for that disease whose symptoms it produces, + if given in large doses to a healthy person—-seems to bear some + resemblance to these old medical theories concerning the curing of like by + like. That the system of HAHNEMANN (1755—1843), the founder of + homoeopathy, is free from error could be scarcely maintained, but certain + recent discoveries in connection with serum-therapy appear to indicate + that the last word has not yet been said on the subject, and the formula + "like cures like" may still have another lease of life to run. + </p> + <p> + To return to PARACELSUS, however. It may be thought that his views were + not so great an advance on those of GALEN; but whether or not this be the + case, his union of chemistry and medicine was of immense benefit to each + science, and marked a new era in pharmacy. Even if his theories were + highly fantastic, it was he who freed medicine from the shackles of + traditionalism, and rendered progress in medical science possible. + </p> + <p> + I must not conclude these brief notes without some reference to the + medical theory of the medicinal efficacy of words. The EBERS papyrus + already mentioned gives various formulas which must be pronounced when + preparing and when administering a drug; and there is a draught used by + the Eastern Jews as a cure for bronchial complaints prepared by writing + certain words on a plate, washing them off with wine, and adding three + grains of a citron which has been used at the Tabernacle festival. But + enough for our present excursion; we must hie us back to the modern world, + with its alkaloids, serums, and anti-toxins—another day we will, + perhaps, wander again down the by-paths of Medicinal Magic. + </p> + <p> + NOTE ON THE PARACELSIAN DOCTRINE OF THE MICROCOSM + </p> + <p> + "Man's nature," writes CORNELIUS AGRIPPA, "<i>is the most complete Image + of the whole Universe</i>."(1) This theory, especially connected with the + name of PARACELSUS, is worthy of more than passing reference; but as the + consideration of it leads us from medicine to metaphysics, I have thought + it preferable to deal with the subject in a note. + </p> + <p> + (1) H. C. AGRIPPA: <i>Occult Philosophy</i>, bk. i. chap. xxxiii. + (WHITEHEAD'S edition, p. 111). + </p> + <p> + Man, taught the old mystical philosophers, is threefold in nature, + consisting of spirit, soul, and body. The Paracelsian mercury, sulphur, + and salt were the mineral analogues of these. "As to the Spirit," writes + VALENTINE WEIGEL (1533—1588), a disciple of PARACELSUS, "we are of + God, move in God, and live in God, and are nourished of God. Hence God is + in us and we are in God; God hath put and placed Himself in us, and we are + put and placed in God. As to the Soul, we are from the Firmament and + Stars, we live and move therein, and are nourished thereof. Hence the + Firmament with its astralic virtues and operations is in us, and we in it. + The Firmament is put and placed in us, and we are put and placed in the + Firmament. As to the Body, we are of the elements, we move and live + therein, and are nourished of them:—hence the elements are in us, + and we in them. The elements, by the slime, are put and placed in us, and + we are put and placed in them."(1) Or, to quote from PARACELSUS himself, + in his <i>Hermetic Astronomy</i> he writes: "God took the body out of + which He built up man from those things which He created from nothingness + into something... Hence man is now a microcosm, or a little world, because + he is an extract from all the stars and planets of the whole firmament, + from the earth and the elements, and so he is their quintessence.... But + between the macrocosm and the microcosm this difference occurs, that the + form, image, species, and substance of man are diverse therefrom. In man + the earth is flesh, the water is blood, fire is the heat thereof, and air + is the balsam. These properties have not been changed but only the + substance of the body. So man is man, not a world, yet made from the + world, made in the likeness, not of the world, but of God. Yet man + comprises in himself all the qualities of the world.... His body is from + the world, and therefore must be fed and nourished by that world from + which he has sprung.... He has been taken from the earth and from the + elements, and therefore, must be nourished by these.... Now, man is not + only flesh and blood, but there is within the intellect which does not, + like the complexion, come from the elements, but from the stars. And the + condition of the stars is this, that all the wisdom, intelligence, + industry of the animal, and all the arts peculiar to man are contained in + them. From the stars man has these same things, and that is called the + light of Nature; in fact, it is whatever man has found by the light of + Nature.... Such, then, is the condition of man, that, out of the great + universe he needs both elements and stars, seeing that he himself is + constituted in that way."(1b) + </p> + <p> + (1) VALENTINE WEIGEL: "<i>Astrology Theologised": The Spiritual + Hermeneutics of Astrology and Holy Writ</i>, ed. by ANNA BONUS KINGSFORD + (1886), p. 59. + </p> + <p> + (1b) <i>The Hermetic and Alchemical Writings of</i> PARACELSUS, ed. by A. + E. WAITE (1894), vol. ii. pp. 289-291. + </p> + <p> + It is not difficult to discern a certain truth in all this, making + allowances for modes of thought which are not those of the present day. + The Swedish philosopher SWEDENBORG (1688-1772) reaffirmed the theory in + later years; but, as he points out,(2) the reason that man is a microcosm + lies deeper than in the facts that his body is of the elements of this + earth and is nourished thereby. According to this profound thinker, FORM, + spiritually understood, is the expression of USE, the uses of things being + indicated by their forms. Now, the human form is the highest of all forms, + because it subserves the highest of all uses. Hence, both the world of + matter and the world of spirit are in the human form, because there is a + correspondence in use between man and the Cosmos. We may, therefore, call + man as to his body a microcosm, or little world; as to his soul a + micro-uranos, or little heaven. Or we may speak of the macrocosm, or great + world, as the Grand Man, and we may say that the Soul of this Grand Man, + the self-existent, substantial, and efficient cause of all things, at once + immanent within yet transcending all things, is God. + </p> + <p> + (2) See especially his <i>Divine Love and Wisdom</i>, SESE 251 and 319. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IV. SUPERSTITIONS CONCERNING BIRDS + </h2> + <p> + AMONGST the most remarkable of natural occurrences must be included many + of the phenomena connected with the behaviour of birds. Undoubtedly + numerous species of birds are susceptible to atmospheric changes (of an + electrical and barometric nature) too slight to be observed by man's + unaided senses; thus only is to be explained the phenomenon of migration + and also the many other peculiarities in the behaviour of birds whereby + approaching changes in the weather may be foretold. Probably, also, this + fact has much to do with the extraordinary homing instinct of pigeons. + But, of course, in the days when meteorological science had yet to be + born, no such explanation as this could be known. The ancients observed + that birds by their migrations or by other peculiarities in their + behaviour prognosticated coming changes in the seasons of the year and + other changes connected with the weather (such as storms, <i>etc</i>.); + they saw, too, in the homing instincts of pigeons an apparent exhibition + of intelligence exceeding that of man. What more natural, then, for them + to attribute foresight to birds, and to suppose that all sorts of coming + events (other than those of an atmospheric nature) might be foretold by + careful observation of their flight and song? + </p> + <p> + Augury—that is, the art of divination by observing the behaviour of + birds—was extensively cultivated by the Etrurians and Romans.(1) It + is still used, I believe, by the natives of Samoa. The Romans had an + official college of augurs, the members of which were originally three + patricians. About 300 B.C. the number of patrician augurs was increased by + one, and five plebeian augurs were added. Later the number was again + increased to fifteen. The object of augury was not so much to foretell the + future as to indicate what line of action should be followed, in any given + circumstances, by the nation. The augurs were consulted on all matters of + importance, and the position of augur was thus one of great consequence. + In what appears to be the oldest method, the augur, arrayed in a special + costume, and carrying a staff with which to mark out the visible heavens + into houses, proceeded to an elevated piece of ground, where a sacrifice + was made and a prayer repeated. Then, gazing towards the sky, he waited + until a bird appeared. The point in the heavens where it first made its + appearance was carefully noted, also the manner and direction of its + flight, and the point where it was lost sight of. From these particulars + an augury was derived, but, in order to be of effect, it had to be + confirmed by a further one. + </p> + <p> + (1) This is not quite an accurate definition, as "auguries" were also + obtained from other animals and from celestial phenomena (<i>e.g</i>. + lightning), <i>etc</i>. + </p> + <p> + Auguries were also drawn from the notes of birds, birds being divided by + the augurs into two classes: (i) <i>oscines</i>, "those which give omens + by their note," and (ii) <i>alites</i>, "those which afford presages by + their flight."(1) Another method of augury was performed by the feeding of + chickens specially kept for this purpose. This was done just before + sunrise by the <i>pullarius</i> or feeder, strict silence being observed. + If the birds manifested no desire for their food, the omen was of a most + direful nature. On the other hand, if from the greediness of the chickens + the grain fell from their beaks and rebounded from the ground, the augury + was most favourable. This latter augury was known as <i>tripudium + solistimum</i>. "Any fraud practiced by the 'pullarius'," writes the Rev. + EDWARD SMEDLEY, "reverted to his own head. Of this we have a memorable + instance in the great battle between Papirius Cursor and the Samnites in + the year of Rome 459. So anxious were the troops for battle, that the + 'pullarius' dared to announce to the consul a 'tripudium solistimum,' + although the chickens refused to eat. Papirius unhesitatingly gave the + signal for fight, when his son, having discovered the false augury, + hastened to communicate it to his father. 'Do thy part well,' was his + reply, 'and let the deceit of the augur fall on himself. The "tripudium" + has been announced to me, and no omen could be better for the Roman army + and people!' As the troops advanced, a javelin thrown at random struck the + 'pullatius' dead. 'The hand of heaven is in the battle,' cried Papirius; + 'the guilty is punished!' and he advanced and conquered."(1b) A + coincidence of this sort, if it really occurred, would very greatly + strengthen the popular belief in auguries. + </p> + <p> + (1) PLINY: <i>Natural History</i>, bk. x. chap. xxii. (BOSTOCK and RILEY'S + trans., vol. ii., 1855, p. 495). + </p> + <p> + (1b) Rev. EDWARD SMEDLEY, M.A.: <i>The Occult Sciences</i> (<i>Encyclopaedia + Metropolitana</i>), ed. by ELIHU RICH (1855), p. 144. + </p> + <p> + The <i>cock</i> has always been reckoned a bird possessed of magic power. + At its crowing, we are told, all unquiet spirits who roam the earth depart + to their dismal abodes, and the orgies of the Witches' Sabbath terminate. + A cock is the favourite sacrifice offered to evil spirits in Ceylon and + elsewhere. Alectromancy(2) was an ancient and peculiarly senseless method + of divination (so called) in which a cock was employed. The bird had to be + young and quite white. Its feet were cut off and crammed down its throat + with a piece of parchment on which were written certain Hebrew words. The + cock, after the repetition of a prayer by the operator, was placed in a + circle divided into parts corresponding to the letters of the alphabet, in + each of which a grain of wheat was placed. A certain psalm was recited, + and then the letters were noted from which the cock picked up the grains, + a fresh grain being put down for each one picked up. These letters, + properly arranged, were said to give the answer to the inquiry for which + divination was made. I am not sure what one was supposed to do if, as + seems likely, the cock refused to act in the required manner. + </p> + <p> + (2) Cf. ARTHUR EDWARD WAITE: <i>The Occult Sciences</i> (1891), pp. 124 + and 125. + </p> + <p> + The <i>owl</i> was reckoned a bird of evil omen with the Romans, who + derived this opinion from the Etrurians, along with much else of their + so-called science of augury. It was particularly dreaded if seen in a + city, or, indeed, anywhere by day. PLINY (Caius Plinius Secundus, A.D. + 61-before 115) informs us that on one occasion "a horned owl entered the + very sanctuary of the Capitol;... in consequence of which, Rome was + purified on the nones of March in that year."(1) + </p> + <p> + (1) PLINY: <i>Natural History</i>, bk. x. chap. xvi. (BOSTOCK and RILEY'S + trans., vol. ii., 1855, p. 492). + </p> + <p> + The folk-lore of the British Isles abounds with quaint beliefs and stories + concerning birds. There is a charming Welsh legend concerning the <i>robin</i>, + which the Rev. T. F. T. DYER quotes from <i>Notes and Queries</i>:—"Far, + far away, is a land of woe, darkness, spirits of evil, and fire. Day by + day does this little bird bear in his bill a drop of water to quench the + flame. So near the burning stream does he fly, that his dear little + feathers are SCORCHED; and hence he is named Brou-rhuddyn (Breast-burnt). + To serve little children, the robin dares approach the infernal pit. No + good child will hurt the devoted benefactor of man. The robin returns from + the land of fire, and therefore he feels the cold of winter far more than + his brother birds. He shivers in the brumal blast; hungry, he chirps + before your door."(2) + </p> + <p> + (2) T. F. THISELTON DYER, M.A.: <i>English Folk-Lore</i> (1878), pp. 65 + and 66. + </p> + <p> + Another legend accounts for the robin's red breast by supposing this bird + to have tried to pluck a thorn from the crown encircling the brow of the + crucified CHRIST, in order to alleviate His sufferings. No doubt it is on + account of these legends that it is considered a crime, which will be + punished with great misfortune, to kill a robin. In some places the same + prohibition extends to the <i>wren</i>, which is popularly believed to be + the wife of the robin. In other parts, however, the wren is (or at least + was) cruelly hunted on certain days. In the Isle of Man the wren-hunt took + place on Christmas Eve and St Stephen's Day, and is accounted for by a + legend concerning an evil fairy who lured many men to destruction, but had + to assume the form of a wren to escape punishment at the hands of an + ingenious knight-errant. + </p> + <p> + For several centuries there was prevalent over the whole of civilised + Europe a most extraordinary superstition concerning the small Arctic bird + resembling, but not so large as, the common wild goose, known as the <i>barnacle</i> + or <i>bernicle goose</i>. MAX MUELLER(1) has suggested that this word was + really derived from <i>Hibernicula</i>, the name thus referring to + Ireland, where the birds were caught; but common opinion associated the + barnacle goose with the shell-fish known as the barnacle (which is found + on timber exposed to the sea), supposing that the former was generated out + of the latter. Thus in one old medical writer we find: "There are founde + in the north parts of Scotland, and the Ilands adjacent, called Orchades + (Orkney Islands), certain trees, whereon doe growe certaine shell fishes, + of a white colour tending to russet; wherein are conteined little liuing + creatures: which shells in time of maturitie doe open, and out of them + grow those little living things; which falling into the water, doe become + foules, whom we call Barnakles... but the other that do fall vpon the + land, perish and come to nothing: this much by the writings of others, and + also from the mouths of the people of those parts...."(1b) + </p> + <p> + (1) See F. MAX MUELLER'S <i>Lectures on the Science of Language</i> + (1885), where a very full account of the tradition concerning the origin + of the barnacle goose will be found. + </p> + <p> + (1b) JOHN GERARDE: <i>The Herball; or, Generall Historie of Plantes</i> + (1597). 1391. + </p> + <p> + The writer, however, who was a well-known surgeon and botanist of his day, + adds that he had personally examined certain shell-fish from Lancashire, + and on opening the shells had observed within birds in various stages of + development. No doubt he was deceived by some purely superficial + resemblances—for example, the feet of the barnacle fish resemble + somewhat the feathers of a bird. He gives an imaginative illustration of + the barnacle fowl escaping from its shell, which is reproduced in fig. 12. + </p> + <p> + Turning now from superstitions concerning actual birds to legends of those + that are purely mythical, passing reference must be made to the <i>roc</i>, + a bird existing in Arabian legend, which we meet in the <i>Arabian Nights</i>, + and which is chiefly remarkable for its size and strength. + </p> + <p> + The <i>phoenix</i>, perhaps, is of more interest. Of "that famous bird of + Arabia," PLINY writes as follows, prefixing his description of it with the + cautious remark, "I am not quite sure that its existence is not all a + fable." "It is said that there is only one in existence in the whole + world, and that that one has not been seen very often. We are told that + this bird is of the size of an eagle, and has a brilliant golden plumage + around the neck, while the rest of the body is of a purple colour; except + the tail, which is azure, with long feathers intermingled of a roseate + hue; the throat is adorned with a crest, and the head with a tuft of + feathers. The first Roman who described this bird... was the senator + Manilius.... He tells us that no person has ever seen this bird eat, that + in Arabia it is looked upon as sacred to the sun, that it lives five + hundred and forty years, that when it becomes old it builds a nest of + cassia and sprigs of incense, which it fills with perfumes, and then lays + its body down upon them to die; that from its bones and marrow there + springs at first a sort of small worm, which in time changes into a little + bird; that the first thing that it does is to perform the obsequies of its + predecessor, and to carry the nest entire to the city of the Sun near + Panchaia, and there deposit it upon the altar of that divinity. + </p> + <p> + "The same Manilius states also, that the revolution of the great year is + completed with the life of this bird, and that then a new cycle comes + round again with the same characteristics as the former one, in the + seasons and the appearance of the stars. ... This bird was brought to Rome + in the censorship of the Emperor Claudius... and was exposed to public + view.... This fact is attested by the public Annals, but there is no one + that doubts that it was a fictitious phoenix only."(1) + </p> + <p> + (1) PLINY: <i>Natural History</i>, bk. x. chap. ii. (BOSTOCK and RILEY'S + trans., vol. ii., 1855, PP. 479-481). + </p> + <p> + The description of the plumage, <i>etc</i>., of this bird applies fairly + well, as CUVIER has pointed out,(2) to the golden pheasant, and a specimen + of the latter may have been the "fictitious phoenix" referred to above. + That this bird should have been credited with the extraordinary and wholly + fabulous properties related by PLINY and others is not, however, easy to + understand. The phoenix was frequently used to illustrate the doctrine of + the immortality of the soul (<i>e.g</i>. in CLEMENT'S <i>First Epistle to + the Corinthians</i>), and it is not impossible that originally it was + nothing more than a symbol of immortality which in time became to be + believed in as a really existing bird. The fact, however, that there was + supposed to be only one phoenix, and also that the length of each of its + lives coincided with what the ancients termed a "great year," may indicate + that the phoenix was a symbol of cosmological periodicity. On the other + hand, some ancient writers (e<i>.g</i>. TACITUS, A.D. 55-120) explicitly + refer to the phoenix as a symbol of the sun, and in the minds of the + ancients the sun was closely connected with the idea of immortality. + Certainly the accounts of the gorgeous colours of the plumage of the + phoenix might well be descriptions of the rising sun. It appears, + moreover, that the Egyptian hieroglyphic <i>benu</i>, {glyph}, which is a + figure of a heron or crane (and thus akin to the phoenix), was employed to + designate the rising sun. + </p> + <p> + (2) See CUVIER'S <i>The Animal Kingdom</i>, GRIFFITH'S trans., vol. viii. + (1829), p. 23. + </p> + <p> + There are some curious Jewish legends to account for the supposed + immortality of the phoenix. According to one, it was the sole animal that + refused to eat of the forbidden tree when tempted by EVE. According to + another, its immortality was conferred on it by NOAH because of its + considerate behaviour in the Ark, the phoenix not clamouring for food like + the other animals.(1) + </p> + <p> + (1) The existence of such fables as these shows how grossly the real + meanings of the Sacred Writings have been misunderstood. + </p> + <p> + There is a celebrated bird in Chinese tradition, the <i>Fung Hwang</i>, + which some sinologues identify with the phoenix of the West.(2) According + to a commentator on the '<i>Rh Ya</i>, this "felicitous and perfect bird + has a cock's head, a snake's neck, a swallow's beak, a tortoise's back, is + of five different colours and more than six feet high." + </p> + <p> + (2) Mr CHAS. GOULD, B.A., to whose book <i>Mythical Monsters</i> (1886) I + am very largely indebted for my account of this bird, and from which I + have culled extracts from the Chinese, is not of this opinion. Certainly + the fact that we read of Fung Hwangs in the plural, whilst tradition + asserts that there is only one phoenix, seems to point to a difference in + origin. + </p> + <p> + Another account (that in the <i>Lun Yu Tseh Shwai Shing</i>) tells us that + "its head resembles heaven, its eye the sun, its back the moon, its wings + the wind, its foot the ground, and its tail the woof." Furthermore, "its + mouth contains commands, its heart is conformable to regulations, its ear + is thoroughly acute in hearing, its tongue utters sincerity, its colour is + luminous, its comb resembles uprightness, its spur is sharp and curved, + its voice is sonorous, and its belly is the treasure of literature." Like + the dragon, tortoise, and unicorn, it was considered to be a spiritual + creature; but, unlike the Western phoenix, more than one Fung Hwang was, + as I have pointed out, believed to exist. The birds were not always to be + seen, but, according to Chinese records, they made their appearance during + the reigns of certain sovereigns. The Fung Hwang is regarded by the + Chinese as an omen of great happiness and prosperity, and its likeness is + embroidered on the robes of empresses to ensure success. Probably, if the + bird is not to be regarded as purely mythological and symbolic in origin, + we have in the stories of it no more than exaggerated accounts of some + species of pheasant. Japanese literature contains similar stories. + </p> + <p> + Of other fabulous bird-forms mention may be made of the <i>griffin</i> and + the <i>harpy</i>. The former was a creature half eagle, half lion, + popularly supposed to be the progeny of the union of these two latter. It + is described in the so-called <i>Voiage and Travaile of Sir</i> JOHN + MAUNDEVILLE in the following terms(1): "Sum men seyn, that thei ben the + Body upward, as an Egle, and benethe as a Lyoun: and treuly thei seyn + sothe, that thei ben of that schapp. But o Griffoun hathe the body more + gret and is more strong thanne 8 Lyouns, of suche Lyouns as ben o this + half; and more gret and strongere, than an 100 Egles, suche as we ben + amonges us. For o Griffoun there will bere, fleynge to his Nest, a gret + Hors, or 2 Oxen zoked to gidere, as thei gon at the Plowghe. For he hathe + his Talouns so longe and so large and grete, upon his Feet, as thoughe + thei weren Hornes of grete Oxen or of Bugles or of Kyzn; so that men maken + Cuppes of hem, to drynken of: and of hire Ribbes and of the Pennes of hire + Wenges, men maken Bowes fulle strong, to schote with Arwes and Quarelle." + The special characteristic of the griffin was its watchfulness, its chief + function being thought to be that of guarding secret treasure. This + characteristic, no doubt, accounts for its frequent use in heraldry as a + supporter to the arms. It was sacred to APOLLO, the sun-god, whose chariot + was, according to early sculptures, drawn by griffins. PLINY, who speaks + of it as a bird having long ears and a hooked beak, regarded it as + fabulous. + </p> + <p> + (1) <i>The Voiage and Travaile of Sir</i> JOHN MAUNDEVILLE, <i>Kt. Which + treateth of the Way to Hierusalem; and of Marvayles of Inde, with other + Ilands and Countryes. Now Publish'd entire from an Original MS. in The + Cotton Library</i> (London, 1727), cap. xxvi. pp. 325 and 326. + </p> + <p> + "This work is mainly a compilation from the writings of William of + Boldensele, Friar Odoric of Pordenone, Hetoum of Armenia, Vincent de + Beauvais, and other geographers. It is probable that the name John de + Mandeville should be regarded as a pseudonym concealing the identity of + Jean de Bourgogne, a physician at Liege, mentioned under the name of + Joannes ad Barbam in the vulgate Latin version of the Travels." (Note in + British Museum Catalogue). The work, which was first published in French + during the latter part of the fourteenth century, achieved an immense + popularity, the marvels that it relates being readily received by the + credulous folk of that and many a succeeding day. + </p> + <p> + The harpies (<i>i.e</i>. snatchers) in Greek mythology are creatures like + vultures as to their bodies, but with the faces of women, and armed with + sharp claws. + </p> + <p> + "Of Monsters all, most Monstrous this; no greater Wrath God sends 'mongst + Men; it comes from depth of pitchy Hell: And Virgin's Face, but Womb like + Gulf unsatiate hath, Her Hands are griping Claws, her Colour pale and + fell."(1) + </p> + <p> + (1) Quoted from VERGIL by JOHN GUILLIM in his <i>A Display of Heraldry</i> + (sixth edition, 1724), p. 271. + </p> + <p> + We meet with the harpies in the story of PHINEUS, a son of AGENOR, King of + Thrace. At the bidding of his jealous wife, IDAEA, daughter of DARDANUS, + PHINEUS put out the sight of his children by his former wife, CLEOPATRA, + daughter of BOREAS. To punish this cruelty, the gods caused him to become + blind, and the harpies were sent continually to harass and affright him, + and to snatch away his food or defile it by their presence. They were + afterwards driven away by his brothers-in-law, ZETES and CALAIS. It has + been suggested that originally the harpies were nothing more than + personifications of the swift storm-winds; and few of the old naturalists, + credulous as they were, regarded them as real creatures, though this + cannot be said of all. Some other fabulous bird-forms are to be met with + in Greek and Arabian mythologies, <i>etc</i>., but they are not of any + particular interest. And it is time for us to conclude our present + excursion, and to seek for other byways. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + V. THE POWDER OF SYMPATHY: A CURIOUS MEDICAL SUPERSTITION + </h2> + <p> + OUT of the superstitions of the past the science of the present has + gradually evolved. In the Middle Ages, what by courtesy we may term + medical science was, as we have seen, little better than a heterogeneous + collection of superstitions, and although various reforms were instituted + with the passing of time, superstition still continued for long to play a + prominent part in medical practice. + </p> + <p> + One of the most curious of these old medical (or perhaps I should say + surgical) superstitions was that relating to the Powder of Sympathy, a + remedy (?) chiefly remembered in connection with the name of Sir KENELM + DIGBY (1603-1665), though he was probably not the first to employ it. The + Powder itself, which was used as a cure for wounds, was, in fact, nothing + else than common vitriol,(1) though an improved and more elegant form (if + one may so describe it) was composed of vitriol desiccated by the sun's + rays, mixed with <i>gum tragacanth</i>. It was in the application of the + Powder that the remedy was peculiar. It was not, as one might expect, + applied to the wound itself, but any article that might have blood from + the wound upon it was either sprinkled with the Powder or else placed in a + basin of water in which the Powder had been dissolved, and maintained at a + temperate heat. Meanwhile, the wound was kept clean and cool. + </p> + <p> + (1) Green vitriol, ferrous sulphate heptahydrate, a compound of iron, + sulphur, and oxygen, crystallised with seven molecules of water, + represented by the formula FeSO4[.]7H2O. On exposure to the air it loses + water, and is gradually converted into basic ferric sulphate. For long, + green vitriol was confused with blue vitriol, which generally occurs as an + impurity in crude green vitriol. Blue vitriol is copper sulphate + pentahydrate, CuSO4[.]5H2O. + </p> + <p> + Sir KENELM DIGBY appears to have delivered a discourse dealing with the + famous Powder before a learned assembly at Montpellier in France; at least + a work purporting to be a translation of such a discourse was published in + 1658,(1) and further editions appeared in 1660 and 1664. KENELM was a son + of the Sir EVERARD DIGBY (1578-1606) who was executed for his share in the + Gunpowder Plot. In spite of this fact, however, JAMES I. appears to have + regarded him with favour. He was a man of romantic temperament, possessed + of charming manners, considerable learning, and even greater credulity. + His contemporaries seem to have differed in their opinions concerning him. + EVELYN (1620-1706), the diarist, after inspecting his chemical laboratory, + rather harshly speaks of him as "an errant mountebank". Elsewhere he well + refers to him as "a teller of strange things"—this was on the + occasion of DIGBY'S relating a story of a lady who had such an aversion to + roses that one laid on her cheek produced a blister! + </p> + <p> + (1) <i>A late Discourse... by Sir</i> KENELM DIGBY, <i>Kt.&c. Touching + the Cure of Wounds by the Powder of Sympathy...rendered... out of French + into English by</i> R. WHITE, Gent. (1658). This is entitled the second + edition, but appears to have been the first. + </p> + <p> + To return to the <i>Late Discourse</i>: after some preliminary remarks, + Sir KENELM records a cure which he claims to have effected by means of the + Powder. It appears that JAMES HOWELL (1594-1666, afterwards + historiographer royal to CHARLES II.), had, in the attempt to separate two + friends engaged in a duel, received two serious wounds in the hand. To + proceed in the writer's own words:—"It was my chance to be lodged + hard by him; and four or five days after, as I was making myself ready, he + (Mr Howell) came to my House, and prayed me to view his wounds; for I + understand, said he, that you have extraordinary remedies upon such + occasions, and my Surgeons apprehend some fear, that it may grow to a + Gangrene, and so the hand must be cut off.... + </p> + <p> + "I asked him then for any thing that had the blood upon it, so he + presently sent for his Garter, wherewith his hand was first bound: and + having called for a Bason of water, as if I would wash my hands; I took an + handfull of Powder of Vitrol, which I had in my study, and presently + dissolved it. As soon as the bloody garter was brought me, I put it within + the Bason, observing in the interim what Mr <i>Howel</i> did, who stood + talking with a Gentleman in the corner of my Chamber, not regarding at all + what I was doing: but he started suddenly, as if he had found some strange + alteration in himself; I asked him what he ailed? I know not what ailes + me, but I find that I feel no more pain, methinks that a pleasing kind of + freshnesse, as it were a wet cold Napkin did spread over my hand, which + hath taken away the inflammation that tormented me before; I replied, + since that you feel already so good an effect of my medicament, I advise + you to cast away all your Plaisters, onely keep the wound clean, and in a + moderate temper 'twixt heat and cold. This was presently reported to the + Duke of <i>Buckingham</i>, and a little after to the King (James I.), who + were both very curious to know the issue of the businesse, which was, that + after dinner I took the garter out of the water, and put it to dry before + a great fire; it was scarce dry, but Mr <i>Howels</i> servant came running + (and told me), that his Master felt as much burning as ever he had done, + if not more, for the heat was such, as if his hand were betwixt coales of + fire: I answered, that although that had happened at present, yet he + should find ease in a short time; for I knew the reason of this new + accident, and I would provide accordingly, for his Master should be free + from that inflammation, it may be, before he could possibly return unto + him: but in case he found no ease, I wished him to come presently back + again, if not he might forbear coming. Thereupon he went, and at the + instant I did put again the garter into the water; thereupon he found his + Master without any pain at all. To be brief, there was no sense of pain + afterward: but within five or six dayes the wounds were cicatrized, and + entirely healed."(1) + </p> + <p> + (1) <i>Ibid</i>., pp. 7-11. + </p> + <p> + Sir KENELM proceeds, in this discourse, to relate that he obtained the + secret of the Powder from a Carmelite who had learnt it in the East. Sir + KENELM says that he told it only to King JAMES and his celebrated + physician, Sir THEODORE MAYERNE (1573-1655). The latter disclosed it to + the Duke of MAYERNE, whose surgeon sold the secret to various persons, + until ultimately, as Sir KENELM remarks, it became known to every country + barber. However, DIGBY'S real connection with the Powder has been + questioned. In an Appendix to Dr NATHANAEL HIGHMORE'S (1613-1685) <i>The + History of Generation</i>, published in 1651, entitled <i>A Discourse of + the Cure of Wounds by Sympathy</i>, the Powder is referred to as Sir + GILBERT TALBOT'S Powder; nor does it appear to have been DIGBY who brought + the claims of the Sympathetic Powder before the notice of the then + recently-formed Royal Society, although he was a by no means inactive + member of the Society. HIGHMORE, however, in the Appendix to the work + referred to above, does refer to DIGBY'S reputed cure of HOWELL'S wounds + already mentioned; and after the publication of DIGBY'S <i>Discourse</i> + the Powder became generally known as Sir KENELM DIGBY'S Sympathetic + Powder. As such it is referred to in an advertisement appended to <i>Wit + and Drollery</i> (1661) by the bookseller, NATHANAEL BROOK.(1) + </p> + <p> + (1) This advertisement is as follows: "These are to give notice, that Sir + <i>Kenelme Digbies</i> Sympathetical Powder prepar'd by Promethean fire, + curing all green wounds that come within the compass of a Remedy; and + likewise the Tooth-ache infallibly in a very short time: Is to be had at + Mr <i>Nathanael Brook's</i> at the Angel in <i>Cornhil</i>." + </p> + <p> + The belief in cure by sympathy, however, is much older than DIGBY'S or + TALBOT'S Sympathetic Powder. PARACELSUS described an ointment consisting + essentially of the moss on the skull of a man who had died a violent + death, combined with boar's and bear's fat, burnt worms, dried boar's + brain, red sandal-wood and mummy, which was used to cure (?) wounds in a + similar manner, being applied to the weapon with which the hurt had been + inflicted. With reference to this ointment, readers will probably recall + the passage in SCOTT'S <i>Lay of the Last Minstrel</i> (canto 3, stanza + 23), respecting the magical cure of WILLIAM of DELORAINE'S wound by "the + Ladye of Branksome":— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "She drew the splinter from the wound + And with a charm she stanch'd the blood; + She bade the gash be cleans'd and bound: + No longer by his couch she stood; + But she had ta'en the broken lance, + And washed it from the clotted gore + And salved the splinter o'er and o'er. + William of Deloraine, in trance, + Whene'er she turned it round and round, + Twisted as if she gall'd his wound. + Then to her maidens she did say + That he should be whole man and sound + Within the course of a night and day. + Full long she toil'd; for she did rue + Mishap to friend so stout and true." +</pre> + <p> + FRANCIS BACON (1561-1626) writes of sympathetic cures as follows:—"It + is constantly Received, and Avouched, that the <i>Anointing</i> of the <i>Weapon</i>, + that maketh the <i>Wound</i>, wil heale the <i>Wound</i> it selfe. In this + <i>Experiment</i>, upon the Relation of <i>Men of Credit</i>, (though my + selfe, as yet, am not fully inclined to beleeve it,) you shal note the <i>Points</i> + following; First, the <i>Ointment</i>... is made of Divers <i>ingredients</i>; + whereof the Strangest and Hardest to come by, are the Mosse upon the <i>Skull</i> + of a <i>dead Man, Vnburied</i>; And the <i>Fats</i> of a <i>Boare</i>, and + a <i>Beare</i>, killed in the <i>Act of Generation</i>. These Two last I + could easily suspect to be prescribed as a Starting Hole; That if the <i>Experiment</i> + proved not, it mought be pretended, that the <i>Beasts</i> were not killed + in due Time; For as for the <i>Mosse</i>, it is certain there is great + Quantity of it in <i>Ireland</i>, upon <i>Slain Bodies</i>, laid on <i>Heaps, + Vnburied</i>. The other <i>Ingredients</i> are, the <i>Bloud-Stone</i> in + <i>Powder</i>, and some other <i>Things</i>, which seeme to have a <i>Vertue</i> + to <i>Stanch Bloud</i>; As also the <i>Mosse</i> hath.... Secondly, the + same <i>kind</i> of <i>Ointment</i>, applied to the Hurt it selfe, worketh + not the <i>Effect</i>; but onely applied to the <i>Weapon</i>..... + Fourthly, it may be applied to the <i>Weapon</i>, though the Party Hurt be + at a great Distance. Fifthly, it seemeth the <i>Imagination</i> of the + Party, to be <i>Cured</i>, is not needfull to Concurre; For it may be done + without the knowledge of the <i>Party Wounded</i>; And thus much hath been + tried, that the <i>Ointment</i> (for <i>Experiments</i> sake,) hath been + wiped off the <i>Weapon</i>, without the knowledge of the <i>Party Hurt</i>, + and presently the <i>Party Hurt</i>, hath been in great <i>Rage of Paine</i>, + till the <i>Weapon</i> was <i>Reannointed</i>. Sixthly, it is affirmed, + that if you cannot get the <i>Weapon</i>, yet if you put an <i>Instrument</i> + of <i>Iron</i>, or <i>Wood</i>, resembling the <i>Weapon</i>, into the <i>Wound</i>, + whereby it bleedeth, the <i>Annointing</i> of that <i>Instrument</i> will + serve, and work the <i>Effect</i>. This I doubt should be a Device, to + keep this strange <i>Forme of Cure</i>, in Request, and Use; Because many + times you cannot come by the <i>Weapon</i> it selve. Seventhly, the <i>Wound</i> + be at first <i>Washed clean</i> with <i>White Wine</i> or the <i>Parties</i> + own <i>Water</i>; And then bound up close in <i>Fine Linen</i> and no more + <i>Dressing</i> renewed, till it be <i>whole</i>."(1) + </p> + <p> + (1) FRANCIS BACON: <i>Sylva Sylvarum: or, A Natural History... Published + after the Authors death... The sixt Edition</i> ù.. (1651), p. 217. + </p> + <p> + Owing to the demand for making this ointment, quite a considerable trade + was done in skulls from Ireland upon which moss had grown owing to their + exposure to the atmosphere, high prices being obtained for fine specimens. + </p> + <p> + The idea underlying the belief in the efficacy of sympathetic remedies, + namely, that by acting on part of a thing or on a symbol of it, one + thereby acts magically on the whole or the thing symbolised, is the + root-idea of all magic, and is of extreme antiquity. DIGBY and others, + however, tried to give a natural explanation to the supposed efficacy of + the Powder. They argued that particles of the blood would ascend from the + bloody cloth or weapon, only coming to rest when they had reached their + natural home in the wound from which they had originally issued. These + particles would carry with them the more volatile part of the vitriol, + which would effect a cure more readily than when combined with the grosser + part of the vitriol. In the days when there was hardly any knowledge of + chemistry and physics, this theory no doubt bore every semblance of truth. + In passing, however, it is interesting to note that DIGBY'S <i>Discourse</i> + called forth a reply from J. F. HELVETIUS (or SCHWETTZER, 1625-1709), + physician to the Prince of Orange, who afterwards became celebrated as an + alchemist who had achieved the magnum opus.(1) + </p> + <p> + (1) See my <i>Alchemy: Ancient and Modern</i> (1911), SESE 63-67. + </p> + <p> + Writing of the Sympathetic Powder, Professor DE MORGAN wittily argues that + it must have been quite efficacious. He says: "The directions were to keep + the wound clean and cool, and to take care of diet, rubbing the salve on + the knife or sword. If we remember the dreadful notions upon drugs which + prevailed, both as to quantity and quality, we shall readily see that any + way of NOT dressing the wound would have been useful. If the physicians + had taken the hint, had been careful of diet, <i>etc</i>., and had poured + the little barrels of medicine down the throat of a practicable doll, THEY + would have had their magical cures as well as the surgeons."(2) As Dr + PETTIGREW has pointed out,(3) Nature exhibits very remarkable powers in + effecting the healing of wounds by adhesion, when her processes are not + impeded. In fact, many cases have been recorded in which noses, ears, and + fingers severed from the body have been rejoined thereto, merely by + washing the parts, placing them in close continuity, and allowing the + natural powers of the body to effect the healing. Moreover, in spite of + BACON'S remarks on this point, the effect of the imagination of the + patient, who was usually not ignorant that a sympathetic cure was to be + attempted, must be taken into account; for, without going to the excesses + of "Christian Science" in this respect, the fact must be recognised that + the state of the mind exercises a powerful effect on the natural forces of + the body, and a firm faith is undoubtedly helpful in effecting the cure of + any sort of ill. + </p> + <p> + (2) Professor AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN: <i>A Budget of Paradoxes</i> (1872), p + 66. + </p> + <p> + (3) THOMAS JOSEPH PETTIGREW, F.R.S.: <i>On Superstitions connected with + the History and Practice of Medicine and Surgery</i> (1844), pp. 164-167. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VI. THE BELIEF IN TALISMANS + </h2> + <p> + THE word "talisman" is derived from the Arabic "tilsam," "a magical + image," through the plural form "tilsamen." This Arabic word is itself + probably derived from the Greek telesma in its late meaning of "a + religious mystery" or "consecrated object". The term is often employed to + designate amulets in general, but, correctly speaking, it has a more + restricted and special significance. A talisman may be defined briefly as + an astrological or other symbol expressive of the influence and power of + one of the planets, engraved on a sympathetic stone or metal (or inscribed + on specially prepared parchment) under the auspices of this planet. + </p> + <p> + Before proceeding to an account of the preparation of talismans proper, it + will not be out of place to notice some of the more interesting and + curious of other amulets. All sorts of substances have been employed as + charms, sometimes of a very unpleasant nature, such as dried toads. + Generally, however, amulets consist of stones, herbs, or passages from + Sacred Writings written on paper. This latter class are sometimes called + "characts," as an example of which may be mentioned the Jewish + phylacteries. + </p> + <p> + Every precious stone was supposed to exercise its own peculiar virtue; for + instance, amber was regarded as a good remedy for throat troubles, and + agate was thought to preserve from snake-bites. ELIHU RICH(1) gives a very + full list of stones and their supposed virtues. Each sign of the zodiac + was supposed to have its own particular stone(2) (as shown in the annexed + table), and hence the superstitious though not inartistic custom of + wearing one's birth- + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Month (com- + Astrological mencing 21st + Sign of the Zodiac. of preceding + Symbol. month). Stone. +</pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Aries, the Ram . {} April Sardonyx. + Taurus the Bull . {} May Cornelian. + Gemini the Twins . {} June Topaz. + Cancer, the Crab . {} July Chalcedony. + Leo, the Lion . . {} August Jasper. + Virgo, the Virgin . {} September Emerald. + Libra, the Balance . {} October Beryl. + Scorpio, the Scorpion {} November Amethyst. + Sagittarius, the Archer {} December Hyacinth (=Sapphire). + Capricorn, the Goat . {} January Chrysoprase. + Aquarius, the Water- {} February Crystal. + bearer + Pisces, the Fishes . {} March Sapphire.(=Lapis lazuli). +</pre> + <p> + stone for "luck". The belief in the occult powers of certain stones is by + no means non-existent at the present day; for even in these enlightened + times there are not wanting those who fear the beautiful opal, and put + their faith in the virtues of New Zealand green-stone. + </p> + <p> + (1) ELIHU RICH: <i>The Occult Sciences (Encyclopaedia Metropolitana</i>, + 1855), pp. 348 <i>et seq</i>. + </p> + <p> + (2) With regard to these stones, however, there is much confusion and + difference of opinion. The arrangement adopted in the table here given is + that of CORNELIUS AGRIPPA (<i>Occult Philosophy</i>, bk. ii.). A + comparatively recent work, esteemed by modern occultists, namely, <i>The + Light of Egypt, or the Science of the Soul and the Stars</i> (1889), gives + the following scheme:— + </p> + <p> + {}=Amethyst. {}=Emerald. {}=Diamond. {}=Onyx (Chalcedony). + </p> + <p> + {}=Agate. {}=Ruby. {}=Topaz. {}=Sapphire (skyblue). + </p> + <p> + {}=Beryl. {}=Jasper. {}=Carbuncle. {}=Chrysolite. + </p> + <p> + Common superstitious opinion regarding birth-stones, as reflected, for + example, in the "lucky birth charms" exhibited in the windows of the + jewellers' shops, considerably diverges in this matter from the views of + both these authorities. The usual scheme is as follows:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Jan.=Garnet. May =Emerald. Sept.=Sapphire, + Feb.=Amethyst. June=Agate. Oct. =Opal. + Mar.=Bloodstone. July=Ruby. Nov. =Topaz. + Apr.=Diamond. Aug.=Sardonyx. Dec. =Turquoise. +</pre> + <p> + The bloodstone is frequently assigned either to Aries or Scorpio, owing to + its symbolical connection with Mars; and the opal to Cancer, which in + astrology is the constellation of the moon. + </p> + <p> + Confusion is rendered still worse by the fact that the ancients whilst in + some cases using the same names as ourselves, applied them to different + stones; thus their "hyacinth" is our "sapphire," whilst their "sapphire" + is our "lapis lazuli". + </p> + <p> + Certain herbs, culled at favourable conjunctions of the planets and worn + as amulets, were held to be very efficacious against various diseases. + Precious stones and metals were also taken internally for the same purpose—"remedies" + which in certain cases must have proved exceedingly harmful. One theory + put forward for the supposed medical value of amulets was the Doctrine of + Effluvia. This theory supposes the amulets to give off vapours or effluvia + which penetrate into the body and effect a cure. It is, of course, true + that certain herbs, <i>etc</i>., might, under the heat of the body, give + off such effluvia, but the theory on the whole is manifestly absurd. The + Doctrine of Signatures, which we have already encountered in our + excursions,(1) may also be mentioned in this connection as a complementary + and equally untenable hypothesis. + </p> + <p> + According to ELIHU RICH,(2) the following were the commonest Egyptian + amulets:— + </p> + <p> + 1. Those inscribed with the figure of <i>Serapis</i>, used to preserve + against evils inflicted by earth. + </p> + <p> + 2. Figure of <i>Canopus</i>, against evil by water. + </p> + <p> + 3. Figure of a <i>hawk</i>, against evil from the air. + </p> + <p> + 4. Figure of an <i>asp</i>, against evil by fire. + </p> + <p> + PARACELSUS believed there to be much occult virtue in an alloy of the + seven chief metals, which he called <i>Electrum</i>. Certain definite + proportions of these metals had to be taken, and each was to be added + during a favourable conjunction of the planets. From this electrum he + supposed that valuable amulets and magic mirrors could be prepared. + </p> + <p> + (1) See "Medicine and Magic." (2) <i>Op. Cit</i>., p. 343 + </p> + <p> + A curious and ancient amulet for the cure of various diseases, + particularly the ague, was a triangle formed of the letters of the word + "Abracadabra." The usual form was that shown in fig. 19, and that shown in + fig. 20 was also known. The origin of this magical word is lost in + obscurity. + </p> + <p> + The belief in the horn as a powerful amulet, especially prevalent in + Italy, where is it the custom of the common people to make the sign of the + <i>mano cornuto</i> to avoid the consequence of the dreaded <i>jettatore</i> + or evil eye, can be traced to the fact that the horn was the symbol of the + Goddess of the Moon. Probably the belief in the powers of the horse-shoe + had a similar origin. Indeed, it seems likely that not only this, but most + other amulets, like talismans proper—as will appear below,—were + originally designed as appeals to gods and other powerful spiritual + beings. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + \ ABRACADABRA / \ ABRACADABRA | + \ ABRACADABR / \ BRACADABRA | + \ ABRACADAB / \ RACADABRA | + \ ABRACADA / \ ACADABRA | + \ ABRACAD / \ CADABRA | + \ ABRACA / \ ADABRA | + \ ABRAC / \ DABRA | + \ ABRA / \ ABRA | + \ ABR / \ BRA | + \ AB / \ RA | + \ A/ \ A | + \/ \ | +</pre> + <p> + (1) See FREDERICK T. ELWORTHY'S <i>Horns of Honour</i> (1900), especially + pp. 56 <i>et seq</i>. + </p> + <p> + To turn our attention, however, to the art of preparing talismans proper: + I may remark at the outset that it was necessary for the talisman to be + prepared by one's own self—a task by no means easy as a rule. + Indeed, the right mental attitude of the occultist was insisted upon as + essential to the operation. + </p> + <p> + As to the various signs to be engraver on the talismans, various + authorities differ, though there are certain points connected with the art + of talismanic magic on which they all agree. It so happened that the + ancients were acquainted with seven metals and seven planets (including + the sun and moon as planets), and the days of the week are also seven. It + was concluded, therefore, that there was some occult connection between + the planets, metals, and days of the week. Each of the seven days of the + week was supposed to be under the auspices of the spirits of one of the + planets; so also was the generation in the womb of Nature of each of the + seven chief metals. + </p> + <p> + In the following table are shown these particulars in detail:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Planet. Symbol. Day of Metal. Colour. + + Sun. {} Sunday Gold Gold or yellow. + Moon. {} Monday Silver Silver or white. + Mars. {} Tuesday Iron Red. + Mercury {} Wednesday (1)Mercury Mixed colours or purple. + Jupiter {} Thursday Tin Violet or blue. + Venus {} Friday Copper Turquoise or green. + Saturn. {} Saturday Lead Black. +</pre> + <p> + (1) Used in the form of a solid amalgam for talismans. + </p> + <p> + Consequently, the metal of which a talisman was to be made, and also the + time of its preparation, had to be chosen with due regard to the planet + under which it was to be prepared.(1) The power of such a talisman was + thought to be due to the genie of this planet—a talisman, was, in + fact, a silent evocation of an astral spirit. Examples of the belief that + a genie can be bound up in an amulet in some way are afforded by the story + of ALADDIN'S lamp and ring and other stories in the <i>Thousand and One + Nights</i>. Sometimes the talismanic signs were engraved on precious + stones, sometimes they were inscribed on parchment; in both cases the same + principle held good, the nature of the stone chosen, or the colour of the + ink employed, being that in correspondence with the planet under whose + auspices the talisman was prepared. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> +(1) In this connection a rather surprising discovery made by Mr W. +GORNOLD (see his <i>A Manual of Occultism</i>, 1911, pp. 7 and 8) must be +mentioned. The ancient Chaldeans appear invariably to have enumerated +the planets in the following order: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, +Mercury, Moon—which order was adopted by the mediaeval astrologers. +Let us commence with the Sun in the above sequence, and write down every +third planet; we then have— Sun . . . . Sunday. + Moon. . . . Monday. + Mars. . . . Tuesday. + Mercury. . . . Wednesday. + Jupiter.. . . Thursday. + Venus. . . . Friday. + Saturn. . . . Saturday. +</pre> + <p> + That is to say, we have the planets in the order in which they were + supposed to rule over the days of the week. This is perhaps, not so + surprising, because it seems probable that, each day being first divided + into twenty-four hours, it was assumed that the planets ruled for one hour + in turn, in the order first mentioned above. Each day was then named after + the planet which ruled during its first hour. It will be found that if we + start with the Sun and write down every twenty-fourth planet, the result + is exactly the same as if we write down every third. But Mr OLD points out + further, doing so by means of a diagram which seems to be rather + cumbersome that if we start with Saturn in the first place, and write down + every fifth planet, and then for each planet substitute the metal over + which it was supposed to rule, we then have these metals arranged in + descending order of atomic weights, thus:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Saturn . . . Lead (=207). + Mercury . . . Mercury (=200). + Sun. . . . Gold (=197). + Jupiter . . . Tin (=119). + Moon. . . . Silver (=108). + Venus . . Copper (=64). + Mars. . . . Iron (=56). +</pre> + <p> + Similarly we can, starting from any one of these orders, pass to the other + two. The fact is a very surprising one, because the ancients could not + possibly have been acquainted with the atomic weights of the metals, and, + it is important to note, the order of the densities of these metals, which + might possibly have been known to them, is by no means the same as the + order of their atomic weights. Whether the fact indicates a real + relationship between the planets and the metals, or whether there is some + other explanation, I am not prepared to say. Certainly some explanation is + needed: to say that the fact is mere coincidence is unsatisfactory, seeing + that the odds against, not merely this, but any such regularity occurring + by chance—as calculated by the mathematical theory of probability—are + 119 to 1. + </p> + <p> + All the instruments employed in the art had to be specially prepared and + consecrated. Special robes had to be worn, perfumes and incense burnt, and + invocations, conjurations, <i>etc</i>., recited, all of which depended on + the planet ruling the operation. A description of a few typical talismans + in detail will not here be out of place. + </p> + <p> + In <i>The Key of Solomon the King</i> (translated by S. L. M. MATHERS, + 1889)(1) are described five, six, or seven talismans for each planet. Each + of these was supposed to have its own peculiar virtues, and many of them + are stated to be of use in the evocation of spirits. The majority of them + consist of a central design encircled by a verse of Hebrew Scripture. The + central designs are of a varied character, generally geometrical figures + and Hebrew letters or words, or magical characters. Five of these + talismans are here portrayed, the first three described differing from the + above. The translations of the Hebrew verses, <i>etc</i>., given below are + due to Mr MATHERS. + </p> + <p> + (1) The <i>Clavicula Salomonis</i>, or <i>Key of Solomon the King</i>, + consists mainly of an elaborate ritual for the evocation of the various + planetary spirits, in which process the use of talismans or pentacles + plays a prominent part. It is claimed to be a work of white magic, but, + inasmuch as it, like other old books making the same claim, gives + descriptions of a pentacle for causing ruin, destruction, and death, and + another for causing earthquakes—to give only two examples,—the + distinction between black and white magic, which we shall no doubt + encounter again in later excursions, appears to be somewhat arbitrary. + </p> + <p> + Regarding the authorship of the work, Mr MATHERS, translator and editor of + the first printed copy of the book, says, "I see no reason to doubt the + tradition which assigns the authorship of the 'Key' to King Solomon." If + this view be accepted, however, it is abundantly evident that the <i>Key</i> + as it stands at present (in which we find S. JOHN quoted, and mention made + of SS. PETER and PAUL) must have received some considerable alterations + and additions at the hands of later editors. But even if we are compelled + to assign the <i>Clavicula Salomonis</i> in its present form to the + fourteenth or fifteenth century, we must, I think, allow that it was based + upon traditions of the past, and, of course, the possibility remains that + it might have been based upon some earlier work. With regard to the + antiquity of the planetary sigils, Mr MATHERS notes "that, among the + Gnostic talismans in the British Museum, there is a ring of copper with + the sigils of Venus, which are exactly the same as those given by + mediaeval writers on magic." + </p> + <p> + In spite of the absurdity of its claims, viewed in the light of modern + knowledge, the <i>Clavicula Salomonis</i> exercised a considerable + influence in the past, and is to be regarded as one of the chief sources + of mediaeval ceremonial magic. Historically speaking, therefore, it is a + book of no little importance. + </p> + <p> + <i>The First Pentacle of the Sun</i>.—"The Countenance of Shaddai + the Almighty, at Whose aspect all creatures obey, and the Angelic Spirits + do reverence on bended knees." About the face is the name "El Shaddai". + Around is written in Latin: "Behold His face and form by Whom all things + were made, and Whom all creatures obey" (see fig. 21). + </p> + <p> + <i>The Fifth Pentacle of Mars</i>.—"Write thou this Pentacle upon + virgin parchment or paper because it is terrible unto the Demons, and at + its sight and aspect they will obey thee, for they cannot resist its + presence." The design is a Scorpion,(1) around which the word Hvl is + repeated. The Hebrew versicle is from <i>Psalm</i> xci. 13: "Thou shalt go + upon the lion and adder, the young lion and the dragon shalt thou tread + under thy feet" (see fig. 22). + </p> + <p> + (1) In astrology the zodiacal sign of the scorpion is the "night house" of + the planet Mars. + </p> + <p> + <i>The Third Pentacle of the Moon</i>.—"This being duly borne with + thee when upon a journey, if it be properly made, serveth against all + attacks by night, and against every kind of danger and peril by Water." + The design consists of a hand and sleeved forearm (this occurs on three + other moon talismans), together with the Hebrew names Aub and Vevaphel. + The versicle is from <i>Psalm</i> xl. 13: "Be pleased O IHVH to deliver + me, O IHVH make haste to help me" (see fig 23) + </p> + <p> + <i>The Third Pentacle of Venus</i>.—"This, if it be only shown unto + any person, serveth to attract love. Its Angel Monachiel should be invoked + in the day and hour of Venus, at one o'clock or at eight." The design + consists of two triangles joined at their apices, with the following names—IHVH, + Adonai, Ruach, Achides, AEgalmiel, Monachiel, and Degaliel. The versicle + is from <i>Genesis</i> i. 28: "And the Elohim blessed them, and the Elohim + said unto them, Be ye fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and + subdue it" (see fig. 24). + </p> + <p> + <i>The Third Pentacle of Mercury</i>.—"This serves to invoke the + Spirits subject unto Mercury; and especially those who are written in this + Pentacle." The design consists of crossed lines and magical characters of + Mercury. Around are the names of the angels, Kokaviel, Ghedoriah, + Savaniah, and Chokmahiel (see fig. 25). + </p> + <p> + CORNELIUS AGRIPPA, in his <i>Three Books of Occult Philosophy</i>, + describes another interesting system of talismans. FRANCIS BARRETT'S <i>Magus, + or Celestial Intelligencer</i>, a well-known occult work published in the + first year of the nineteenth century, I may mention, copies AGRIPPA'S + system of talismans, without acknowledgment, almost word for word. To each + of the planets is assigned a magic square or table, <i>i.e</i>. a square + composed of numbers so arranged that the sum of each row or column is + always the same. For example, the table for Mars is as follows:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + 11 24 7 20 3 + 4 12 25 8 16 + 17 5 13 21 9 + 10 18 1 14 22 + 23 6 19 2 15 +</pre> + <p> + It will be noticed that every number from 1 up to the highest possible + occurs once, and that no number occurs twice. It will also be seen that + the sum of each row and of each column is always 65. Similar squares can + be constructed containing any square number of figures, and it is, indeed, + by no means surprising that the remarkable properties of such "magic + squares," before these were explained mathematically, gave rise to the + belief that they had some occult significance and virtue. From the magic + squares can be obtained certain numbers which are said to be the numbers + of the planets; their orderliness, we are told, reflects the order of the + heavens, and from a consideration of them the magical properties of the + planets which they represent can be arrived at. For example, in the above + table the number of rows of numbers is 5. The total number of numbers in + the table is the square of this number, namely, 25, which is also the + greatest number in the table. The sum of any row or column is 65. And, + finally, the sum of all the numbers is the product of the number of rows + (namely, 5) and the sum of any row (namely, 65), <i>i.e</i>. 325. These + numbers, namely, 5, 25, 65, and 325, are the numbers of Mars. Sets of + numbers for the other planets are obtained in exactly the same manner.(1) + </p> + <p> + (1) Readers acquainted with mathematics will notice that if <i>n</i> is + the number of rows in such a "magic square," the other numbers derived as + above will be n[2S], 1/2<i>n</i>(<i>n</i>[2S] + 1), and 1/2<i>n</i>[2S](<i>n</i>[2S] + + 1). This can readily be proved by the laws of arithmetical progressions. + Rather similar but more complicated and less uniform "magic squares" are + attributed to PARACELSUS. + </p> + <p> + Now to each planet is assigned an Intelligence or good spirit, and an Evil + Spirit or demon; and the names of these spirits are related to certain of + the numbers of the planets. The other numbers are also connected with holy + and magical Hebrew names. AGRIPPA, and BARRETT copying him, gives the + following table of "names answering to the numbers of Mars":— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + 5. He, the letter of the holy name. [hb ] + 25. [hb ___] + 65. Adonai. [hb ____] + 325. Graphiel, the Intelligence of Mars. [hb _______] + 325. Barzabel, the Spirit of Mars. [hb _______] +</pre> + <p> + Similar tables are given for the other planets. The numbers can be derived + from the names by regarding the Hebrew letters of which they are composed + as numbers, in which case [hb ] (Aleph) to [hb ] (Teth) represent the + units 1 to 9 in order, [hb ] (Jod) to [hb ] (Tzade) the tens 10 to 90 in + order, [hb ] (Koph) to [hb ] (Tau) the hundreds 100 to 400, whilst the + hundreds 500 to 900 are represented by special terminal forms of certain + of the Hebrew letters.(2) It is evident that no little wasted ingenuity + must have been employed in working all this out. + </p> + <p> + (2) It may be noticed that this makes [hb _______] equal to 326, one unit + too much. Possibly an Alelph should be omitted. + </p> + <p> + Each planet has its own seal or signature, as well as the signature of its + intelligence and the signature of its demon. These signatures were + supposed to represent the characters of the planets' intelligences and + demons respectively. The signature of Mars is shown in fig. 26, that of + its intelligence in fig. 27, and that of its demon in fig. 28. + </p> + <p> + These various details were inscribed on the talismans each of which was + supposed to confer its own peculiar benefits—as follows: On one side + must be engraved the proper magic table and the astrological sign of the + planet, together with the highest planetary number, the sacred names + corresponding to the planet, and the name of the intelligence of the + planet, but not the name of its demon. On the other side must be engraved + the seals of the planet and of its intelligence, and also the astrological + sign. BARRETT says, regarding the demons:(1) "It is to be understood that + the intelligences are the presiding good angels that are set over the + planets; but that the spirits or daemons, with their names, seals, or + characters, are never inscribed upon any Talisman, except to execute any + evil effect, and that they are subject to the intelligences, or good + spirits; and again, when the spirits and their characters are used, it + will be more conducive to the effect to add some divine name appropriate + to that effect which we desire." Evil talismans can also be prepared, we + are informed, by using a metal antagonistic to the signs engraved thereon. + The complete talisman of Mars is shown in fig. 29. + </p> + <p> + (1) FRANCIS BARRETT: <i>The Magus, or Celestial Intelligencer</i> (1801), + bk. i. p. 146. + </p> + <p> + ALPHONSE LOUIS CONSTANT,(1) a famous French occultist of the nineteenth + century, who wrote under the name of "ELIPHAS LEVI," describes yet another + system of talismans. He says: "The Pentagram must be always engraved on + one side of the talisman, with a circle for the Sun, a crescent for the + Moon, a winged caduceus for Mercury, a sword for Mars, a G for Venus, a + crown for Jupiter, and a scythe for Saturn. The other side of the talisman + should bear the sign of Solomon, that is, the six-pointed star formed by + two interlaced triangles; in the centre there should be placed a human + figure for the sun talismans, a cup for those of the Moon, a dog's head + for those of Jupiter, a lion for those of Mars, a dove's for those of + Venus, a bull's or goat's for those of Saturn. The names of the seven + angels should be added either in Hebrew, Arabic, or magic characters + similar to those of the alphabets of Trimethius. The two triangles of + Solomon may be replaced by the double cross of Ezekiel's wheels, this + being found on a great number of ancient pentacles. All objects of this + nature, whether in metals or in precious stones, should be carefully + wrapped in silk satchels of a colour analogous to the spirit of the + planet, perfumed with the perfumes of the corresponding day, and preserved + from all impure looks and touches."(2) + </p> + <p> + (1) For a biographical and critical account of this extraordinary + personage and his views, see Mr A. E. WAITE'S <i>The Mysteries of Magic: a + Digest of the writings of</i> ELIPHAS LEVI (1897). + </p> + <p> + (2) <i>Op. cit</i>., p. 201. + </p> + <p> + ELIPHAS LEVI, following PYTHAGORAS and many of the mediaeval magicians, + regarded the pentagram, or five-pointed star, as an extremely powerful + pentacle. According to him, if with one horn in the ascendant it is the + sign of the microcosm—Man. With two horns in the ascendant, however, + it is the sign of the Devil, "the accursed Goat of Mendes," and an + instrument of black magic. We can, indeed, trace some faint likeness + between the pentagram and the outline form of a man, or of a goat's head, + according to whether it has one or two horns in the ascendant + respectively, which resemblances may account for this idea. Fig. 30 shows + the pentagram embellished with other symbols according to ELIPHAS LEVI, + whilst fig. 31 shows his embellished form of the six-pointed star, or Seal + of SOLOMON. This, he says, is "the sign of the Macrocosmos, but is less + powerful than the Pentagram, the microcosmic sign," thus contradicting + PYTHAGORAS, who, as we have seen, regarded the pentagram as the sign of + the Macrocosm. ELIPHAS LEVI asserts that he attempted the evocation of the + spirit of APOLLONIUS of Tyana in London on 24th July 1854, by the aid of a + pentagram and other magical apparatus and ritual, apparently with success, + if we may believe his word. But he sensibly suggests that probably the + apparition which appeared was due to the effect of the ceremonies on his + own imagination, and comes to the conclusion that such magical experiments + are injurious to health.(1) + </p> + <p> + (1) <i>Op cit</i>. pp. 446-450. + </p> + <p> + Magical rings were prepared on the same principle as were talismans. Says + CORNELIUS AGRIPPA: "The manner of making these kinds of Magical Rings is + this, viz.: When any Star ascends fortunately, with the fortunate aspect + or conjunction of the Moon, we must take a stone and herb that is under + that Star, and make a ring of the metal that is suitable to this Star, and + in it fasten the stone, putting the herb or root under it—not + omitting the inscriptions of images, names, and characters, as also the + proper suffumigations...."(1) SOLOMON'S ring was supposed to have been + possessed of remarkable occult virtue. Says JOSEPHUS (<i>c</i>. A.D. + 37-100): "God also enabled him (SOLOMON) to learn that skill which expels + demons, which is a science useful and sanative to men. He composed such + incantations also by which distempers are alleviated. And he left behind + him the manner of using exorcisms, by which they drive away demons, so + that they never return; and this method of cure is of great force unto + this day; for I have seen a certain man of my own country, whose name was + Eleazar, releasing people that were demoniacal in the presence of + Vespasian, and his sons, and his captains, and the whole multitude of his + soldiers. The manner of the cure was this; he put a ring that had under + the seal a root of one of those sorts mentioned by Solomon, to the + nostrils of the demoniac, after which he drew out the demon through his + nostrils: and when the man fell down immediately, he abjured him to return + unto him no more, making still mention of Solomon, and reciting the + incantations which he composed."(2) + </p> + <p> + (1) H. C. AGRIPPA: <i>Occult Philosophy</i>, bk. i. chap. xlvii. + (WHITEHEAD'S edition, pp. 141 and 142). + </p> + <p> + (2) FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS: <i>The Antiquities of the Jews</i> (trans. by W. + WHISTON), bk. viii. chap. ii., SE 5 (45) to (47). + </p> + <p> + Enough has been said already to indicate the general nature of talismanic + magic. No one could maintain otherwise than that much of it is pure + nonsense; but the subject should not, therefore, be dismissed as + valueless, or lacking significance. It is past belief that amulets and + talismans should have been believed in for so long unless they APPEARED to + be productive of some of the desired results, though these may have been + due to forces quite other than those which were supposed to be operative. + Indeed, it may be said that there has been no widely held superstition + which does not embody some truth, like some small specks of gold hidden in + an uninviting mass of quartz. As the poet BLAKE put it: "Everything + possible to be believ'd is an image of truth";(1) and the attempt may here + be made to extract the gold of truth from the quartz of superstition + concerning talismanic magic. For this purpose the various theories + regarding the supposed efficacy of talismans must be examined. + </p> + <p> + (1) "Proverbs of Hell" (<i>The Marriage of Heaven and Hell</i>). + </p> + <p> + Two of these theories have already been noted, but the doctrine of + effluvia admittedly applied only to a certain class of amulets, and, I + think, need not be seriously considered. The "astral-spirit theory" (as it + may be called), in its ancient form at any rate, is equally untenable + to-day. The discoveries of new planets and new metals seem destructive of + the belief that there can be any occult connection between planets, + metals, and the days of the week, although the curious fact discovered by + Mr OLD, to which I have referred (footnote, p. 63@@@), assuredly demands + an explanation, and a certain validity may, perhaps, be allowed to + astrological symbolism. As concerns the belief in the existence of what + may be called (although the term is not a very happy one) "discarnate + spirits," however, the matter, in view of the modern investigation of + spiritistic and other abnormal psychical phenomena, stands in a different + position. There can, indeed, be little doubt that very many of the + phenomena observed at spiritistic seances come under the category of + deliberate fraud, and an even larger number, perhaps, can be explained on + the theory of the subconscious self. I think, however, that the evidence + goes to show that there is a residuum of phenomena which can only be + explained by the operation, in some way, of discarnate intelligences.(1) + Psychical research may be said to have supplied the modern world with the + evidence of the existence of discarnate personalities, and of their + operation on the material plane, which the ancient world lacked. But so + far as our present subject is concerned, all the evidence obtainable goes + to show that the phenomena in question only take place in the presence of + what is called "a medium"—a person of peculiar nervous or psychical + organisation. That this is the case, moreover, appears to be the general + belief of spiritists on the subject. In the sense, then, in which "a + talisman" connotes a material object of such a nature that by its aid the + powers of discarnate intelligences may become operative on material + things, we might apply the term "talisman" to the nervous system of a + medium: but then that would be the only talisman. Consequently, even if + one is prepared to admit the whole of modern spiritistic theory, nothing + is thereby gained towards a belief in talismans, and no light is shed upon + the subject. + </p> + <p> + (1) The publications of The Society for Psychical Research, and FREDERICK + MYERS' monumental work on <i>Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily + Death</i>, should be specially consulted. I have attempted a brief + discussion of modern spiritualism and psychical research in my <i>Matter, + Spirit, and the Cosmos</i> (1910), chap. ii. + </p> + <p> + Another theory concerning talismans which commended itself to many of the + old occult philosophers, PARACELSUS for instance, is what may be called + the "occult force" theory. This theory assumes the existence of an occult + mental force, a force capable of being exerted by the human will, apart + from its usual mode of operation by means of the body. It was believed to + be possible to concentrate this mental energy and infuse it into some + suitable medium, with the production of a talisman, which was thus + regarded as a sort of accumulator for mental energy. The theory seems a + fantastic one to modern thought, though, in view of the many startling + phenomena brought to light by psychical research, it is not advisable to + be too positive regarding the limitations of the powers of the human mind. + However, I think we shall find the element of truth in the otherwise + absurd belief in talismans by means of what may be called, not altogether + fancifully perhaps, a transcendental interpretation of this "occult force" + theory. I suggest, that is, that when a believer makes a talisman, the + transference of the occult energy is ideal, not actual; that the power, + believed to reside in the talisman itself, is the power due to the reflex + action of the believer's mind. The power of what transcendentalists call + "the imagination" cannot be denied; for example, no one can deny that a + man with a firm conviction that such a success will be achieved by him, or + such a danger avoided, will be far more likely to gain his desire, other + conditions being equal, than one of a pessimistic turn of mind. The mere + conviction itself is a factor in success, or a factor in failure, + according to its nature; and it seems likely that herein will be found a + true explanation of the effects believed to be due to the power of the + talisman. + </p> + <p> + On the other hand, however, we must beware of the exaggerations into which + certain schools of thought have fallen in their estimates of the powers of + the imagination. These exaggerations are particularly marked in the views + which are held by many nowadays with regard to "faith-healing," although + the "Christian Scientists" get out of the difficulty—at least to + their own satisfaction—by ascribing their alleged cures to the Power + of the Divine Mind, and not to the power of the individual mind. + </p> + <p> + Of course the real question involved in this "transcendental theory of + talismans" as I may, perhaps, call it, is that of the operation of + incarnate spirit on the plane of matter. This operation takes place only + through the medium of the nervous system, and it has been suggested,(1) to + avoid any violation of the law of the conservation of energy, that it is + effected, not by the transference, as is sometimes supposed, of energy + from the spiritual to the material plane, but merely by means of directive + control over the expenditure of energy derived by the body from purely + physical sources, <i>e.g</i>. the latent chemical energy bound up in the + food eaten and the oxygen breathed. + </p> + <p> + (1) <i>Cf</i> Sir OLIVER LODGE: <i>Life and Matter</i> (1907), especially + chap. ix.; and W. HIBBERT, F.I.C.: <i>Life and Energy</i> (1904). + </p> + <p> + I am not sure that this theory really avoids the difficulty which it is + intended to obviate;(1) but it is at least an interesting one, and at any + rate there may be modes in which the body, under the directive control of + the spirit, may expend energy derived from the material plane, of which we + know little or nothing. We have the testimony of many eminent + authorities(2) to the phenomenon of the movement of physical objects + without contact at spiritistic seances. It seems to me that the + introduction of discarnate intelligences to explain this phenomenon is + somewhat gratuitous—the psychic phenomena which yield evidence of + the survival of human personality after bodily death are of a different + character. For if we suppose this particular phenomenon to be due to + discarnate spirits, we must, in view of what has been said concerning + "mediums," conclude that the movements in question are not produced by + these spirits DIRECTLY, but through and by means of the nervous system of + the medium present. Evidently, therefore, the means for the production of + the phenomenon reside in the human nervous system (or, at any rate, in the + peculiar nervous system of "mediums"), and all that is lacking is + intelligence or initiative to use these means. This intelligence or + initiative can surely be as well supplied by the sub-consciousness as by a + discarnate intelligence. Consequently, it does not seem unreasonable to + suppose that equally remarkable phenomena may have been produced by the + aid of talismans in the days when these were believed in, and may be + produced to-day, if one has sufficient faith—that is to say, + produced by man when in the peculiar condition of mind brought about by + the intense belief in the power of a talisman. And here it should be noted + that the term "talisman" may be applied to any object (or doctrine) that + is believed to possess peculiar power or efficacy. In this fact, I think, + is to be found the peculiar danger of erroneous doctrines which promise + extraordinary benefits, here and now on the material plane, to such as + believe in them. Remarkable results may follow an intense belief in such + doctrines, which, whilst having no connection whatever with their + accuracy, being proportional only to the intensity with which they are + held, cannot do otherwise than confirm the believer in the validity of his + beliefs, though these may be in every way highly fantastic and erroneous. + Both the Roman Catholic, therefore, and the Buddhist may admit many of the + marvels attributed to the relics of each other's saints; though, in + denying that these marvels prove the accuracy of each other's religious + doctrines, each should remember that the same is true of his own. + </p> + <p> + (1) The subject is rather too technical to deal with here. I have + discussed it elsewhere; see "Thermo-Dynamical Objections to the Mechanical + Theory of Life," <i>The Chemical News</i>, vol. cxii. pp. 271 <i>et seq</i>. + (3rd December 1915). + </p> + <p> + (2) For instance, the well-known physicist, Sir W. F. BARRETT, F.R.S. + (late Professor of Experimental Physics in The Royal College of Science + for Ireland). See his <i>On the Threshold of a New World of Thought</i> + (1908), SE 10. + </p> + <p> + In illustration of the real power of the imagination, I may instance the + Maori superstition of the Taboo. According to the Maories, anyone who + touches a tabooed object will assuredly die, the tabooed object being a + sort of "anti-talisman". Professor FRAZER(1) says: "Cases have been known + of Maories dying of sheer fright on learning that they had unwittingly + eaten the remains of a chief's dinner or handled something that belonged + to him," since such objects were, <i>ipso facto</i>, tabooed. He gives the + following case on good authority: "A woman, having partaken of some fine + peaches from a basket, was told that they had come from a tabooed place. + Immediately the basket dropped from her hands and she cried out in agony + that the atua or godhead of the chief, whose divinity had been thus + profaned, would kill her. That happened in the afternoon, and next day by + twelve o'clock she was dead." For us the power of the taboo does not + exist; for the Maori, who implicitly believes in it, it is a very potent + reality, but this power of the taboo resides not in external objects but + in his own mind. + </p> + <p> + (1) Professor J. G. FRAZER, D.C.L.: <i>Psyche's Task</i> (1909), p. 7. + </p> + <p> + Dr HADDON(2) quotes a similar but still more remarkable story of a young + Congo negro which very strikingly shows the power of the imagination. The + young negro, "being on a journey, lodged at a friend's house; the latter + got a wild hen for his breakfast, and the young man asked if it were a + wild hen. His host answered 'No.' Then he fell on heartily, and afterwards + proceeded on his journey. After four years these two met together again, + and his old friend asked him 'if he would eat a wild hen,' to which he + answered that it was tabooed to him. Hereat the host began immediately to + laugh, inquiring of him, 'What made him refuse it now, when he had eaten + one at his table about four years ago?' At the hearing of this the negro + immediately fell a-trembling, and suffered himself to be so far possessed + with the effects of imagination that he died in less than twenty-four + hours after." + </p> + <p> + (2) ALFRED C. HADDON, SC.D., F.R.S.: <i>Magic and Fetishism</i> (1906), p. + 56. + </p> + <p> + There are, of course, many stories about amulets, <i>etc</i>., which + cannot be thus explained. For example, ELIHU RICH gives the following:— + </p> + <p> + "In 1568, we are told (Transl. of Salverte, p. 196) that the Prince of + Orange condemned a Spanish prisoner to be shot at Juliers. The soldiers + tied him to a tree and fired, but he was invulnerable. They then stripped + him to see what armour he wore, but they found only an amulet bearing the + figure of a lamb (the <i>Agnus Dei</i>, we presume). This was taken from + him, and he was then killed by the first shot. De Baros relates that the + Portuguese in like manner vainly attempted to destroy a Malay, so long as + he wore a bracelet containing a bone set in gold, which rendered him proof + against their swords. A similar marvel is related in the travels of the + veracious Marco Polo. 'In an attempt of Kublai Khan to make a conquest of + the island of Zipangu, a jealousy arose between the two commanders of the + expedition, which led to an order for putting the whole garrison to the + sword. In obedience to this order, the heads of all were cut off excepting + of eight persons, who by the efficacy of a diabolical charm, consisting of + a jewel or amulet introduced into the right arm, between the skin and the + flesh, were rendered secure from the effects of iron, either to kill or + wound. Upon this discovery being made, they were beaten with a heavy + wooden club, and presently died.'" + </p> + <p> + (1) I think, however, that these, and many similar stories, must be taken + <i>cum grano salis</i>. + </p> + <p> + In conclusion, mention must be made of a very interesting and suggestive + philosophical doctrine—the Law of Correspondences,—due in its + explicit form to the Swedish philosopher, who was both scientist and + mystic, EMANUEL SWEDENBORG. To deal in any way adequately with this + important topic is totally impossible within the confines of the present + discussion.(2) But, to put the matter as briefly as possible, it may be + said that SWEDENBORG maintains (and the conclusion, I think, is valid) + that all causation is from the spiritual world, physical causation being + but secondary, or apparent—that is to say, a mere reflection, as it + were, of the true process. He argues from this, thereby supplying a + philosophical basis for the unanimous belief of the nature-mystics, that + every natural object is the symbol (because the creation) of an idea or + spiritual verity in its widest sense. Thus, there are symbols which are + inherent in the nature of things, and symbols which are not. The former + are genuine, the latter merely artificial. Writing from the transcendental + point of view, ELIPHAS LEVI says: "Ceremonies, vestments, perfumes, + characters and figures being...necessary to enlist the imagination in the + education of the will, the success of magical works depends upon the + faithful observance of all the rites, which are in no sense fantastic or + arbitrary, having been transmitted to us by antiquity, and permanently + subsisting by the essential laws of analogical realisation and of the + correspondence which inevitably connects ideas and forms."(1b) Some + scepticism, perhaps, may be permitted as to the validity of the latter + part of this statement, and the former may be qualified by the proviso + that such things are only of value in the right education of the will, if + they are, indeed, genuine, and not merely artificial, symbols. But the + writer, as I think will be admitted, has grasped the essential point, and, + to conclude our excursion, as we began it, with a definition, I will say + that <i>the power of the talisman is the power of the mind (or + imagination) brought into activity by means of a suitable symbol</i>. + </p> + <p> + (1) ELIHU RICH: <i>The Occult Sciences</i>, p. 346. + </p> + <p> + (2) I may refer the reader to my <i>A Mathematical Theory of Spirit</i> + (1912), chap. i., for a more adequate statement. + </p> + <p> + (1b) ELIPHAS LEVI: <i>Transcendental Magic: its Doctrine and Ritual</i> + (trans. by A. E. WAITE, 1896), p. 234. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VII. CEREMONIAL MAGIC IN THEORY AND PRACTICE + </h2> + <p> + THE word "magic," if one may be permitted to say so, is itself almost + magical—magical in its power to conjure up visions in the human + mind. For some these are of bloody rites, pacts with the powers of + darkness, and the lascivious orgies of the Saturnalia or Witches' Sabbath; + in other minds it has pleasanter associations, serving to transport them + from the world of fact to the fairyland of fancy, where the purse of + FORTUNATUS, the lamp and ring of ALADDIN, fairies, gnomes, jinn, and + innumerable other strange beings flit across the scene in a marvellous + kaleidoscope of ever-changing wonders. To the study of the magical beliefs + of the past cannot be denied the interest and fascination which the + marvellous and wonderful ever has for so many minds, many of whom, + perhaps, cannot resist the temptation of thinking that there may be some + element of truth in these wonderful stories. But the study has a greater + claim to our attention; for, as I have intimated already, magic represents + a phase in the development of human thought, and the magic of the past was + the womb from which sprang the science of the present, unlike its parent + though it be. + </p> + <p> + What then is magic? According to the dictionary definition—and this + will serve us for the present—it is the (pretended) art of producing + marvellous results by the aid of spiritual beings or arcane spiritual + forces. Magic, therefore, is the practical complement of animism. Wherever + man has really believed in the existence of a spiritual world, there do we + find attempts to enter into communication with that world's inhabitants + and to utilise its forces.Professor LEUBA(1) and others distinguish + between propitiative behaviour towards the beings of the spiritual world, + as marking the religious attitude, and coercive behaviour towards these + beings as characteristic of the magical attitude; but one form of + behaviour merges by insensible degrees into the other, and the distinction + (though a useful one) may, for our present purpose, be neglected. + </p> + <p> + (1) JAMES H. LEUBA: <i>The Psychological Origin and the Nature of Religion</i> + (1909), chap. ii. + </p> + <p> + Animism, "the Conception of Spirit everywhere" as Mr EDWARD CLODD(2) + neatly calls it, and perhaps man's earliest view of natural phenomena, + persisted in a modified form, as I have pointed out in "Some + Characteristics of Mediaeval Thought," throughout the Middle Ages. A + belief in magic persisted likewise. In the writings of the Greek + philosophers of the Neo-Platonic school, in that curious body of esoteric + Jewish lore known as the Kabala, and in the works of later occult + philosophers such as AGRIPPA and PARACELSUS, we find magic, or rather the + theory upon which magic as an art was based, presented in its most + philosophical form. If there is anything of value for modern thought in + the theory of magic, here is it to be found; and it is, I think, indeed to + be found, absurd and fantastic though the practices based upon this + philosophy, or which this philosophy was thought to substantiate, most + certainly are. I shall here endeavour to give a sketch of certain of the + outstanding doctrines of magical philosophy, some details concerning the + art of magic, more especially as practiced in the Middle Ages in Europe, + and, finally, an attempt to extract from the former what I consider to be + of real worth. We have already wandered down many of the byways of magical + belief, and, indeed, the word "magic" may be made to cover almost every + superstition of the past: To what we have already gained on previous + excursions the present, I hope, will add what we need in order to take a + synthetic view of the whole subject. + </p> + <p> + (2) EDWARD CLODD: <i>Animism the Seed of Religion</i> (1905), p. 26. + </p> + <p> + In the first place, something must be said concerning what is called the + Doctrine of Emanations, a theory of prime importance in Neo-Platonic and + Kabalistic ontology. According to this theory, everything in the universe + owes its existence and virtue to an emanation from God, which divine + emanation is supposed to descend, step by step (so to speak), through the + hierarchies of angels and the stars, down to the things of earth, that + which is nearer to the Source containing more of the divine nature than + that which is relatively distant. As CORNELIUS AGRIPPA expresses it: "For + God, in the first place is the end and beginning of all Virtues; he gives + the seal of #the <i>Ideas</i> to his servants, the Intelligences; who as + faithful officers, sign all things intrusted to them with an Ideal Virtue; + the Heavens and Stars, as instruments, disposing the matter in the mean + while for the receiving of those forms which reside in Divine Majesty (as + saith Plato in Timeus) and to be conveyed by Stars; and the Giver of Forms + distributes them by the ministry of his Intelligences, which he hath set + as Rulers and Controllers over his Works, to whom such a power is + intrusted to things committed to them that so all Virtues of Stones, + Herbs, Metals, and all other things may come from the Intelligences, the + Governors. The Form, therefore, and Virtue of things comes first from the + <i>Ideas</i>, then from the ruling and governing Intelligences, then from + the aspects of the Heavens disposing, and lastly from the tempers of the + Elements disposed, answering the influences of the Heavens, by which the + Elements themselves are ordered, or disposed. These kinds of operations, + therefore, are performed in these inferior things by express forms, and in + the Heavens by disposing virtues, in Intelligences by mediating rules, in + the Original Cause by <i>Ideas</i> and exemplary forms, all which must of + necessity agree in the execution of the effect and virtue of every thing. + </p> + <p> + "There is, therefore, a wonderful virtue and operation in every Herb and + Stone, but greater in a Star, beyond which, even from the governing + Intelligences everything receiveth and obtains many things for itself, + especially from the Supreme Cause, with whom all things do mutually and + exactly correspond, agreeing in an harmonious consent, as it were in hymns + always praising the highest Maker of all things.... There is, therefore, + no other cause of the necessity of effects than the connection of all + things with the First Cause, and their correspondency with those Divine + patterns and eternal <i>Ideas</i> whence every thing hath its determinate + and particular place in the exemplary world, from whence it lives and + receives its original being: And every virtue of herbs, stones, metals, + animals, words and speeches, and all things that are of God, is placed + there."(1) As compared with the <i>ex nihilo</i> creationism of orthodox + theology, this theory is as light is to darkness. Of course, there is much + in CORNELIUS AGRIPPA'S statement of it which is inacceptable to modern + thought; but these are matters of form merely, and do not affect the + doctrine fundamentally. For instance, as a nexus between spirit and matter + AGRIPPA places the stars: modern thought prefers the ether. The theory of + emanations may be, and was, as a matter of fact, made the justification of + superstitious practices of the grossest absurdity, but on the other hand + it may be made the basis of a lofty system of transcendental philosophy, + as, for instance, that of EMANUEL SWEDENBORG, whose ontology resembles in + some respects that of the Neo-Platonists. AGRIPPA uses the theory to + explain all the marvels which his age accredited, marvels which we know + had for the most part no existence outside of man's imagination. I + suggest, on the contrary, that the theory is really needed to explain the + commonplace, since, in the last analysis, every bit of experience, every + phenomenon, be it ever so ordinary—indeed the very fact of + experience itself,—is most truly marvellous and magical, explicable + only in terms of spirit. As ELIPHAS LEVI well says in one of his flashes + of insight: "The supernatural is only the natural in an extraordinary + grade, or it is the exalted natural; a miracle is a phenomenon which + strikes the multitude because it is unexpected; the astonishing is that + which astonishes; miracles are effects which surprise those who are + ignorant of their causes, or assign them causes w hich are not in + proportion to such effects."(1b) But I am anticipating the sequel. + </p> + <p> + (1) H. C. AGRIPPA: <i>Occult Philosophy</i>, bk. i., chap. xiii. + (WHITEHEAD'S edition, pp. 67-68). + </p> + <p> + (1b) ELIPHAS LEVI: <i>Transcendental Magic, its Doctrine and Ritual</i> + (trans. by A. E. WAITE, 1896), p. 192. + </p> + <p> + The doctrine of emanations makes the universe one vast harmonious whole, + between whose various parts there is an exact analogy, correspondence, or + sympathetic relation. "Nature" (the productive principle), says IAMBLICHOS + (3rd-4th century), the Neo-Platonist, "in her peculiar way, makes a + likeness of invisible principles through symbols in visible forms."(2) The + belief that seemingly similar things sympathetically affect one another, + and that a similar relation holds good between different things which have + been intimately connected with one another as parts within a whole, is a + very ancient one. Most primitive peoples are very careful to destroy all + their nail-cuttings and hair-clippings, since they believe that a witch + gaining possession of these might work them harm. For a similar reason + they refuse to reveal their REAL names, which they regard as part of + themselves, and adopt nicknames for common use. The belief that a witch + can torment an enemy by making an image of his person in clay or wax, + correctly naming it, and mutilating it with pins, or, in the case of a + waxen image, melting it by fire, is a very ancient one, and was held + throughout and beyond the Middle Ages. The Sympathetic Powder of Sir + KENELM DIGBY we have already noticed, as well as other instances of the + belief in "sympathy," and examples of similar superstitions might be + multiplied almost indefinitely. Such are generally grouped under the term + "sympathetic magic"; but inasmuch as all magical practices assume that by + acting on part of a thing, or a symbolic representation of it, one acts + magically on the whole, or on the thing symbolised, the expression may in + its broadest sense be said to involve the whole of magic. + </p> + <p> + (2) IAMBLICHOS: <i>Theurgia, or the Egyptian Mysteries</i> (trans. by Dr + ALEX. WILDER, New York, 1911), p. 239. + </p> + <p> + The names of the Divine Being, angels and devils, the planets of the solar + system (including sun and moon) and the days of the week, birds and + beasts, colours, herbs, and precious stones—all, according to + old-time occult philosophy, are connected by the sympathetic relation + believed to run through all creation, the knowledge of which was essential + to the magician; as well, also, the chief portions of the human body, for + man, as we have seen, was believed to be a microcosm—a universe in + miniature. I have dealt with this matter and exhibited some of the + supposed correspondences in "The Belief in Talismans". Some further + particulars are shown in the annexed table, for which I am mainly indebted + to AGRIPPA. But, as in the case of the zodiacal gems already dealt with, + the old authorities by no means agree as to the majority of the planetary + correspondences. + </p> + <p> + TABLE OF OCCULT CORRESPONDENCES + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Arch- Part of Precious + angel. Angel. Planet. Human Animal. Bird. stone. + Body. + + Raphael Michael Sun Heart Lion Swan Carbuncle + Gabriel Gabriel Moon Left foot Cat Owl Crystal + Camael Zamael Mars Right hand Wolf Vulture Diamond + Michael Raphael Mercury Left hand Ape Stork Agate + Zadikel Sachiel Jupiter Head Hart Eagle Sapphire + (=Lapis lazuli) + Haniel Anael Venus Generative Goat Dove Emerald + organs + Zaphhiel Cassiel Saturn Right foot Mole Hoopoe Onyx +</pre> + <p> + The names of the angels are from Mr Mather's translation of <i>Clavicula + Salomonis</i>; the other correspondences are from the second book of + Agrippa's <i>Occult Philosophy</i>, chap. x. + </p> + <p> + In many cases these supposed correspondences are based, as will be obvious + to the reader, upon purely trivial resemblances, and, in any case, + whatever may be said—and I think a great deal may be said—in + favour of the theory of symbology, there is little that may be adduced to + support the old occultists' application of it. + </p> + <p> + So essential a part does the use of symbols play in all magical operations + that we may, I think, modify the definition of "magic" adopted at the + outset, and define "magic" as "an attempt to employ the powers of the + spiritual world for the production of marvellous results, BY THE AID OF + SYMBOLS." It has, on the other hand, been questioned whether the appeal to + the spirit-world is an essential element in magic. But a close examination + of magical practices always reveals at the root a belief in spiritual + powers as the operating causes. The belief in talismans at first sight + seems to have little to do with that in a supernatural realm; but, as we + have seen, the talisman was always a silent invocation of the powers of + some spiritual being with which it was symbolically connected, and whose + sign was engraved thereon. And, as Dr T. WITTON DAVIES well remarks with + regard to "sympathetic magic": "Even this could not, at the start, be + anything other than a symbolic prayer to the spirit or spirits having + authority in these matters. In so far as no spirit is thought of, it is a + mere survival, and not magic at all...."(1) + </p> + <p> + (1) Dr T. WITTON DAVIES: <i>Magic, Divination, and Demonology among the + Hebrews and their Neighbours</i> (1898), p. 17. + </p> + <p> + What I regard as the two essentials of magical practices, namely, the use + of symbols and the appeal to the supernatural realm, are most obvious in + what is called "ceremonial magic". Mediaeval ceremonial magic was + subdivided into three chief branches—White Magic, Black Magic, and + Necromancy. White magic was concerned with the evocations of angels, + spiritual beings supposed to be essentially superior to mankind, + concerning which I shall give some further details later—and the + spirits of the elements,—which were, as I have mentioned in "Some + Characteristics of Mediaeval Thought," personifications of the primeval + forces of Nature. As there were supposed to be four elements, fire, air, + water, and earth, so there were supposed to be four classes of elementals + or spirits of the elements, namely, Salamanders, Sylphs, Undines, and + Gnomes, inhabiting these elements respectively, and deriving their + characters therefrom. Concerning these curious beings, the inquisitive + reader may gain some information from a quaint little book, by the Abbe de + MONTFAUCON DE VILLARS, entitled <i>The Count of Gabalis, or Conferences + about Secret Sciences</i> (1670), translated into English and published in + 1680, which has recently been reprinted. The elementals, we learn + therefrom, were, unlike other supernatural beings, thought to be mortal. + They could, however, be rendered immortal by means of sexual intercourse + with men or women, as the case might be; and it was, we are told, to the + noble end of endowing them with this great gift, that the sages devoted + themselves. + </p> + <p> + Goety, or black magic, was concerned with the evocation of demons and + devils—spirits supposed to be superior to man in certain powers, but + utterly depraved. Sorcery may be distinguished from witchcraft, inasmuch + as the sorcerer attempted to command evil spirits by the aid of charms, <i>etc</i>., + whereas the witch or wizard was supposed to have made a pact with the Evil + One; though both terms have been rather loosely used, "sorcery" being + sometimes employed as a synonym for "necromancy". Necromancy was concerned + with the evocation of the spirits of the dead: etymologically, the term + stands for the art of foretelling events by means of such evocations, + though it is frequently employed in the wider sense. + </p> + <p> + It would be unnecessary and tedious to give any detailed account of the + methods employed in these magical arts beyond some general remarks. Mr A. + E. WAITE gives full particulars of the various rituals in his <i>Book of + Ceremonial Magic</i> (1911), to which the curious reader may be referred. + The following will, in brief terms, convey a general idea of a magical + evocation:— + </p> + <p> + Choosing a time when there is a favourable conjunction of the planets, the + magician, armed with the implements of magical art, after much prayer and + fasting, betakes himself to a suitable spot, alone, or perhaps accompanied + by two trusty companions. All the articles he intends to employ, the + vestments, the magic sword and lamp, the talismans, the book of spirits, + <i>etc</i>., have been specially prepared and consecrated. If he is about + to invoke a martial spirit, the magician's vestment will be of a red + colour, the talismans in virtue of which he may have power over the spirit + will be of iron, the day chosen a Tuesday, and the incense and perfumes + employed of a nature analogous to Mars. In a similar manner all the + articles employed and the rites performed must in some way be symbolical + of the spirit with which converse is desired. Having arrived at the spot, + the magician first of all traces the magic circle within which, we are + told, no evil spirit can enter; he then commences the magic rite, + involving various prayers and conjurations, a medley of meaningless words, + and, in the case of the black art, a sacrifice. The spirit summoned then + appears (at least, so we are told), and, after granting the magician's + request, is licensed to depart—a matter, we are admonished, of great + importance. + </p> + <p> + The question naturally arises, What were the results obtained by these + magical arts? How far, if at all, was the magician rewarded by the + attainment of his desires? We have asked a similar question regarding the + belief in talismans, and the reply which we there gained undoubtedly + applies in the present case as well. Modern psychical research, as I have + already pointed out, is supplying us with further evidence for the + survival of human personality after bodily death than the innate + conviction humanity in general seems to have in this belief, and the many + reasons which idealistic philosophy advances in favour of it. The question + of the reality of the phenomenon of "materialisation," that is, the bodily + appearance of a discarnate spirit, such as is vouched for by spiritists, + and which is what, it appears, was aimed at in necromancy (though why the + discarnate should be better informed as to the future than the incarnate, + I cannot suppose), must be regarded as <i>sub judice</i>.(1) Many cases of + fraud in connection with the alleged production of this phenomenon have + been detected in recent times; but, inasmuch as the last word has not yet + been said on the subject, we must allow the possibility that necromancy in + the past may have been sometimes successful. But as to the existence of + the angels and devils of magical belief—as well, one might add, of + those of orthodox faith,—nothing can be adduced in evidence of this + either from the results of psychical research or on <i>a priori</i> + grounds. + </p> + <p> + (1) The late Sir WILLIAM CROOKES' <i>Experimental Researches in the + Phenomena of Spiritualism</i> contains evidence in favour of the reality + of this phenomenon very difficult to gainsay. + </p> + <p> + Pseudo-DIONYSIUS classified the angels into three hierarchies, each + subdivided into three orders, as under:— + </p> + <p> + <i>First Hierarchy</i>.—Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones; + </p> + <p> + <i>Second Hierarchy</i>.—Dominions, Powers, and Authorities (or + Virtues); + </p> + <p> + <i>Third Hierarchy</i>.—Principalities, Archangels, and Angels,— + </p> + <p> + and this classification was adopted by AGRIPPA and others. + Pseudo-DIONYSIUS explains the names of these orders as follows: "... the + holy designation of the Seraphim denotes either that they are kindling or + burning; and that of the Cherubim, a fulness of knowledge or stream of + wisdom.... The appellation of the most exalted and pre-eminent Thrones + denotes their manifest exaltation above every grovelling inferiority, and + their super-mundane tendency towards higher things;... and their + invariable and firmly-fixed settlement around the veritable Highest, with + the whole force of their powers.... The explanatory name of the Holy + Lordships (Dominions) denotes a certain unslavish elevation... superior to + every kind of cringing slavery, indomitable to every subserviency, and + elevated above every dissimularity, ever aspiring to the true Lordship and + source of Lordship.... The appellation of the Holy Powers denotes a + certain courageous and unflinching virility... vigorously conducted to the + Divine imitation, not forsaking the Godlike movement through its own + unmanliness, but unflinchingly looking to the super-essential and + powerful-making power, and becoming a powerlike image of this, as far as + is attainable....The appellation of the Holy Authorities... denotes the + beautiful and unconfused good order, with regard to Divine receptions, and + the discipline of the super-mundane and intellectual authority... + conducted indomitably, with good order towards Divine things.... (And the + appellation) of the Heavenly Principalities manifests their princely and + leading function, after the Divine example...."(1) There is a certain + grandeur in these views, and if we may be permitted to understand by the + orders of the hierarchy, "discrete" degrees (to use SWEDENBORG'S term) of + spiritual reality—stages in spiritual involution,—we may see + in them a certain truth as well. As I said, all virtue, power, and + knowledge which man has from God was believed to descend to him by way of + these angelical hierarchies, step by step; and thus it was thought that + those of the lowest hierarchy alone were sent from heaven to man. It was + such beings that white magic pretended to evoke. But the practical + occultists, when they did not make them altogether fatuous, attributed to + these angels characters not distinguishable from those of the devils. The + description of the angels in the <i>Heptemeron</i>, or <i>Magical Elements</i>,(2) + falsely at may be taken as fairly characteristic. Of MICHAEL and the other + spirits of Sunday he writes: "Their nature is to procure Gold, Gemmes, + Carbuncles, Riches; to cause one to obtain favour and benevolence; to + dissolve the enmities of men; to raise men to honors; to carry or take + away infirmities." Of GABRIEL and the other spirits of Monday, he says: + "Their nature is to give silver; to convey things from place to place; to + make horses swift, and to disclose the secrets of persons both present and + future." Of SAMAEL and the other spirits of Tuesday he says: "Their nature + is to cause wars, mortality, death and combustions; and to give two + thousand Souldiers at a time; to bring death, infirmities or health," and + so on for RAPHAEL, SACHIEL, ANAEL, CASSIEL, and their colleagues.(1b) + </p> + <p> + (1) <i>On the Heavenly Hierarchy</i>. See the Rev. JOHN PARKER'S + translation of <i>The Works of</i> DIONYSIUS <i>the Areopagite</i>, vol. + ii. (1889), pp. 24, 25, 31, 32, and 36. + </p> + <p> + (2) The book, which first saw the light three centuries after its alleged + author's death, was translated into English by ROBERT TURNER, and + published in 1655 in a volume containing the spurious <i>Fourth Book of + Occult Philosophy</i>, attributed to CORNELIUS AGRIPPA, and other magical + works. It is from this edition that I quote. + </p> + <p> + (1b) <i>Op. cit</i>., pp. 90, 92, and 94. + </p> + <p> + Concerning the evil planetary spirits, the spurious <i>Fourth Book of + Occult Philosophy</i>, attributed to CORNELIUS AGRIPPA, informs us that + the spirits of Saturn "appear for the most part with a tall, lean, and + slender body, with an angry countenance, having four faces; one in the + hinder part of the head, one on the former part of the head, and on each + side nosed or beaked: there likewise appeareth a face on each knee, of a + black shining colour: their motion is the moving of the wince, with a + kinde of earthquake: their signe is white earth, whiter than any Snow." + The writer adds that their "particular forms are,— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + A King having a beard, riding on a Dragon. + An Old man with a beard. + An Old woman leaning on a staffe. + A Hog. + A Dragon. + An Owl. + A black Garment. + A Hooke or Sickle. + A Juniper-tree." +</pre> + <p> + Concerning the spirits of Jupiter, he says that they "appear with a body + sanguine and cholerick, of a middle stature, with a horrible fearful + motion; but with a milde countenance, a gentle speech, and of the colour + of Iron. The motion of them is flashings of Lightning and Thunder; their + signe is, there will appear men about the circle, who shall seem to be + devoured of Lions," their particular forms being— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "A King with a Sword drawn, riding on a Stag. + A Man wearing a Mitre in long rayment. + A Maid with a Laurel-Crown adorned with Flowers. + A Bull. + A Stag. + A Peacock. + An azure Garment. + A Sword. + A Box-tree." +</pre> + <p> + As to the Martian spirits, we learn that "they appear in a tall body, + cholerick, a filthy countenance, of colour brown, swarthy or red, having + horns like Harts horns, and Griphins claws, bellowing like wilde Bulls. + Their Motion is like fire burning; their signe Thunder and Lightning about + the Circle. Their particular shapes are,— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + A King armed riding upon a Wolf. + A Man armed. + A Woman holding a buckler on her thigh. + A Hee-goat. + A Horse. + A Stag. + A red Garment. + Wool. + A Cheeslip."(1) +</pre> + <p> + (1) <i>Op. cit</i>., pp. 43-45. + </p> + <p> + The rest are described in equally fantastic terms. + </p> + <p> + I do not think I shall be accused of being unduly sceptical if I say that + such beings as these could not have been evoked by any magical rites, + because such beings do not and did not exist, save in the magician's own + imagination. The proviso, however, is important, for, inasmuch as these + fantastic beings did exist in the imagination of the credulous, therein + they may, indeed, have been evoked. The whole of magic ritual was well + devised to produce hallucination. A firm faith in the ritual employed, and + a strong effort of will to bring about the desired result, were usually + insisted upon as essential to the success of the operation.(2) A period of + fasting prior to the experiment was also frequently prescribed as + necessary, which, by weakening the body, must have been conducive to + hallucination. Furthermore, abstention from the gratification of the + sexual appetite was stipulated in certain cases, and this, no doubt, had a + similar effect, especially as concerns magical evocations directed to the + satisfaction of the sexual impulse. Add to these factors the details of + the ritual itself, the nocturnal conditions under which it was carried + out, and particularly the suffumigations employed, which, most frequently, + were of a narcotic nature, and it is not difficult to believe that almost + any type of hallucination may have occurred. Such, as we have seen, was + ELIPHAS LEVI'S view of ceremonial magic; and whatever may be said as + concerns his own experiment therein (for one would have thought that the + essential element of faith was lacking in this case), it is undoubtedly + the true view as concerns the ceremonial magic of the past. As this author + well says: "Witchcraft, properly so-called, that is ceremonial operation + with intent to bewitch, acts only on the operator, and serves to fix and + confirm his will, by formulating it with persistence and labour, the two + conditions which make volition efficacious."(1b) + </p> + <p> + (2) "MAGICAL AXIOM. In the circle of its action, every word creates that + which it affirms. + </p> + <p> + DIRECT CONSEQUENCE. He who affirms the devil, creates or makes the devil. + </p> + <p> + "<i>Conditions of Success in Infernal Evocations</i>. 1, Invincible + obstinacy; 2, a conscience at once hardened to crime and most subject to + remorse and fear; 3, affected or natural ignorance; 4, blind faith in all + that is incredible, 5, a completely false idea of God. (ELIPHAS LEVI: <i>Op. + cit</i>., pp. 297 and 298.) + </p> + <p> + (1b) ELIPHAS LEVI: <i>Op. cit</i>., pp. 130 and 131. + </p> + <p> + EMANUEL SWEDENBORG in one place writes: "Magic is nothing but the + perversion of order; it is especially the abuse of correspondences."(2) A + study of the ceremonial magic of the Middle Ages and the following century + or two certainly justifies SWEDENBORG in writing of magic as something + evil. The distinction, rigid enough in theory, between white and black, + legitimate and illegitimate, magic, was, as I have indicated, extremely + indefinite in practice. As Mr A. E. WAITE justly remarks: "Much that + passed current in the west as White (<i>i.e</i>. permissible) Magic was + only a disguised goeticism, and many of the resplendent angels invoked + with divine rites reveal their cloven hoofs. It is not too much to say + that a large majority of past psychological experiments were conducted to + establish communication with demons, and that for unlawful purposes. The + popular conceptions concerning the diabolical spheres, which have been all + accredited by magic, may have been gross exaggerations of fact concerning + rudimentary and perverse intelligences, but the wilful viciousness of the + communicants is substantially untouched thereby."(1b) + </p> + <p> + (2) EMANUEL SWEDENBORG: <i>Arcana Caelestia</i>, SE 6692. + </p> + <p> + (1b) ARTHUR EDWARD WAITE: <i>The Occult Sciences</i> (1891), p. 51. + </p> + <p> + These "psychological experiments" were not, save, perhaps, in rare cases, + carried out in the spirit of modern psychical research, with the high aim + of the man of science. It was, indeed, far otherwise; selfish motives were + at the root of most of them; and, apart from what may be termed "medicinal + magic," it was for the satisfaction of greed, lust, revenge, that men and + women had recourse to magical arts. The history of goeticism and + witchcraft is one of the most horrible of all histories. The "Grimoires," + witnesses to the superstitious folly of the past, are full of disgusting, + absurd, and even criminal rites for the satisfaction of unlawful desires + and passions. The Church was certainly justified in attempting to put down + the practice of magic, but the means adopted in this design and the + results to which they led were even more abominable than witchcraft + itself. The methods of detecting witches and the tortures to which + suspected persons were subjected to force them to confess to imaginary + crimes, employed in so-called civilised England and Scotland and also in + America, to say nothing of countries in which the "Holy" Inquisition held + undisputed sway, are almost too horrible to describe. For details the + reader may be referred to Sir WALTER SCOTT'S <i>Letters on Demonology and + Witchcraft</i> (1830), and (as concerns America) COTTON MATHER'S The <i>Wonders + of the Invisible World</i> (1692). The credulous Church and the credulous + people were terribly afraid of the power of witchcraft, and, as always, + fear destroyed their mental balance and made them totally disregard the + demands of justice. The result may be well illustrated by what almost + inevitably happens when a country goes to war; for war, as the Hon. + BERTRAND RUSSELL has well shown, is fear's offspring. Fear of the enemy + causes the military party to persecute in an insensate manner, without the + least regard to justice, all those of their fellow-men whom they consider + are not heart and soul with them in their cause; similarly the Church + relentlessly persecuted its supposed enemies, of whom it was so afraid. No + doubt some of the poor wretches that were tortured and killed on the + charge of witchcraft really believed themselves to have made a pact with + the devil, and were thus morally depraved, though, generally speaking, + they were no more responsible for their actions than any other madmen. But + the majority of the persons persecuted as witches and wizards were + innocent even of this. + </p> + <p> + However, it would, I think, be unwise to disregard the existence of + another side to the question of the validity and ethical value of magic, + and to use the word only to stand for something essentially evil. + SWEDENBORG, we may note, in the course of a long passage from the work + from which I have already quoted, says that by "magic" is signified "the + science of spiritual things"(1) His position appears to be that there is a + genuine magic, or science of spiritual things, and a false magic, that + science perverted: a view of the matter which I propose here to adopt. The + word "magic" itself is derived from the Greek "magos," the wise man of the + East, and hence the strict etymological meaning of the term is "the wisdom + or science of the magi"; and it is, I think, significant that we are told + (and I see no reason to doubt the truth of it) that the magi were among + the first to worship the new-born CHRIST.(2) + </p> + <p> + (1) <i>Op. cit</i>., SE 5223. + </p> + <p> + (2) See The Gospel according to MATTHEW, chap. ii., verses 1 to 12. + </p> + <p> + If there be an abuse of correspondences, or symbols, there surely must + also be a use, to which the word "magic" is not inapplicable. As such, + religious ritual, and especially the sacraments of the Christian Church, + will, no doubt, occur to the minds of those who regard these symbols as + efficacious, though they would probably hesitate to apply the term + "magical" to them. But in using this term as applying thereto, I do not + wish to suggest that any such rites or ceremonies possess, or can possess, + any CAUSAL efficacy in the moral evolution of the soul. The will alone, in + virtue of the power vouchsafed to it by the Source of all power, can + achieve this; but I do think that the soul may be assisted by ritual, + harmoniously related to the states of mind which it is desired to induce. + No doubt there is a danger of religious ritual, especially when its + meaning is lost, being engaged in for its own sake. It is then mere + superstition;(1) and, in view of the danger of this degeneracy, many + robust minds, such as the members of the Society of Friends, prefer to + dispense with its aid altogether. When ritual is associated with erroneous + doctrines, the results are even more disastrous, as I have indicated in + "The Belief in Talismans". But when ritual is allied with, and based upon, + as adequately symbolising, the high teaching of genuine religion, it may + be, and, in fact, is, found very helpful by many people. As such its + efficacy seems to me to be altogether magical, in the best sense of that + word. + </p> + <p> + (1) As "ELIPHAS LEVI" well says: "Superstition... is the sign surviving + the thought; it is the dead body of a religious rite." (<i>Op cit</i>., p. + 150.) + </p> + <p> + But, indeed, I think a still wider application of the word "magic" is + possible. "All experience is magic," says NOVALIS (1772-1801), "and only + magically explicable";(2a) and again: "It is only because of the + feebleness of our perceptions and activity that we do not perceive + ourselves to be in a fairy world." No doubt it will be objected that the + common experiences of daily life are "natural," whereas magic postulates + the "supernatural". If, as is frequently done, we use the term "natural," + as relating exclusively to the physical realm, then, indeed, we may well + speak of magic as "supernatural," because its aims are psychical. On the + other hand, the term "natural" is sometimes employed as referring to the + whole realm of order, and in this sense one can use the word "magic" as + descriptive of Nature herself when viewed in the light of an idealistic + philosophy, such as that of SWEDENBORG, in which all causation is seen to + be essentially spiritual, the things of this world being envisaged as + symbols of ideas or spiritual verities, and thus physical causation + regarded as an appearance produced in virtue of the magical, non-causal + efficacy of symbols.(1) Says CORNELIUS AGRIPPA: "... every day some + natural thing is drawn by art and some divine thing is drawn by Nature + which, the Egyptians, seeing, called Nature a Magicianess (<i>i.e</i>.) + the very Magical power itself, in the attracting of like by like, and of + suitable things by suitable."(2) + </p> + <p> + (2a) NOVALIS: <i>Schriften</i> (ed. by LUDWIG TIECK and FR. SCHLEGEL, + 1805), vol. ii. p. 195 + </p> + <p> + (1) For a discussion of the essentially magical character of inductive + reasoning, see my <i>The Magic of Experience</i> (1915) + </p> + <p> + (2) <i>Op. cit</i>., bk. i. chap. xxxvii. p. 119. + </p> + <p> + I would suggest, in conclusion, that there is nothing really opposed to + the spirit of modern science in the thesis that "all experience is magic, + and only magically explicable." Science does not pretend to reveal the + fundamental or underlying cause of phenomena, does not pretend to answer + the final Why? This is rather the business of philosophy, though, in thus + distinguishing between science and philosophy, I am far from insinuating + that philosophy should be otherwise than scientific. We often hear + religious but non-scientific men complain because scientific and perhaps + equally as religious men do not in their books ascribe the production of + natural phenomena to the Divine Power. But if they were so to do they + would be transcending their business as scientists. In every science + certain simple facts of experience are taken for granted: it is the + business of the scientist to reduce other and more complex facts of + experience to terms of these data, not to explain these data themselves. + Thus the physicist attempts to reduce other related phenomena of greater + complexity to terms of simple force and motion; but, What are force and + motion? Why does force produce or result in motion? are questions which + lie beyond the scope of physics. In order to answer these questions, if, + indeed, this be possible, we must first inquire, How and why do these + ideas of force and motion arise in our minds? These problems land us in + the psychical or spiritual world, and the term "magic" at once becomes + significant. + </p> + <p> + "If, says THOMAS CARLYLE,... we... have led thee into the true Land of + Dreams; and... thou lookest, even for moments, into the region of the + Wonderful, and seest and feelest that thy daily life is girt with Wonder, + and based on Wonder, and thy very blankets and breeches are Miracles,—then + art thou profited beyond money's worth...."(1) + </p> + <p> + (1) THOMAS CARLYLE: <i>Sartor Resartus</i>, bk. iii. chap. ix. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VIII. ARCHITECTURAL SYMBOLISM + </h2> + <p> + I WAS once rash enough to suggest in an essay "On Symbolism in Art"(1) + that "a true work of art is at once realistic, imaginative, and + symbolical," and that its aim is to make manifest the spiritual + significance of the natural objects dealt with. I trust that those artists + (no doubt many) who disagree with me will forgive me—a man of + science—for having ventured to express any opinion whatever on the + subject. But, at any rate, if the suggestions in question are accepted, + then a criterion for distinguishing between art and craft is at once + available; for we may say that, whilst craft aims at producing works which + are physically useful, art aims at producing works which are spiritually + useful. Architecture, from this point of view, is a combination of craft + and art. It may, indeed, be said that the modern architecture which + creates our dwelling-houses, factories, and even to a large extent our + places of worship, is pure craft unmixed with art On the other hand, it + might be argued that such works of architecture are not always devoid of + decoration, and that "decorative art," even though the "decorative artist" + is unconscious of this fact, is based upon rules and employs symbols which + have a deep significance. The truly artistic element in architecture, + however, is more clearly manifest if we turn our gaze to the past. One + thinks at once, of course, of the pyramids and sphinx of Egypt, and the + rich and varied symbolism of design and decoration of antique structures + to be found in Persia and elsewhere in the East. It is highly probable + that the Egyptian pyramids were employed for astronomical purposes, and + thus subserved physical utility, but it seems no less likely that their + shape was suggested by a belief in some system of geometrical symbolism, + and was intended to embody certain of their philosophical or religious + doctrines. + </p> + <p> + (1) Published in <i>The Occult Review</i> for August 1912, vol. xvi. pp. + 98 to 102. + </p> + <p> + The mediaeval cathedrals and churches of Europe admirably exhibit this + combination of art with craft. Craft was needed to design and construct + permanent buildings to protect worshippers from the inclemency of the + weather; art was employed not only to decorate such buildings, but it + dictated to craft many points in connection with their design. The + builders of the mediaeval churches endeavoured so to construct their works + that these might, as a whole and in their various parts, embody the + truths, as they believed them, of the Christian religion: thus the + cruciform shape of churches, their orientation, etc. The practical value + of symbolism in church architecture is obvious. As Mr F. E. HULME remarks, + "The sculptured fonts or stained-glass windows in the churches of the + Middle Ages were full of teaching to a congregation of whom the greater + part could not read, to whom therefore one great avenue of knowledge was + closed. The ignorant are especially impressed by pictorial teaching, and + grasp its meaning far more readily than they can follow a written + description or a spoken discourse."(1) + </p> + <p> + (1) F. EDWARD HULME, F.L.S., F.S.A.: <i>The History, Principles, and + Practice of Symbolism in Christian Art</i> (1909), p. 2. + </p> + <p> + The subject of symbolism in church architecture is an extensive one, + involving many side issues. In these excursions we shall consider only one + aspect of it, namely, the symbolic use of animal forms in English church + architecture. + </p> + <p> + As Mr COLLINS, who has written, in recent years, an interesting work on + this topic of much use to archaeologists as a book of data,(2a) points + out, the great sources of animal symbolism were the famous <i>Physiologus</i> + and other natural history books of the Middle Ages (generally called + "Bestiaries"), and the Bible, mystically understood. The modern tendency + is somewhat unsympathetic towards any attempt to interpret the Bible + symbolically, and certainly some of the interpretations that have been + forced upon it in the name of symbolism are crude and fantastic enough. + But in the belief of the mystics, culminating in the elaborate system of + correspondences of SWEDENBORG, that every natural object, every event in + the history of the human race, and every word of the Bible, has a symbolic + and spiritual significance, there is, I think, a fundamental truth. We + must, however, as I have suggested already, distinguish between true and + forced symbolism. The early Christians employed the fish as a symbol of + Christ, because the Greek word for fish, icqus, is obtained by <i>notariqon</i>(1) + from the phrase [gr 'Ihsous Cristos Qeou Uios, Swthr]—"JESUS CHRIST, + the Son of God, the Saviour." Of course, the obvious use of such a symbol + was its entire unintelligibility to those who had not yet been instructed + in the mysteries of the Christian faith, since in the days of persecution + some degree of secrecy was necessary. But the symbol has significance only + in the Greek language, and that of an entirely arbitrary nature. There is + nothing in the nature of the fish, apart from its name in Greek, which + renders it suitable to be used as a symbol of CHRIST. Contrast this + pseudo-symbol, however, with that of the Good Shepherd, the Lamb of God + (fig. 34), or the Lion of Judah. Here we have what may be regarded as true + symbols, something of whose meanings are clear to the smallest degree of + spiritual sight, even though the second of them has frequently been badly + misinterpreted. + </p> + <p> + (2a) ARTHUR H. COLLINS, M.A.: <i>Symbolism of Animals and Birds + represented in English Church Architecture</i> (1913). + </p> + <p> + (1) A Kabalistic process by which a word is formed by taking the initial + letters of a sentence or phrase. + </p> + <p> + It was a belief in the spiritual or moral significance of nature similar + to that of the mystical expositors of the Bible, that inspired the + mediaeval naturalists. The Bestiaries almost invariably conclude the + account of each animal with the moral that might be drawn from its + behaviour. The interpretations are frequently very far-fetched, and as the + writers were more interested in the morals than in the facts of natural + history themselves, the supposed facts from which they drew their morals + were frequently very far from being of the nature of facts. Sometimes the + product of this inaccuracy is grotesque, as shown by the following + quotation: "The elephants are in an absurd way typical of Adam and Eve, + who ate of the forbidden fruit, and also have the dragon for their enemy. + It was supposed that the elephant... used to sleep by leaning against a + tree. The hunters would come by night, and cut the trunk through. Down he + would come, roaring helplessly. None of his friends would be able to help + him, until a small elephant should come and lever him up with his trunk. + This small elephant was symbolic of Jesus Christ, Who came in great + humility to rescue the human race which had fallen 'through a tree.' "(1) + </p> + <p> + (1) A. H. COLLINS: <i>Symbolism of Animals, etc</i>., pp. 41 and 42. + </p> + <p> + In some cases, though the symbolism is based upon quite erroneous notions + concerning natural history, and is so far fantastic, it is not devoid of + charm. The use of the pelican to symbolise the Saviour is a case in point. + Legend tells us that when other food is unobtainable, the pelican thrusts + its bill into its breast (whence the red colour of the bill) and feeds its + young with its life-blood. Were this only a fact, the symbol would be most + appropriate. There is another and far less charming form of the legend, + though more in accord with current perversions of Christian doctrine, + according to which the pelican uses its blood to revive its young, after + having slain them through anger aroused by the great provocation which + they are supposed to give it. For an example of the use of the pelican in + church architecture see fig. 36. + </p> + <p> + Mention must also be made of the purely fabulous animals of the + Bestiaries, such as the basilisk, centaur, dragon, griffin, hydra, + mantichora, unicorn, phoenix, <i>etc</i>. The centaur (fig. 39) was a + beast, half man, half horse. It typified the flesh or carnal mind of man, + and the legend of the perpetual war between the centaur and a certain + tribe of simple savages who were said to live in trees in India, + symbolised the combat between the flesh and the spirit.(1) + </p> + <p> + (1) A H. COLLINS: <i>Symbolism of Animals, etc</i>., pp. 150 and 153. + </p> + <p> + With bow and arrow in its hands the centaur forms the astrological sign + Sagittarius (or the Archer). An interesting example of this sign occurring + in church architecture is to be found on the western doorway of + Portchester Church—a most beautiful piece of Norman architecture. + "This sign of the Zodiac," writes the Rev. Canon VAUGHAN, M.A., a former + Vicar of Portchester, "was the badge of King Stephen, and its presence on + the west front (of Portchester Church) seems to indicate, what was often + the case elsewhere, that the elaborate Norman carving was not carried out + until after the completion of the building."(2) The facts, however, that + this Sagittarius is accompanied on the other side of the doorway by a + couple of fishes, which form the astrological sign Pisces (or the Fishes), + and that these two signs are what are termed, in astrological phraseology, + the "houses" of the planet Jupiter, the "Major Fortune," suggest that the + architect responsible for the design, influenced by the astrological + notions of his day, may have put the signs there in order to attract + Jupiter's beneficent influence. Or he may have had the Sagittarius carved + for the reason Canon VAUGHAN suggests, and then, remembering how good a + sign it was astrologically, had the Pisces added to complete the + effect.(1b) + </p> + <p> + (2) Rev. Canon VAUGHAN, M.A.: A Short History of Portchester Castle, p. + 14. + </p> + <p> + (1b) Two other possible explanations of the Pisces have been suggested by + the Rev. A. HEADLEY. In his MS. book written in 1888, when he was Vicar of + Portchester, he writes: "I have discovered an interesting proof that it + (the Church) was finished in Stephen's reign, namely, the figure of + Sagittarius in the Western Doorway. + </p> + <p> + "Stephen adopted this as his badge for the double reason that it formed + part of the arms of the city of Blois, and that the sun was in Sagittarius + in December when he came to the throne. I, therefore, conclude that this + badge was placed where it is to mark the completion of the church. + </p> + <p> + "There is another sign of the Zodiac in the archway, apparently Pisces. + This may have been chosen to mark the month in which the church was + finished, or simply on account of its nearness to the sea. At one time I + fancied it might refer to March, the month in which Lady Day occurred, + thus referring to the Patron Saint, St Mary. As the sun leaves Pisces just + before Lady Day this does not explain it. Possibly in the old calendar it + might do so. This is a matter for further research." (I have to thank the + Rev. H. LAWRENCE FRY, present Vicar of Portchester, for this quotation, + and the Rev. A. HEADLEY for permission to utilise it.) + </p> + <p> + The phoenix and griffin we have encountered already in our excursions. The + latter, we are told, inhabits desert places in India, where it can find + nothing for its young to eat. It flies away to other regions to seek food, + and is sufficiently strong to carry off an ox. Thus it symbolises the + devil, who is ever anxious to carry away our souls to the deserts of hell. + Fig. 37 illustrates an example of the use of this symbolic beast in church + architecture. + </p> + <p> + The mantichora is described by PLINY (whose statements were + unquestioningly accepted by the mediaeval naturalists), on the authority + of CTESIAS (<i>fl</i>. 400 B.C.), as having "A triple row of teeth, which + fit into each other like those of a comb, the face and ears of a man, and + azure eyes, is the colour of blood, has the body of the lion, and a tail + ending in a sting, like that of the scorpion. Its voice resembles the + union of the sound of the flute and the trumpet; it is of excessive + swiftness, and is particularly fond of human flesh."(1) + </p> + <p> + (1) PLINY: <i>Natural History</i>, bk. viii. chap. xxx. (BOSTOCK and + RILEY'S trans., vol. ii., 1855, p. 280.) + </p> + <p> + Concerning the unicorn, in an eighteenth-century work on natural history + we read that this is "a Beast, which though doubted of by many Writers, + yet is by others thus described: He has but one Horn, and that an + exceedingly rich one, growing out of the middle of his Forehead. His Head + resembles an Hart's, his Feet an Elephant's, his tail a Boar's, and the + rest of his Body an Horse's. The Horn is about a Foot and half in length. + His Voice is like the Lowing of an Ox. His Mane and Hair are of a + yellowish Colour. His Horn is as hard as Iron, and as rough as any File, + twisted or curled, like a flaming Sword; very straight, sharp, and every + where black, excepting the Point. Great Virtues are attributed to it, in + expelling of Poison and curing of several Diseases. He is not a Beast of + prey."(2) The method of capturing the animal believed in by mediaeval + writers was a curious one. The following is a literal translation from the + <i>Bestiary</i> of PHILIPPE DE THAUN (12th century):— + </p> + <p> + (2) (THOMAS BOREMAN): <i>A Description of Three Hundred Animals</i> + (1730), p. 6. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Monosceros is an animal which has one horn on its head, + Therefore it is so named; it has the form of a goat, + It is caught by means of a virgin, now hear in what manner. + When a man intends to hunt it and to take and ensnare it + He goes to the forest where is its repair; + There he places a virgin, with her breast uncovered, + And by its smell the monosceros perceives it; + Then it comes to the virgin, and kisses her breast, + Falls asleep on her lap, and so comes to its death; + The man arrives immediately, and kills it in its sleep, + Or takes it alive and does as he likes with it. + It signifies much, I will not omit to tell it you. + + "Monosceros is Greek, it means <i>one horn</i> in French: + A beast of such a description signifies Jesus Christ; + One God he is and shall be, and was and will continue so; + He placed himself in the virgin, and took flesh for man's sake, + And for virginity to show chastity; + To a virgin he APPEARED and a virgin conceived him, + A virgin she is, and will be, and will remain always. + Now hear briefly the signification. + + "This animal in truth signifies God; + Know that the virgin signifies St Mary; + By her breast we understand similarly Holy Church; + And then by the kiss it ought to signify, + That a man when he sleeps is in semblance of death; + God slept as man, who suffered death on the cross, + And his destruction was our redemption, + And his labour our repose, + Thus God deceived the Devil by a proper semblance; + Soul and body were one, so was God and man, + And this is the signification of an animal of that description."(1) +</pre> + <p> + (1) <i>Popular Treatises on Science written during the Middle Ages in + Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman, and English</i>, ed. by THOMAS WRIGHT + (Historical Society of Science, 1841), pp. 81-82. + </p> + <p> + This being the current belief concerning the symbolism of the unicorn in + the Middle Ages, it is not surprising to find this animal utilised in + church architecture; for an example see fig. 35. + </p> + <p> + The belief in the existence of these fabulous beasts may very probably + have been due to the materialising of what were originally nothing more + than mere arbitrary symbols, as I have already suggested of the + phoenix.(1) Thus the account of the mantichora may, as BOSTOCK has + suggested, very well be a description of certain hieroglyphic figures, + examples of which are still to be found in the ruins of Assyrian and + Persian cities. This explanation seems, on the whole, more likely than the + alternative hypothesis that such beliefs were due to mal-observation; + though that, no doubt, helped in their formation. + </p> + <p> + (1) "Superstitions concerning Birds." + </p> + <p> + It may be questioned, however, whether the architects and preachers of the + Middle Ages altogether believed in the strange fables of the Bestiaries. + As Mr COLLINS says in reply to this question: "Probably they were + credulous enough. But, on the whole, we may say that the truth of the + story was just what they did not trouble about, any more than some + clergymen are particular about the absolute truth of the stories they tell + children from the pulpit. The application, the lesson, is the thing!" With + their desire to interpret Nature spiritually, we ought, I think, to + sympathise. But there was one truth they had yet to learn, namely, that in + order to interpret Nature spiritually, it is necessary first to understand + her aright in her literal sense. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IX. THE QUEST OF THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE + </h2> + <p> + THE need of unity is a primary need of human thought. Behind the varied + multiplicity of the world of phenomena, primitive man, as I have indicated + on a preceding excursion, begins to seek, more or less consciously, for + that Unity which alone is Real. And this statement not only applies to the + first dim gropings of the primitive human mind, but sums up almost the + whole of science and philosophy; for almost all science and philosophy is + explicitly or implicitly a search for unity, for one law or one love, one + matter or one spirit. That which is the aim of the search may, indeed, be + expressed under widely different terms, but it is always conceived to be + the unity in which all multiplicity is resolved, whether it be thought of + as one final law of necessity, which all things obey, and of which all the + various other "laws of nature" are so many special and limited + applications; or as one final love for which all things are created, and + to which all things aspire; as one matter of which all bodies are but + varying forms; or as one spirit, which is the life of all things, and of + which all things are so many manifestations. Every scientist and + philosopher is a merchant seeking for goodly pearls, willing to sell every + pearl that he has, if he may secure the One Pearl beyond price, because he + knows that in that One Pearl all others are included. + </p> + <p> + This search for unity in multiplicity, however, is not confined to the + acknowledged scientist and philosopher. More or less unconsciously + everyone is engaged in this quest. Harmony and unity are the very + fundamental laws of the human mind itself, and, in a sense, all mental + activity is the endeavour to bring about a state of harmony and unity in + the mind. No two ideas that are contradictory of one another, and are + perceived to be of this nature, can permanently exist in any sane man's + mind. It is true that many people try to keep certain portions of their + mental life in water-tight compartments; thus some try to keep their + religious convictions and their business ideas, or their religious faith + and their scientific knowledge, separate from another one—and, it + seems, often succeed remarkably well in so doing. But, ultimately, the + arbitrary mental walls they have erected will break down by the force of + their own ideas. Contradictory ideas from different compartments will then + present themselves to consciousness at the same moment of time, and the + result of the perception of their contradictory nature will be mental + anguish and turmoil, persisting until one set of ideas is conquered and + overcome by the other, and harmony and unity are restored. + </p> + <p> + It is true of all of us, then, that we seek for Unity—unity in mind + and life. Some seek it in science and a life of knowledge; some seek it in + religion and a life of faith; some seek it in human love and find it in + the life of service to their fellows; some seek it in pleasure and the + gratification of the senses' demands; some seek it in the harmonious + development of all the facets of their being. Many the methods, right and + wrong; many the terms under which the One is conceived, true and false—in + a sense, to use the phraseology of a bygone system of philosophy, we are + all, consciously or unconsciously, following paths that lead thither or + paths that lead away, seekers in the quest of the Philosopher's Stone. + </p> + <p> + Let us, in these excursions in the byways of thought, consider for a while + the form that the quest of fundamental unity took in the hands of those + curious mediaeval philosophers, half mystics, half experimentalists in + natural things—that are known by the name of "alchemists." + </p> + <p> + The common opinion concerning alchemy is that it was a pseudo-science or + pseudo-art flourishing during the Dark Ages, and having for its aim the + conversion of common metals into silver and gold by means of a most + marvellous and wholly fabulous agent called the Philosopher's Stone, that + its devotees were half knaves, half fools, whose views concerning Nature + were entirely erroneous, and whose objects were entirely mercenary. This + opinion is not absolutely destitute of truth; as a science alchemy + involved many fantastic errors; and in the course of its history it + certainly proved attractive to both knaves and fools. But if this opinion + involves some element of truth, it involves a far greater proportion of + error. Amongst the alchemists are numbered some of the greatest intellects + of the Middle Ages—ROGER BACON (<i>c</i>. 1214-1294), for example, + who might almost be called the father of experimental science. And whether + or not the desire for material wealth was a secondary object, the true aim + of the genuine alchemist was a much nobler one than this as one of them + exclaims with true scientific fervour: "Would to God... all men might + become adepts in our Art—for then gold, the great idol of mankind, + would lose its value, and we should prize it only for its scientific + teaching."(1) Moreover, recent developments in physical and chemical + science seem to indicate that the alchemists were not so utterly wrong in + their concept of Nature as has formerly been supposed—that, whilst + they certainly erred in both their methods and their interpretations of + individual phenomena, they did intuitively grasp certain fundamental facts + concerning the universe ofthe very greatest importance. + </p> + <p> + (1) EIRENAEUS PHILALETHES: <i>An Open Entrance to the Closed Palace of the + King</i>. (See <i>The Hermetic Museum, Restored and Enlarged</i>, ed. by + A. E. WAITE, 1893, vol. ii. p. 178.) + </p> + <p> + Suppose, however, that the theories of the alchemists are entirely + erroneous from beginning to end, and are nowhere relieved by the merest + glimmer of truth. Still they were believed to be true, and this belief had + an important influence upon human thought. Many men of science have, I am + afraid, been too prone to regard the mystical views of the alchemists as + unintelligible; but, whatever their theories may be to us, these theories + were certainly very real to them: it is preposterous to maintain that the + writings of the alchemists are without meaning, even though their views + are altogether false. And the more false their views are believed to be, + the more necessary does it become to explain why they should have gained + such universal credit. Here we have problems into which scientific inquiry + is not only legitimate, but, I think, very desirable,—apart + altogether from the question of the truth or falsity of alchemy as a + science, or its utility as an art. What exactly was the system of beliefs + grouped under the term "alchemy," and what was its aim? Why were the + beliefs held? What was their precise influence upon human thought and + culture? + </p> + <p> + It was in order to elucidate problems of this sort, as well as to + determine what elements of truth, if any, there are in the theories of the + alchemists, that The Alchemical Society was founded in 1912, mainly + through my own efforts and those of my confreres, and for the first time + something like justice was being done to the memory of the alchemists when + the Society's activities were stayed by that greatest calamity of history, + the European War. + </p> + <p> + Some students of the writings of the alchemists have advanced a very + curious and interesting theory as to the aims of the alchemists, which may + be termed "the transcendental theory". According to this theory, the + alchemists were concerned only with the mystical processes affecting the + soul of man, and their chemical references are only to be understood + symbolically. In my opinion, however, this view of the subject is rendered + untenable by the lives of the alchemists themselves; for, as Mr WAITE has + very fully pointed out in his <i>Lives of Alchemystical Philosophers</i> + (1888), the lives of the alchemists show them to have been mainly + concerned with chemical and physical processes; and, indeed, to their + labours we owe many valuable discoveries of a chemical nature. But the + fact that such a theory should ever have been formulated, and should not + be altogether lacking in consistency, may serve to direct our attention to + the close connection between alchemy and mysticism. + </p> + <p> + If we wish to understand the origin and aims of alchemy we must endeavour + to recreate the atmosphere of the Middle Ages, and to look at the subject + from the point of view of the alchemists themselves. Now, this atmosphere + was, as I have indicated in a previous essay, surcharged with mystical + theology and mystical philosophy. Alchemy, so to speak, was generated and + throve in a dim religious light. We cannot open a book by any one of the + better sort of alchemists without noticing how closely their theology and + their chemistry are interwoven, and what a remarkably religious view they + take of their subject. Thus one alchemist writes: "In the first place, let + every devout and God-fearing chemist and student of this Art consider that + this arcanum should be regarded, not only as a truly great, but as a most + holy Art (seeing that it typifies and shadows out the highest heavenly + good). Therefore, if any man desire to reach this great and unspeakable + Mystery, he must remember that it is obtained not by the might of man, but + by the grace of God, and that not our will or desire, but only the mercy + of the Most High, can bestow it upon us. For this reason you must first of + all cleanse your heart, lift it up to Him alone, and ask of Him this gift + in true, earnest and undoubting prayer. He alone can give and bestow + it."(1) Whilst another alchemist declares: "I am firmly persuaded that any + unbeliever who got truly to know this Art, would straightway confess the + truth of our Blessed Religion, and believe in the Trinity and in our Lord + JESUS CHRIST."(2) + </p> + <p> + (1) <i>The Sophic Hydrolith; or, Water Stone of the Wise</i>. (See <i>The + Hermetic Museum</i>, vol. i. pp. 74 and 75.) + </p> + <p> + (2) PETER BONUS: <i>The New Pearl of Great Price</i> (trans. by A. E. + WAITE, 1894), p. 275. + </p> + <p> + Now, what I suggest is that the alchemists constructed their chemical + theories for the main part by means of <i>a priori</i> reasoning, and that + the premises from which they started were (i.) the truth of mystical + theology, especially the doctrine of the soul's regeneration, and (ii.) + the truth of mystical philosophy, which asserts that the objects of Nature + are symbols of spiritual verities. There is, I think, abundant evidence to + show that alchemy was a more or less deliberate attempt to apply, + according to the principles of analogy, the doctrines of religious + mysticism to chemical and physical phenomena. Some of this evidence I + shall attempt to put forward in this essay. + </p> + <p> + In the first place, however, I propose to say a few words more in + description of the theological and philosophical doctrines which so + greatly influenced the alchemists, and which, I believe, they borrowed for + their attempted explanations of chemical and physical phenomena. This + system of doctrine I have termed "mysticism"—a word which is + unfortunately equivocal, and has been used to denote various systems of + religious and philosophical thought, from the noblest to the most + degraded. I have, therefore, further to define my usage of the term. + </p> + <p> + By mystical theology I mean that system of religious thought which + emphasises the unity between Creator and creature, though not necessarily + to the extent of becoming pantheistic. Man, mystical theology asserts, has + sprung from God, but has fallen away from Him through self-love. Within + man, however, is the seed of divine grace, whereby, if he will follow the + narrow road of self-renunciation, he may be regenerated, born anew, + becoming transformed into the likeness of God and ultimately indissolubly + united to God in love. God is at once the Creator and the Restorer of + man's soul, He is the Origin as well as the End of all existence; and He + is also the Way to that End. In Christian mysticism, CHRIST is the + Pattern, towards which the mystic strives; CHRIST also is the means + towards the attainment of this end. + </p> + <p> + By mystical philosophy I mean that system of philosophical thought which + emphasises the unity of the Cosmos, asserting that God and the spiritual + may be perceived immanent in the things of this world, because all things + natural are symbols and emblems of spiritual verities. As one of the <i>Golden + Verses</i> attributed to PYTHAGORAS, which I have quoted in a previous + essay, puts it: "The Nature of this Universe is in all things alike"; + commenting upon which, HIEROCLES, writing in the fifth or sixth century, + remarks that "Nature, in forming this Universe after the Divine Measure + and Proportion, made it in all things conformable and like to itself, + analogically in different manners. Of all the different species, diffused + throughout the whole, it made, as it were, an Image of the Divine Beauty, + imparting variously to the copy the perfections of the Original."(1) We + have, however, already encountered so many instances of this belief, that + no more need be said here concerning it. + </p> + <p> + (1) <i>Commentary of</i> HIEROCLES <i>on the Golden Verses of</i> + PYTHAGORAS (trans. by N. ROWE, 1906), pp. 101 and 102. + </p> + <p> + In fine, as Dean INGE well says: "Religious Mysticism may be defined as + the attempt to realise the presence of the living God in the soul and in + nature, or, more generally, as <i>the attempt to realise, in thought and + feeling, the immanence of the temporal in the eternal, and of the eternal + in the temporal</i>."(2) + </p> + <p> + (2) WILLIAM RALPH INGE, M.A.: <i>Christian Mysticism</i> (the Bampton + Lectures, 1899), p. 5. + </p> + <p> + Now, doctrines such as these were not only very prevalent during the + Middle Ages, when alchemy so greatly flourished, but are of great + antiquity, and were undoubtedly believed in by the learned class in Egypt + and elsewhere in the East in those remote days when, as some think, + alchemy originated, though the evidence, as will, I hope, become plain as + we proceed, points to a later and post-Christian origin for the central + theorem of alchemy. So far as we can judge from their writings, the more + important alchemists were convinced of the truth of these doctrines, and + it was with such beliefs in mind that they commenced their investigations + of physical and chemical phenomena. Indeed, if we may judge by the esteem + in which the Hermetic maxim, "What is above is as that which is below, + what is below is as that which is above, to accomplish the miracles of the + One Thing," was held by every alchemist, we are justified in asserting + that the mystical theory of the spiritual significance of Nature—a + theory with which, as we have seen, is closely connected the Neoplatonic + and Kabalistic doctrine that all things emanate in series from the Divine + Source of all Being—was at the very heart of alchemy. As writes one + alchemist: "... the Sages have been taught of God that this natural world + is only an image and material copy of a heavenly and spiritual pattern; + that the very existence of this world is based upon the reality of its + celestial archetype; and that God has created it in imitation of the + spiritual and invisible universe, in order that men might be the better + enabled to comprehend His heavenly teaching, and the wonders of His + absolute and ineffable power and wisdom. Thus the sage sees heaven + reflected in Nature as in a mirror; and he pursues this Art, not for the + sake of gold or silver, but for the love of the knowledge which it + reveals; he jealously conceals it from the sinner and the scornful, lest + the mysteries of heaven should be laid bare to the vulgar gaze."(1) + </p> + <p> + (1) MICHAEL SENDIVOGIUS (?): <i>The New Chemical Light, Pt. II., + Concerning Sulphur</i>. (See <i>The Hermetic Museum</i>, vol. ii. p. 138.) + </p> + <p> + The alchemists, I hold, convinced of the truth of this view of Nature, <i>i.e</i>. + that principles true of one plane of being are true also of all other + planes, adopted analogy as their guide in dealing with the facts of + chemistry and physics known to them. They endeavoured to explain these + facts by an application to them of the principles of mystical theology, + their chief aim being to prove the truth of these principles as applied to + the facts of the natural realm, and by studying natural phenomena to + become instructed in spiritual truth. They did not proceed by the sure, + but slow, method of modern science, <i>i.e</i>. the method of induction, + which questions experience at every step in the construction of a theory; + but they boldly allowed their imaginations to leap ahead and to formulate + a complete theory of the Cosmos on the strength of but few facts. This led + them into many fantastic errors, but I would not venture to deny them an + intuitive perception of certain fundamental truths concerning the + constitution of the Cosmos, even if they distorted these truths and + dressed them in a fantastic garb. + </p> + <p> + Now, as I hope to make plain in the course of this excursion, the + alchemists regarded the discovery of the Philosopher's Stone and the + transmutation of "base" metals into gold as the consummation of the proof + of the doctrines of mystical theology as applied to chemical phenomena, + and it was as such that they so ardently sought to achieve the <i>magnum + opus</i>, as this transmutation was called. Of course, it would be useless + to deny that many, accepting the truth of the great alchemical theorem, + sought for the Philosopher's Stone because of what was claimed for it in + the way of material benefits. But, as I have already indicated, with the + nobler alchemists this was not the case, and the desire for wealth, if + present at all, was merely a secondary object. + </p> + <p> + The idea expressed in DALTON'S atomic hypothesis (1802), and universally + held during the nineteenth century, that the material world is made up of + a certain limited number of elements unalterable in quantity, subject in + themselves to no change or development, and inconvertible one into + another, is quite alien to the views of the alchemists. The alchemists + conceived the universe to be a unity; they believed that all material + bodies had been developed from one seed; their elements are merely + different forms of one matter and, therefore, convertible one into + another. They were thoroughgoing evolutionists with regard to the things + of the material world, and their theory concerning the evolution of the + metals was, I believe, the direct outcome of a metallurgical application + of the mystical doctrine of the soul's development and regeneration. The + metals, they taught, all spring from the same seed in Nature's womb, but + are not all equally matured and perfect; for, as they say, although Nature + always intends to produce only gold, various impurities impede the + process. In the metals the alchemists saw symbols of man in the various + stages of his spiritual development. Gold, the most beautiful as well as + the most untarnishable metal, keeping its beauty permanently, unaffected + by sulphur, most acids, and fire—indeed, purified by such treatment,—gold, + to the alchemist, was the symbol of regenerate man, and therefore he + called it "a noble metal". Silver was also termed "noble"; but it was + regarded as less mature than gold, for, although it is undoubtedly + beautiful and withstands the action of fire, it is corroded by nitric acid + and is blackened by sulphur; it was, therefore, considered to be analogous + to the regenerate man at a lower stage of his development. Possibly we + shall not be far wrong in using SWEDENBORG'S terms, "celestial" to + describe the man of gold, "spiritual" to designate him of silver. Lead, on + the other hand, the alchemists regarded as a very immature and impure + metal: heavy and dull, corroded by sulphur and nitric acid, and converted + into a calx by the action of fire,—lead, to the alchemists, was a + symbol of man in a sinful and unregenerate condition. + </p> + <p> + The alchemists assumed the existence of three principles in the metals, + their obvious reason for so doing being the mystical threefold division of + man into body, soul (<i>i.e</i>. affections and will), and spirit (<i>i.e</i>. + intelligence), though the principle corresponding to body was a + comparatively late introduction in alchemical philosophy. This latter + fact, however, is no argument against my thesis; because, of course, I do + not maintain that the alchemists started out with their chemical + philosophy ready made, but gradually worked it out, by incorporating in it + further doctrines drawn from mystical theology. The three principles just + referred to were called "mercury," "sulphur," and "salt"; and they must be + distinguished from the common bodies so designated (though the alchemists + themselves seem often guilty of confusing them). "Mercury" is the metallic + principle <i>par excellence</i>, conferring on metals their brightness and + fusibility, and corresponding to the spirit or intelligence in man.(1) + "Sulphur," the principle of combustion and colour, is the analogue of the + soul. Many alchemists postulated two sulphurs in the metals, an inward and + an outward.(1b) The outward sulphur was thought to be the chief cause of + metallic impurity, and the reason why all (known) metals, save gold and + silver, were acted on by fire. The inward sulphur, on the other hand, was + regarded as essential to the development of the metals: pure mercury, we + are told, matured by a pure inward sulphur yields pure gold. Here again it + is evident that the alchemists borrowed their theories from mystical + theology; for, clearly, inward sulphur is nothing else than the equivalent + to love of God; outward sulphur to love of self. Intelligence (mercury) + matured by love to God (inward sulphur) exactly expresses the spiritual + state of the regenerate man according to mystical theology. There is no + reason, other than their belief in analogy, why the alchemists should have + held such views concerning the metals. "Salt," the principle of solidity + and resistance to fire, corresponding to the body in man, plays a + comparatively unimportant part in alchemical theory, as does its prototype + in mystical theology. + </p> + <p> + (1) The identification of the god MERCURY with THOTH, the Egyptian god of + learning, is worth noticing in this connection. + </p> + <p> + (1b) Pseudo-GEBER, whose writings were highly esteemed, for instance. See + R. RUSSEL'S translation of his works (1678), p. 160. + </p> + <p> + Now, as I have pointed out already, the central theorem of mystical + theology is, in Christian terminology, that of the regeneration of the + soul by the Spirit of CHRIST. The corresponding process in alchemy is that + of the transmutation of the "base" metals into silver and gold by the + agency of the Philosopher's Stone. Merely to remove the evil sulphur of + the "base" metals, thought the alchemists, though necessary, is not + sufficient to transmute them into "noble" metals; a maturing process is + essential, similar to that which they supposed was effected in Nature's + womb. Mystical theology teaches that the powers and life of the soul are + not inherent in it, but are given by the free grace of God. Neither, + according to the alchemists, are the powers and life of nature in herself, + but in that immanent spirit, the Soul of the World, that animates her. As + writes the famous alchemist who adopted the pleasing pseudonym of "BASIL + VALENTINE" (<i>c</i>. 1600), "the power of growth... is imparted not by + the earth, but by the life-giving spirit that is in it. If the earth were + deserted by this spirit, it would be dead, and no longer able to afford + nourishment to anything. For its sulphur or richness would lack the + quickening spirit without which there can be neither life nor growth."(1a) + To perfect the metals, therefore, the alchemists argued, from analogy with + mystical theology, which teaches that men can be regenerated only by the + power of CHRIST within the soul, that it is necessary to subject them to + the action of this world-spirit, this one essence underlying all the + varied powers of nature, this One Thing from which "all things were + produced... by adaption, and which is the cause of all perfection + throughout the whole world."(2a) "This," writes one alchemist, "is the + Spirit of Truth, which the world cannot comprehend without the + interposition of the Holy Ghost, or without the instruction of those who + know it. The same is of a mysterious nature, wondrous strength, boundless + power.... By Avicenna this Spirit is named the Soul of the World. For, as + the Soul moves all the limbs of the Body, so also does this Spirit move + all bodies. And as the Soul is in all the limbs of the Body, so also is + this Spirit in all elementary created things. It is sought by many and + found by few. It is beheld from afar and found near; for it exists in + every thing, in every place, and at all times. It has the powers of all + creatures; its action is found in all elements, and the qualities of all + things are therein, even in the highest perfection... it heals all dead + and living bodies without other medicine... converts all metallic bodies + into gold, and there is nothing like unto it under Heaven."(1b) It was + this Spirit, concentrated in all its potency in a suitable material form, + which the alchemists sought under the name of "the Philosopher's Stone". + Now, mystical theology teaches that the Spirit of CHRIST, by which alone + the soul of man can be tinctured and transmuted into the likeness of God, + is Goodness itself; consequently, the alchemists argued that the + Philosopher's Stone must be, so to speak, Gold itself, or the very essence + of Gold: it was to them, as CHRIST is of the soul's perfection, at once + the pattern and the means of metallic perfection. "The Philosopher's + Stone," declares "EIRENAEUS PHILALETHES" (<i>nat. c</i>. 1623), "is a + certain heavenly, spiritual, penetrative, and fixed substance, which + brings all metals to the perfection of gold or silver (according to the + quality of the Medicine), and that by natural methods, which yet in their + effects transcend Nature.... Know, then, that it is called a stone, not + because it is like a stone, but only because, by virtue of its fixed + nature, it resists the action of fire as successfully as any stone. In + species it is gold, more pure than the purest; it is fixed and + incombustible like a stone (<i>i.e</i>. it contains no outward sulphur, + but only inward, fixed sulphur), but its appearance is that of a very fine + powder, impalpable to the touch, sweet to the taste, fragrant to the + smell, in potency a most penetrative spirit, apparently dry and yet + unctuous, and easily capable of tingeing a plate of metal.... If we say + that its nature is spiritual, it would be no more than the truth; if we + described it as corporeal the expression would be equally correct; for it + is subtle, penetrative, glorified, spiritual gold. It is the noblest of + all created things after the rational soul, and has virtue to repair all + defects both in animal and metallic bodies, by restoring them to the most + exact and perfect temper; wherefore is it a spirit or 'quintessence.'"(1c) + </p> + <p> + (1a) BASIL VALENTINE: <i>The Twelve Keys</i>. (See <i>The Hermetic Museum</i>, + vol. i. pp. 333 and 334.) + </p> + <p> + (2a) From the "Smaragdine Table," attributed to HERMES TRISMEGISTOS (<i>ie</i>. + MERCURY or THOTH). + </p> + <p> + (1b) <i>The Book of the Revelation of</i> HERMES, <i>interpreted by</i> + THEOPHRASTUS PARACELSUS, <i>concerning the Supreme Secret of the World</i>. + (See BENEDICTUS FIGULUS, <i>A Golden and Blessed Casket of Nature's + Marvels</i>, trans. by A. E. WAITE, 1893, pp. 36, 37, and 41.) + </p> + <p> + (1c) EIRENAEUS PHILALETHES: <i>A Brief Guide to the Celestial Ruby</i>. + (See <i>The Hermetic Museum</i>, vol. ii. pp. 246 and 249.) + </p> + <p> + In other accounts the Philosopher's Stone, or at least the <i>materia + prima</i> of which it is compounded, is spoken of as a despised substance, + reckoned to be of no value. Thus, according to one curious alchemistic + work, "This matter, so precious by the excellent Gifts, wherewith Nature + has enriched it, is truly mean, with regard to the Substances from whence + it derives its Original. Their price is not above the Ability of the Poor. + Ten Pence is more than sufficient to purchase the Matter of the Stone.... + The matter therefore is mean, considering the Foundation of the Art + because it costs very little; it is no less mean, if one considers + exteriourly that which gives it Perfection, since in that regard it costs + nothing at all, in as much as <i>all the World has it in its Power</i>... + so that... it is a constant Truth, that the Stone is a Thing mean in one + Sense, but that in another it is most precious, and that there are none + but Fools that despise it, by a just Judgment of God."(1) And JACOB BOEHME + (1575—1624) writes: "The <i>philosopher's stone</i> is a very dark, + disesteemed stone, of a grey colour, but therein lieth the highest + tincture."(2) In these passages there is probably some reference to the + ubiquity of the Spirit of the World, already referred to in a former + quotation. But this fact is not, in itself, sufficient to account for + them. I suggest that their origin is to be found in the religious doctrine + that God's Grace, the Spirit of CHRIST that is the means of the + transmutation of man's soul into spiritual gold, is free to all; that it + is, at once, the meanest and the most precious thing in the whole + Universe. Indeed, I think it quite probable that the alchemists who penned + the above-quoted passages had in mind the words of ISAIAH, "He was + despised and we esteemed him not." And if further evidence is required + that the alchemists believed in a correspondence between CHRIST—"the + Stone which the builders rejected"—and the Philosopher's Stone, + reference may be made to the alchemical work called <i>The Sophic + Hydrolith: or Water Stone of the Wise</i>, a tract included in <i>The + Hermetic Museum</i>, in which this supposed correspondence is explicitly + asserted and dealt with in some detail. + </p> + <p> + (1) <i>A Discourse between Eudoxus and Pyrophilus, upon the Ancient War of + the Knights</i>. See <i>The Hermetical Triumph: or, the Victorious + Philosophical Stone</i> (1723), pp. 101 and 102. + </p> + <p> + (2) JACOB BOEHME: <i>Epistles</i> (trans. by J. E., 1649, reprinted 1886), + Ep. iv., SE III. + </p> + <p> + Apart from the alchemists' belief in the analogy between natural and + spiritual things, it is, I think, incredible that any such theories of the + metals and the possibility of their transmutation or "regeneration" by + such an extraordinary agent as the Philosopher's Stone would have occurred + to the ancient investigators of Nature's secrets. When they had started to + formulate these theories, facts(1) were discovered which appeared to + support them; but it is, I suggest, practically impossible to suppose that + any or all of these facts would, in themselves, have been sufficient to + give rise to such wonderfully fantastic theories as these: it is only from + the standpoint of the theory that alchemy was a direct offspring of + mysticism that its origin seems to be capable of explanation. + </p> + <p> + (1) One of those facts, amongst many others, that appeared to confirm the + alchemical doctrines, was the ease with which iron could apparently be + transmuted into copper. It was early observed that iron vessels placed in + contact with a solution of blue vitriol became converted (at least, so far + as their surfaces were concerned) into copper. This we now know to be due + to the fact that the copper originally contained in the vitriol is thrown + out of solution, whilst the iron takes its place. And we know, also, that + no more copper can be obtained in this way from the blue vitriol than is + actually used up in preparing it; and, further, that all the iron which is + apparently converted into copper can be got out of the residual solution + by appropriate methods, if such be desired; so that the facts really + support DALTON'S theory rather than the alchemical doctrines. But to the + alchemist it looked like a real transmutation of iron into copper, + confirmation of his fond belief that iron and other base metals could be + transmuted into silver and gold by the aid of the Great Arcanum of Nature. + </p> + <p> + In all the alchemical doctrines mystical connections are evident, and + mystical origins can generally be traced. I shall content myself here with + giving a couple of further examples. Consider, in the first place, the + alchemical doctrine of purification by putrefaction, that the metals must + die before they can be resurrected and truly live, that through death + alone are they purified—in the more prosaic language of modern + chemistry, death becomes oxidation, and rebirth becomes reduction. In many + alchemical books there are to be found pictorial symbols of the + putrefaction and death of metals and their new birth in the state of + silver or gold, or as the Stone itself, together with descriptions of + these processes. The alchemists sought to kill or destroy the body or + outward form of the metals, in the hope that they might get at and utilise + the living essence they believed to be immanent within. As PARACELSUS put + it: "Nothing of true value is located in the body of a substance, but in + the virtue... the less there is of body, the more in proportion is the + virtue." It seems to me quite obvious that in such ideas as these we have + the application to metallurgy of the mystic doctrine of self-renunciation—that + the soul must die to self before it can live to God; that the body must be + sacrificed to the spirit, and the individual will bowed down utterly to + the One Divine Will, before it can become one therewith. + </p> + <p> + In the second place, consider the directions as to the colours that must + be obtained in the preparation of the Philosopher's Stone, if a successful + issue to the Great Work is desired. Such directions are frequently given + in considerable detail in alchemical works; and, without asserting any + exact uniformity, I think that I may state that practically all the + alchemists agree that three great colour-stages are necessary—(i.) + an inky blackness, which is termed the "Crow's Head" and is indicative of + putrefaction; (ii.) a white colour indicating that the Stone is now + capable of converting "base" metals into silver; this passes through + orange into (iii.) a red colour, which shows that the Stone is now + perfect, and will transmute "base" metals into gold. Now, what was the + reason for the belief in these three colour-stages, and for their + occurrence in the above order? I suggest that no alchemist actually + obtained these colours in this order in his chemical experiments, and that + we must look for a speculative origin for the belief in them. We have, I + think, only to turn to religious mysticism for this origin. For the + exponents of religious mysticism unanimously agree to a threefold division + of the life of the mystic. The first stage is called "the dark night of + the soul," wherein it seems as if the soul were deserted by God, although + He is very near. It is the time of trial, when self is sacrificed as a + duty and not as a delight. Afterwards, however, comes the morning light of + a new intelligence, which marks the commencement of that stage of the + soul's upward progress that is called the "illuminative life". All the + mental powers are now concentrated on God, and the struggle is transferred + from without to the inner man, good works being now done, as it were, + spontaneously. The disciple, in this stage, not only does unselfish deeds, + but does them from unselfish motives, being guided by the light of Divine + Truth. The third stage, which is the consummation of the process, is + termed "the contemplative life". It is barely describable. The disciple is + wrapped about with the Divine Love, and is united thereby with his Divine + Source. It is the life of love, as the illuminative life is that of + wisdom. I suggest that the alchemists, believing in this threefold + division of the regenerative process, argued that there must be three + similar stages in the preparation of the Stone, which was the pattern of + all metallic perfection; and that they derived their beliefs concerning + the colours, and other peculiarities of each stage in the supposed + chemical process, from the characteristics of each stage in the + psychological process according to mystical theology. + </p> + <p> + Moreover, in the course of the latter process many flitting thoughts and + affections arise and deeds are half-wittingly done which are not of the + soul's true character; and in entire agreement with this, we read of the + alchemical process, in the highly esteemed "Canons" of D'ESPAGNET: + "Besides these decretory signs (<i>i.e</i>. the black, white, orange, and + red colours) which firmly inhere in the matter, and shew its essential + mutations, almost infinite colours appear, and shew themselves in vapours, + as the Rainbow in the clouds, which quickly pass away and are expelled by + those that succeed, more affecting the air than the earth: the operator + must have a gentle care of them, because they are not permanent, and + proceed not from the intrinsic disposition of the matter, but from the + fire painting and fashioning everything after its pleasure, or casually by + heat in slight moisture."(1) That D'ESPAGNET is arguing, not so much from + actual chemical experiments, as from analogy with psychological processes + in man, is, I think, evident. + </p> + <p> + (1) JEAN D'ESPAGNET: <i>Hermetic Arcanum</i>, canon 65. (See <i>Collectanea + Hermetica</i>, ed. by W. WYNN WESTCOTT, vol. i., 1893, pp. 28 and 29.) + </p> + <p> + As well as a metallic, the alchemists believed in a physiological, + application of the fundamental doctrines of mysticism: their physiology + was analogically connected with their metallurgy, the same principles + holding good in each case. PARACELSUS, as we have seen, taught that man is + a microcosm, a world in miniature; his spirit, the Divine Spark within, is + from God; his soul is from the Stars, extracted from the Spirit of the + World; and his body is from the earth, extracted from the elements of + which all things material are made. This view of man was shared by many + other alchemists. The Philosopher's Stone, therefore (or, rather, a + solution of it in alcohol) was also regarded as the Elixir of Life; which, + thought the alchemists, would not endow man with physical immortality, as + is sometimes supposed, but restore him again to the flower of youth, + "regenerating" him physiologically. Failing this, of course, they regarded + gold in a potable form as the next most powerful medicine—a belief + which probably led to injurious effects in some cases. + </p> + <p> + Such are the facts from which I think we are justified in concluding, as I + have said, "that the alchemists constructed their chemical theories for + the main part by means of <i>a priori</i> reasoning, and that the premises + from which they started were (i.) the truth of mystical theology, + especially the doctrine of the soul's regeneration, and (ii.) the truth of + mystical philosophy, which asserts that the objects of nature are symbols + of spiritual verities."(1) + </p> + <p> + (1) In the following excursion we will wander again in the alchemical + bypaths of thought, and certain objections to this view of the origin and + nature of alchemy will be dealt with and, I hope, satisfactorily answered. + </p> + <p> + It seems to follow, <i>ex hypothesi</i>, that every alchemical work ought + to permit of two interpretations, one physical, the other transcendental. + But I would not venture to assert this, because, as I think, many of the + lesser alchemists knew little of the origin of their theories, nor + realised their significance. They were concerned merely with these + theories in their strictly metallurgical applications, and any + transcendental meaning we can extract from their works was not intended by + the writers themselves. However, many alchemists, I conceive, especially + the better sort, realised more or less clearly the dual nature of their + subject, and their books are to some extent intended to permit of a double + interpretation, although the emphasis is laid upon the physical and + chemical application of mystical doctrine. And there are a few writers who + adopted alchemical terminology on the principle that, if the language of + theology is competent to describe chemical processes, then, conversely, + the language of alchemy must be competent to describe psychological + processes: this is certainly and entirely true of JACOB BOEHME, and, to + some extent also, I think, of HENRY KHUNRATH (1560-1605) and THOMAS + VAUGHAN (1622-1666). + </p> + <p> + As may be easily understood, many of the alchemists led most romantic + lives, often running the risk of torture and death at the hands of + avaricious princes who believed them to be in possession of the + Philosopher's Stone, and adopted such pleasant methods of extorting (or, + at least, of trying to extort) their secrets. A brief sketch, which I + quote from my <i>Alchemy: Ancient and Modern</i> (1911), SE 54, of the + lives of ALEXANDER SETHON and MICHAEL SENDIVOGIUS, will serve as an + example:— + </p> + <p> + "The date and birthplace of ALEXANDER SETHON, a Scottish alchemist, do not + appear to have been recorded, but MICHAEL SENDIVOGIUS was probably born in + Moravia about 1566. Sethon, we are told, was in possession of the + arch-secrets of Alchemy. He visited Holland in 1602, proceeded after a + time to Italy, and passed through Basle to Germany; meanwhile he is said + to have performed many transmutations. Ultimately arriving at Dresden, + however, he fell into the clutches of the young Elector, Christian II., + who, in order to extort his secret, cast him into prison and put him to + the torture, but without avail. Now it so happened that Sendivogius, who + was in quest of the Philosopher's Stone, was staying at Dresden, and + hearing of Sethon's imprisonment obtained permission to visit him. + Sendivogius offered to effect Sethon's escape in return for assistance in + his alchemistic pursuits, to which arrangement the Scottish alchemist + willingly agreed. After some considerable outlay of money in bribery, + Sendivogius's plan of escape was successfully carried out, and Sethon + found himself a free man; but he refused to betray the high secrets of + Hermetic philosophy to his rescuer. However, before his death, which + occurred shortly afterwards, he presented him with an ounce of the + transmutative powder. Sendivogius soon used up this powder, we are told, + in effecting transmutations and cures, and, being fond of expensive + living, he married Sethon's widow, in the hope that she was in the + possession of the transmutative secret. In this, however, he was + disappointed; she knew nothing of the matter, but she had the manuscript + of an alchemistic work written by her late husband. Shortly afterwards + Sendivogius printed at Prague a book entitled <i>The New Chemical Light</i> + under the name of 'Cosmopolita,' which is said to have been this work of + Sethon's, but which Sendivogius claimed for his own by the insertion of + his name on the title page, in the form of an anagram. The tract <i>On + Sulphur</i> which was printed at the end of the book in later editions, + however, is said to have been the genuine work of the Moravian. Whilst his + powder lasted, Sendivogius travelled about, performing, we are told, many + transmutations. He was twice imprisoned in order to extort the secrets of + alchemy from him, on one occasion escaping, and on the other occasion + obtaining his release from the Emperor Rudolph. Afterwards, he appears to + have degenerated into an impostor, but this is said to have been a <i>finesse</i> + to hide his true character as an alchemistic adept. He died in 1646." + </p> + <p> + However, all the alchemists were not of the apparent character of + SENDIVOGIUS—many of them leading holy and serviceable lives. The + alchemist-physician J. B. VAN HELMONT (1577-1644), who was a man of + extraordinary benevolence, going about treating the sick poor freely, may + be particularly mentioned. He, too, claimed to have performed the + transmutation of "base" metal into gold, as did also HELVETIUS (whom we + have already met), physician to the Prince of Orange, with a wonderful + preparation given to him by a stranger. The testimony of these two latter + men is very difficult either to explain or to explain away, but I cannot + deal with this question here, but must refer the reader to a paper on the + subject by Mr GASTON DE MENGEL, and the discussion thereon, published in + vol. i. of <i>The Journal of the Alchemical Society</i>. + </p> + <p> + In conclusion, I will venture one remark dealing with a matter outside of + the present inquiry. Alchemy ended its days in failure and fraud; + charlatans and fools were attracted to it by purely mercenary objects, who + knew nothing of the high aims of the genuine alchemists, and scientific + men looked elsewhere for solutions of Nature's problems. Why did alchemy + fail? Was it because its fundamental theorems were erroneous? I think not. + I consider the failure of the alchemical theory of Nature to be due rather + to the misapplication of these fundamental concepts, to the erroneous use + of <i>a priori</i> methods of reasoning, to a lack of a sufficiently wide + knowledge of natural phenomena to which to apply these concepts, to a lack + of adequate apparatus with which to investigate such phenomena + experimentally, and to a lack of mathematical organons of thought with + which to interpret such experimental results had they been obtained. As + for the basic concepts of alchemy themselves, such as the fundamental + unity of the Cosmos and the evolution of the elements, in a word, the + applicability of the principles of mysticism to natural phenomena: these + seem to me to contain a very valuable element of truth—a statement + which, I think, modern scientific research justifies me in making,—though + the alchemists distorted this truth and expressed it in a fantastic form. + I think, indeed, that in the modern theories of energy and the + all-pervading ether, the etheric and electrical origin and nature of + matter and the evolution of the elements, we may witness the triumphs of + mysticism as applied to the interpretation of Nature. Whether or not we + shall ever transmute lead into gold, I believe there is a very true sense + in which we may say that alchemy, purified by its death, has been proved + true, whilst the materialistic view of Nature has been proved false. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + X. THE PHALLIC ELEMENT IN ALCHEMICAL DOCTRINE + </h2> + <p> + THE problem of alchemy presents many aspects to our view, but, to my mind, + the most fundamental of these is psychological, or, perhaps I should say, + epistemological. It has been said that the proper study of mankind is man; + and to study man we must study the beliefs of man. Now so long as we + neglect great tracts of such beliefs, because they have been, or appear to + have been, superseded, so long will our study be incomplete and + ineffectual. And this, let me add, is no mere excuse for the study of + alchemy, no mere afterthought put forward in justification of a + predilection, but a plain statement of fact that renders this study an + imperative need. There are other questions of interest—of very great + interest—concerning alchemy: questions, for instance, as to the + scope and validity of its doctrines; but we ought not to allow their + fascination and promise to distract our attention from the fundamental + problem, whose solution is essential to their elucidation. + </p> + <p> + In the preceding essay on "The Quest of the Philosopher's Stone," which + was written from the standpoint I have sketched in the foregoing words, my + thesis was "that the alchemists constructed their chemical theories for + the main part by means of <i>a priori</i> reasoning, and that the premises + from which they started were (i.) the truth of mystical theology, + especially the doctrine of the soul's regeneration, and (ii.) the truth of + mystical philosophy, which asserts that the objects of nature are symbols + of spiritual verities." Now, I wish to treat my present thesis, which is + concerned with a further source from which the alchemists derived certain + of their views and modes of expression by means of <i>a priori</i> + reasoning, in connection with, and, in a sense, as complementary to, my + former thesis. I propose in the first place, therefore, briefly to deal + with certain possible objections to this view of alchemy. + </p> + <p> + It has, for instance, been maintained(1) that the assimilation of + alchemical doctrines concerning the metals to those of mysticism + concerning the soul was an event late in the history of alchemy, and was + undertaken in the interests of the latter doctrines. Now we know that + certain mystics of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries did borrow from + the alchemists much of their terminology with which to discourse of + spiritual mysteries—JACOB BOEHME, HENRY KHUNRATH, and perhaps THOMAS + VAUGHAN, may be mentioned as the most prominent cases in point. But how + was this possible if it were not, as I have suggested, the repayment, in a + sense, of a sort of philological debt? Transmutation was an admirable + vehicle of language for describing the soul's regeneration, just because + the doctrine of transmutation was the result of an attempt to apply the + doctrine of regeneration in the sphere of metallurgy; and similar remarks + hold of the other prominent doctrines of alchemy. + </p> + <p> + (1) See, for example, Mr A. E. WAITE'S paper, "The Canon of Criticism in + respect of Alchemical Literature," <i>The Journal of the Alchemical + Society</i>, vol. i. (1913), pp. 17-30. + </p> + <p> + The wonderful fabric of alchemical doctrine was not woven in a day, and as + it passed from loom to loom, from Byzantium to Syria, from Syria to + Arabia, from Arabia to Spain and Latin Europe, so its pattern changed; but + it was always woven <i>a priori</i>, in the belief that that which is + below is as that which is above. In its final form, I think, it is + distinctly Christian. + </p> + <p> + In the <i>Turba Philosophorum</i>, the oldest known work of Latin alchemy—a + work which, claiming to be of Greek origin, whilst not that, is certainly + Greek in spirit,—we frequently come across statements of a decidedly + mystical character. "The regimen," we read, "is greater than is perceived + by reason, except through divine inspiration."(1) Copper, it is insisted + upon again and again, has a soul as well as a body; and the Art, we are + told, is to be defined as "the liquefaction of the body and the separation + of the soul from the body, seeing that copper, like a man, has a soul and + a body."(2) Moreover, other doctrines are here propounded which, although + not so obviously of a mystical character, have been traced to mystical + sources in the preceding excursion. There is, for instance, the doctrine + of purification by means of putrefaction, this process being likened to + that of the resurrection of man. "These things being done," we read, "God + will restore unto it (the matter operated on) both the soul and the spirit + thereof, and the weakness being taken away, that matter will be made + strong, and after corruption will be improved, even as a man becomes + stronger after resurrection and younger than he was in this world."(1b) + The three stages in the alchemical work—black, white, and red—corresponding + to, and, as I maintain, based on the three stages in the life of the + mystic, are also more than once mentioned. "Cook them (the king and his + wife), therefore, until they become black, then white, afterwards red, and + finally until a tingeing venom is produced."(2b) + </p> + <p> + (1) <i>The Turba Philosophorum, or Assembly of the Sages</i> (trans. by A. + E. WAITE, 1896), p. 128. + </p> + <p> + (2) <i>Ibid</i>., p. 193, <i>cf</i>. pp. 102 and 152. + </p> + <p> + (1b) <i>The Turba Philosophorum, or Assembly of the Sages</i> (trans. by + A. E. WAITE), p. 101, <i>cf</i>. pp. 27 and 197. + </p> + <p> + (2b) <i>Ibid</i>., p. 98, <i>cf</i>. p. 29. + </p> + <p> + In view of these quotations, the alliance (shall I say?) between alchemy + and mysticism cannot be asserted to be of late origin. And we shall find + similar statements if we go further back in time. To give but one example: + "Among the earliest authorities," writes Mr WAITE, "the <i>Book of Crates</i> + says that copper, like man, has a spirit, soul, and body," the term + "copper" being symbolical and applying to a stage in the alchemical work. + But nowhere in the <i>Turba</i> do we meet with the concept of the + Philosopher's Stone as the medicine of the metals, a concept + characteristic of Latin alchemy, and, to quote Mr WAITE again, "it does + not appear that the conception of the Philosopher's Stone as a medicine of + metals and of men was familiar to Greek alchemy;"(3) + </p> + <p> + (3) <i>Ibid</i>., p. 71. + </p> + <p> + All this seems to me very strongly to support my view of the origin of + alchemy, which requires a specifically Christian mysticism only for this + specific concept of the Philosopher's Stone in its fully-fledged form. At + any rate, the development of alchemical doctrine can be seen to have + proceeded concomitantly with the development of mystical philosophy and + theology. Those who are not prepared here to see effect and cause may be + asked not only to formulate some other hypothesis in explanation of the + origin of alchemy, but also to explain this fact of concomitant + development. + </p> + <p> + From the standpoint of the transcendental theory of alchemy it has been + urged "that the language of mystical theology seemed to be hardly so + suitable to the exposition (as I maintain) or concealment of chemical + theories, as the language of a definite and generally credited branch of + science was suited to the expression of a veiled and symbolical process + such as the regeneration of man."(1) But such a statement is only possible + with respect to the latest days of alchemy, when there WAS a science of + chemistry, definite and generally credited. The science of chemistry, it + must be remembered, had no growth separate from alchemy, but evolved + therefrom. Of the days before this evolution had been accomplished, it + would be in closer accord with the facts to say that theology, including + the doctrine of man's regeneration, was in the position of "a definite and + generally credited branch of science," whereas chemical phenomena were + veiled in deepest mystery and tinged with the dangers appertaining to + magic. As concerns the origin of alchemy, therefore, the argument as to + suitability of language appears to support my own theory; it being open to + assume that after formulation—that is, in alchemy's latter days—chemical + nomenclature and theories were employed by certain writers to veil + heterodox religious doctrine. + </p> + <p> + (1) PHILIP S. WELLBY, M.A., in <i>The Journal of the Alchemical Society</i>, + vol. ii. (1914), p. 104. + </p> + <p> + Another recent writer on the subject, my friend the late Mr ABDUL-ALI, has + remarked that "he thought that, in the mind of the alchemist at least, + there was something more than analogy between metallic and psychic + transformations, and that the whole subject might well be assigned to the + doctrinal category of ineffable and transcendent Oneness. This Oneness + comprehended all—soul and body, spirit and matter, mystic visions + and waking life—and the sharp metaphysical distinction between the + mental and the non-mental realms, so prominent during the history of + philosophy, was not regarded by these early investigators in the sphere of + nature. There was the sentiment, perhaps only dimly experienced, that not + only the law, but the substance of the Universe, was one; that mind was + everywhere in contact with its own kindred; and that metallic + transmutation would, somehow, so to speak, signalise and seal a hidden + transmutation of the soul."(1) + </p> + <p> + (1) SIJIL ABDUL-ALI, in <i>The Journal of the Alchemical Society</i>, vol. + ii. (1914), p. 102. + </p> + <p> + I am to a large extent in agreement with this view. Mr ABDUL-ALI quarrels + with the term "analogy," and, if it is held to imply any merely + superficial resemblance, it certainly is not adequate to my own needs, + though I know not what other word to use. SWEDENBORG'S term + "correspondence" would be better for my purpose, as standing for an + essential connection between spirit and matter, arising out of the causal + relationship of the one to the other. But if SWEDENBORG believed that + matter and spirit were most intimately related, he nevertheless had a very + precise idea of their distinctness, which he formulated in his Doctrine of + Degrees—a very exact metaphysical doctrine indeed. The alchemists, + on the other hand, had no such clear ideas on the subject. It would be + even more absurd to attribute to them a Cartesian dualism. To their ways + of thinking, it was by no means impossible to grasp the spiritual essences + of things by what we should now call chemical manipulations. For them a + gas was still a ghost and air a spirit. One could quote pages in support + of this, but I will content myself with a few words from the <i>Turba</i>—the + antiquity of the book makes it of value, and anyway it is near at hand. + "Permanent water," whatever that may be, being pounded with the body, we + are told, "by the will of God it turns that body into spirit." And in + another place we read that "the Philosophers have said: Except ye turn + bodies into not-bodies, and incorporeal things into bodies, ye have not + yet discovered the rule of operation."(1a) No one who could write like + this, and believe it, could hold matter and spirit as altogether distinct. + But it is equally obvious that the injunction to convert body into spirit + is meaningless if spirit and body are held to be identical. I have been + criticised for crediting the alchemists "with the philosophic acumen of + Hegel,"(1b) but that is just what I think one ought to avoid doing. At the + same time, however, it is extremely difficult to give a precise account of + views which are very far from being precise themselves. But I think it may + be said, without fear of error, that the alchemist who could say, "As + above, so below," <i>ipso facto</i> recognised both a very close + connection between spirit and matter, and a distinction between them. + Moreover, the division thus implied corresponded, on the whole, to that + between the realms of the known (or what was thought to be known) and the + unknown. The Church, whether Christian or pre-Christian, had very precise + (comparatively speaking) doctrine concerning the soul's origin, duties, + and destiny, backed up by tremendous authority, and speculative philosophy + had advanced very far by the time PLATO began to concern himself with its + problems. Nature, on the other hand, was a mysterious world of magical + happenings, and there was nothing deserving of the name of natural science + until alchemy was becoming decadent. It is not surprising, therefore, that + the alchemists—these men who wished to probe Nature's hidden + mysteries—should reason from above to below; indeed, unless they had + started <i>de novo</i>—as babes knowing nothing,—there was no + other course open to them. And that they did adopt the obvious course is + all that my former thesis amounts to. In passing, it is interesting to + note that a sixteenth-century alchemist, who had exceptional opportunities + and leisure to study the works of the old masters of alchemy, seems to + have come to a similar conclusion as to the nature of their reasoning. He + writes: "The Sages... after having conceived in their minds a Divine idea + of the relations of the whole universe... selected from among the rest a + certain substance, from which they sought to elicit the elements, to + separate and purify them, and then again put them together in a manner + suggested by a keen and profound observation of Nature."(1c) + </p> + <p> + (1a) <i>op cit</i>., pp,. 65 and 110, <i>cf</i>. p. 154. + </p> + <p> + (1b) <i>Vide</i> a rather frivolous review of my <i>Alchemy: Ancient and + Modern</i> in <i>The Outlook</i> for 14th January 1911. + </p> + <p> + (1c) EDWARD KELLY: <i>The Humid Path</i>. (See <i>The Alchemical Writings</i> + of EDWARD KELLY, edited by A. E. WAITE, 1893, pp. 59-60.) + </p> + <p> + In describing the realm of spirit as <i>ex hypothesi</i> known, that of + Nature unknown, to the alchemists, I have made one important omission, and + that, if I may use the name of a science to denominate a complex of crude + facts, is the realm of physiology, which, falling within that of Nature, + must yet be classed as <i>ex hypothesi</i> known. But to elucidate this + point some further considerations are necessary touching the general + nature of knowledge. Now, facts may be roughly classed, according to their + obviousness and frequency of occurrence, into four groups. There are, + first of all, facts which are so obvious, to put it paradoxically, that + they escape notice; and these facts are the commonest and most frequent in + their occurrence. I think it is Mr CHESTERTON who has said that, looking + at a forest one cannot see the trees because of the forest; and, in <i>The + Innocence of Father Brown</i>, he has a good story ("The Invisible Man") + illustrating the point, in which a man renders himself invisible by + dressing up in a postman's uniform. At any rate, we know that when a + phenomenon becomes persistent it tends to escape observation; thus, + continuous motion can only be appreciated with reference to a stationary + body, and a noise, continually repeated, becomes at last inaudible. The + tendency of often-repeated actions to become habitual, and at last + automatic, that is to say, carried out without consciousness, is a closely + related phenomenon. We can understand, therefore, why a knowledge of the + existence of the atmosphere, as distinct from the wind, came late in the + history of primitive man, as, also, many other curious gaps in his + knowledge. In the second group we may put those facts which are common, + that is, of frequent occurrence, and are classed as obvious. Such facts + are accepted at face-value by the primitive mind, and are used as the + basis of explanation of facts in the two remaining groups, namely, those + facts which, though common, are apt to escape the attention owing to their + inconspicuousness, and those which are of infrequent occurrence. When the + mind takes the trouble to observe a fact of the third group, or is + confronted by one of the fourth, it feels a sense of surprise. Such facts + wear an air of strangeness, and the mind can only rest satisfied when it + has shown them to itself as in some way cases of the second group of + facts, or, at least, brought them into relation therewith. That is what + the mind—at least the primitive mind—means by "explanation". + "It is obvious," we say, commencing an argument, thereby proclaiming our + intention to bring that which is at first in the category of the + not-obvious, into the category of the obvious. It remains for a more + sceptical type of mind—a later product of human evolution—to + question obvious facts, to explain them, either, as in science, by + establishing deeper and more far-reaching correlations between phenomena, + or in philosophy, by seeking for the source and purpose of such facts, or, + better still, by both methods. + </p> + <p> + Of the second class of facts—those common and obvious facts which + the primitive mind accepts at face-value and uses as the basis of its + explanations of such things as seem to it to stand in need of explanation—one + could hardly find a better instance than sex. The universality of sex, and + the intermittent character of its phenomena, are both responsible for + this. Indeed, the attitude of mind I have referred to is not restricted to + primitive man; how many people to-day, for instance, just accept sex as a + fact, pleasant or unpleasant according to their predilections, never + querying, or feeling the need to query, its why and wherefore? It is by no + means surprising, that when man first felt the need of satisfying himself + as to the origin of the universe, he should have done so by a theory + founded on what he knew of his own generation. Indeed, as I queried on a + former occasion, what other source of explanation was open to him? Of what + other form of origin was he aware? Seeing Nature springing to life at the + kiss of the sun, what more natural than that she should be regarded as the + divine Mother, who bears fruits because impregnated by the Sun-God? It is + not difficult to understand, therefore, why primitive man paid divine + honours to the organs of sex in man and woman, or to such things as he + considered symbolical of them—that is to say, to understand the + extensiveness of those religions which are grouped under the term + "phallicism". Nor, to my mind, is the symbol of sex a wholly inadequate + one under which to conceive of the origin of things. And, as I have said + before, that phallicism usually appears to have degenerated into + immorality of a very pronounced type is to be deplored, but an immoral + view of human relations is by no means a necessary corollary to a sexual + theory of the universe.(1) + </p> + <p> + (1) "The reverence as well as the worship paid to the phallus, in early + and primitive days, had nothing in it which partook of indecency; all + ideas connected with it were of a reverential and religious kind.... + </p> + <p> + "The indecent ideas attached to the representation of the phallus were, + though it seems a paradox to say so, the results of a more advanced + civilization verging towards its decline, as we have evidence at Rome and + Pompeii.... + </p> + <p> + "To the primitive man (the reproductive force which pervades all nature) + was the most mysterious of all manifestations. The visible physical powers + of nature—the sun, the sky, the storm—naturally claimed his + reverence, but to him the generative power was the most mysterious of all + powers. In the vegetable world, the live seed placed in the ground, and + hence germinating, sprouting up, and becoming a beautiful and umbrageous + tree, was a mystery. In the animal world, as the cause of all life, by + which all beings came into existence, this power was a mystery. In the + view of primitive man generation was the action of the Deity itself. It + was the mode in which He brought all things into existence, the sun, the + moon, the stars, the world, man were generated by Him. To the productive + power man was deeply indebted, for to it he owed the harvests and the + flocks which supported his life; hence it naturally became an object of + reverence and worship. + </p> + <p> + "Primitive man wants some object to worship, for an abstract idea is + beyond his comprehension, hence a visible representation of the generative + Deity was made, with the organs contributing to generation most prominent, + and hence the organ itself became a symbol of the power."—H, M. + WESTROPP: <i>Primitive Symbolism as Illustrated in Phallic Worship, or the + Reproductive Principle</i> (1885), pp. 47, 48, and 57. {End of long + footnote} + </p> + <p> + The Aruntas of Australia, I believe, when discovered by Europeans, had not + yet observed the connection between sexual intercourse and birth. They + believed that conception was occasioned by the woman passing near a <i>churinga</i>—a + peculiarly shaped piece of wood or stone, in which a spirit-child was + concealed, which entered into her. But archaeological research having + established the fact that phallicism has, at one time or another, been + common to nearly all races, it seems probable that the Arunta tribe + represents a deviation from the normal line of mental evolution. At any + rate, an isolated phenomenon, such as this, cannot be held to controvert + the view that regards phallicism as in this normal line. Nor was the + attitude of mind that not only accepts sex at face-value as an obvious + fact, but uses the concept of it to explain other facts, a merely + transitory one. We may, indeed, not difficultly trace it throughout the + history of alchemy, giving rise to what I may term "The Phallic Element in + Alchemical Doctrine". + </p> + <p> + In aiming to establish this, I may be thought to be endeavouring to + establish a counter-thesis to that of the preceding essay on alchemy, but, + in virtue of the alchemists' belief in the mystical unity of all things, + in the analogical or correspondential relationship of all parts of the + universe to each other, the mystical and the phallic views of the origin + of alchemy are complementary, not antagonistic. Indeed, the assumption + that the metals are the symbols of man almost necessitates the working out + of physiological as well as mystical analogies, and these two series of + analogies are themselves connected, because the principle "As above, so + below" was held to be true of man himself. We might, therefore, expect to + find a more or less complete harmony between the two series of symbols, + though, as a matter of fact, contradictions will be encountered when we + come to consider points of detail. The undoubtable antiquity of the + phallic element in alchemical doctrine precludes the idea that this + element was an adventitious one, that it was in any sense an afterthought; + notwithstanding, however, the evidence, as will, I hope, become apparent + as we proceed, indicates that mystical ideas played a much more + fundamental part in the genesis of alchemical doctrine than purely phallic + ones—mystical interpretations fit alchemical processes and theories + far better than do sexual interpretations; in fact, sex has to be + interpreted somewhat mystically in order to work out the analogies fully + and satisfactorily. + </p> + <p> + As concerns Greek alchemy, I shall content myself with a passage from a + work <i>On the Sacred Art</i>, attributed to OLYMPIODORUS (sixth century + A.D.), followed by some quotations from and references to the <i>Turba</i>. + In the former work it is stated on the authority of HORUS that "The proper + end of the whole art is to obtain the semen of the male secretly, seeing + that all things are male and female. Hence (we read further) Horus says in + a certain place: Join the male and the female, and you will find that + which is sought; as a fact, without this process of re-union, nothing can + succeed, for Nature charms Nature," <i>etc</i>. The <i>Turba</i> + insistently commands those who would succeed in the Art, to conjoin the + male with the female,(1) and, in one place, the male is said to be lead + and the female orpiment.(2) We also find the alchemical work symbolised by + the growth of the embryo in the womb. "Know," we are told, "... that out + of the elect things nothing becomes useful without conjunction and + regimen, because sperma is generated out of blood and desire. For the man + mingling with the woman, the sperm is nourished by the humour of the womb, + and by the moistening blood, and by heat, and when forty nights have + elapsed the sperm is formed.... God has constituted that heat and blood + for the nourishment of the sperm until the foetus is brought forth. So + long as it is little, it is nourished with milk, and in proportion as the + vital heat is maintained, the bones are strengthened. Thus it behoves you + also to act in this Art."(3) + </p> + <p> + (1) <i>Vide</i> pp. 60 92, 96 97, 134, 135 and elsewhere in Mr WAITE'S + translation. + </p> + <p> + (2) <i>Ibid</i>., p. 57 + </p> + <p> + (3) <i>Ibid</i>., pp. 179-181 (second recension); <i>cf</i>. pp. 103-104. + </p> + <p> + The use of the mystical symbols of death (putrefaction) and resurrection + or rebirth to represent the consummation of the alchemical work, and that + of the phallic symbols of the conjunction of the sexes and the development + of the foetus, both of which we have found in the <i>Turba</i>, are + current throughout the course of Latin alchemy. In <i>The Chymical + Marriage of Christian Rosencreutz</i>, that extraordinary document of what + is called "Rosicrucianism"—a symbolic romance of considerable + ability, whoever its author was,(1)—an attempt is made to weld the + two sets of symbols—the one of marriage, the other of death and + resurrection unto glory—into one allegorical narrative; and it is to + this fusion of seemingly disparate concepts that much of its + fantasticality is due. Yet the concepts are not really disparate; for not + only is the second birth like unto the first, and not only is the + resurrection unto glory described as the Bridal Feast of the Lamb, but + marriage is, in a manner, a form of death and rebirth. To justify this in + a crude sense, I might say that, from the male standpoint at least, it is + a giving of the life-substance to the beloved that life may be born anew + and increase. But in a deeper sense it is, or rather should be, as an + ideal, a mutual sacrifice of self for each other's good—a death of + the self that it may arise with an enriched personality. + </p> + <p> + (1) See Mr WAITE'S <i>The Real History of the Rosicrucians</i> (1887) for + translation and discussion as to origin and significance. The work was + first published (in German) at Strassburg in 1616. + </p> + <p> + It is when we come to an examination of the ideas at the root of, and + associated with, the alchemical concept of "principles," that we find some + difficulty in harmonising the two series of symbols—the mystical and + the phallic. In one place in the <i>Turba</i> we are directed "to take + quicksilver, in which is the male potency or strength";(2a) and this + concept of mercury as male is quite in accord with the mystical origin I + have assigned in the preceding excursion to the doctrine of the alchemical + principles. I have shown, I think, that salt, sulphur, and mercury are the + analogues <i>ex hypothesi</i> of the body, soul (affection and volition), + and spirit (intelligence or understanding) in man; and the affections are + invariably regarded as especially feminine, the understanding as + especially masculine. But it seems that the more common opinion, amongst + Latin alchemists at any rate, was that sulphur was male and mercury + female. Writes BERNARD of TREVISAN: "For the Matter suffereth, and the + Form acteth assimulating the Matter to itself, and according to this + manner the Matter naturally thirsteth after a Form, as a Woman desireth an + Husband, and a Vile thing a precious one, and an impure a pure one, so + also <i>Argent-vive</i> coveteth a Sulphur, as that which should make + perfect which is imperfect: So also a Body freely desireth a Spirit, + whereby it may at length arrive at its perfection."(1b) At the same time, + however, Mercury was regarded as containing in itself both male and female + potencies—it was the product of male and female, and, thus, the seed + of all the metals. "Nothing in the World can be generated," to repeat a + quotation from BERNARD, without these two Substances, to wit a Male and + Female: From whence it appeareth, that although these two substances are + not of one and the same species, yet one Stone doth thence arise, and + although they appear and are said to be two Substances, yet in truth it is + but one, to wit, <i>Argent-vive</i>. But of this <i>Argent-vive</i> a + certain part is fixed and digested, Masculine, hot, dry and secretly + informing. But the other, which is the Female, is volatile, crude, cold, + and moyst."(2b) EDWARD KELLY (1555-1595), who is valuable because he + summarises authoritative opinion, says somewhat the same thing, though in + clearer words: "The active elements... these are water and fire... may be + called male, while the passive elements... earth and air... represent the + female principle.... Only two elements, water and earth, are visible, and + earth is called the hiding-place of fire, water the abode of air. In these + two elements we have the broad law of limitation which divides the male + from the female. ... The first matter of minerals is a kind of viscous + water, mingled with pure and impure earth... Of this viscous water and + fusible earth, or sulphur, is composed that which is called quicksilver, + the first matter of the metals. Metals are nothing but Mercury digested by + different degrees of heat."(1c) There is one difference, however, between + these two writers, inasmuch as BERNARD says that "the Male and Female + abide together in closed Natures; the Female truly as it were Earth and + Water, the Male as Air and Fire." Mercury for him arises from the two + former elements, sulphur from the two latter.(2c) And the difference is + important as showing beyond question the <i>a priori</i> nature of + alchemical reasoning. The idea at the back of the alchemists' minds was + undoubtedly that of the ardour of the male in the act of coition and the + alleged, or perhaps I should say apparent, passivity of the female. + Consequently, sulphur, the fiery principle of combustion, and such + elements as were reckoned to be active, were denominated "male," whilst + mercury, the principle acted on by sulphur, and such elements as were + reckoned to be passive, were denominated "female". As to the question of + origin, I do not think that the palm can be denied to the mystical as + distinguished from the phallic theory. And in its final form the doctrine + of principles is incapable of a sexual interpretation. Mystically + understood, man is capable of analysis into two principles—since + "body" may be neglected as unimportant (a false view, I think, by the way) + or "soul" and "spirit" may be united under one head—OR into three; + whereas the postulation of THREE principles on a sexual basis is + impossible. JOANNES ISAACUS HOLLANDUS (fifteenth century) is the earliest + author in whose works I have observed explicit mention of THREE + principles, though he refers to them in a manner seeming to indicate that + the doctrine was no new one in his day. I have only read one little tract + of his; there is nothing sexual in it, and the author's mental character + may be judged from his remarks concerning "the three flying spirits"—taste, + smell, and colour. These, he writes, "are the life, soule, and + quintessence of every thing, neither can these three spirits be one + without the other, as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are one, yet + three Persons, and one is not without the other."(1d) + </p> + <p> + (2a) Mr WAITE's translation, p. 79. + </p> + <p> + (1b) BERNARD, Earl of TREVISAN: <i>A Treatise of the Philosopher's Stone</i>, + 1683. (See <i>Collectanea Chymica: A Collection of Ten Several Treatises + in Chymistry</i>, 1684, p. 92.) + </p> + <p> + (2b) <i>Ibid</i>., p. 91. + </p> + <p> + (1c) EDWARD KELLY: <i>The Stone of the Philosophers</i>. (See <i>The + Alchemical Writings of</i> EDWARD KELLY, edited by A. E. WAITE, 1893, pp. + 9 and 11 to 13.) + </p> + <p> + (2c) <i>The Answer of</i> BERNARDUS TREVISANUS, <i>to the Epistle of + Thomas of Bononira, Physician to K. Charles the 8th</i>. (See JOHN + FREDERICK HOUPREGHT: <i>Aurifontina Chymica</i>, 1680, p. 208.) + </p> + <p> + (1d) <i>One Hundred and Fourteen Experiments and Cures of the Famous + Physitian</i> THEOPHRASTUS PARACELSUS. <i>Whereunto is added... certain + Secrets of</i> ISAAC HOLLANDUS, <i>concerning the Vegetall and Animall + Work</i> (1652), pp. 29 and 30. + </p> + <p> + When the alchemists described an element or principle as male or female, + they meant what they said, as I have already intimated, to the extent, at + least, of firmly believing that seed was produced by the two metallic + sexes. By their union metals were thought to be produced in the womb of + the earth; and mines were shut in order that by the birth and growth of + new metal the impoverished veins might be replenished. In this way, too, + was the <i>magnum opus</i>, the generation of the Philosopher's Stone—in + species gold, but purer than the purest—to be accomplished. To + conjoin that which Nature supplied, to foster the growth and development + of that which was thereby produced; such was the task of the alchemist. + "For there are Vegetables," says BERNARD of TREVISAN in his <i>Answer to + Thomas of Bononia</i>, "but Sensitives more especially, which for the most + part beget their like, by the Seeds of the Male and Female for the most + part concurring and conmixt by copulation; which work of Nature the + Philosophick Art imitates in the generation of gold."(1) + </p> + <p> + (1) <i>Op. cit</i>., p. 216. + </p> + <p> + Mercury, as I have said, was commonly regarded as the seed of the metals, + or as especially the female seed, there being two seeds, one the male, + according to BERNARD, more ripe, perfect and active, the other the female. + "more immature and in a sort passive(2) "... our Philosophick Art," he + says in another place, following a description of the generation of man, + "... is like this procreation of Man; for as in <i>Mercury</i> (of which + Gold is by Nature generated in Mineral Vessels) a natural conjunction + </p> + <p> + (2) <i>Ibid</i>., p. 217; <i>cf</i>. p. 236 + </p> + <p> + is made of both the Seeds, Male and Female, so by our artifice, an + artificial and like conjunction is made of Agents and Patients."(1) "All + teaching," says KELLY, "that changes Mercury is false and vain, for this + is the original sperm of metals, and its moisture must not be dried up, + for otherwise it will not dissolve,"(2) and quotes ARNOLD (<i>ob. c</i>. + 1310) to a similar effect.(3) One wonders how far the fact that human and + animal seed is fluid influenced the alchemists in their choice of mercury, + the only metal liquid at ordinary temperatures, as the seed of the metals. + There are, indeed, other good reasons for this choice, but that this idea + played some part in it, and, at least, was present at the back of the + alchemists' minds, I have little doubt. + </p> + <p> + The most philosophic account of metallic seed is that, perhaps, of the + mysterious adept "EIRENAEUS PHILALETHES," who distinguishes between it and + mercury in a rather interesting manner. He writes: "Seed is the means of + generic propagation given to all perfect things here below; it is the + perfection of each body; and anybody that has no seed must be regarded as + imperfect. Hence there can be no doubt that there is such a thing as + metallic seed.... All metallic seed is the seed of gold; for gold is the + intention of Nature in regard to all metals. If the base metals are not + gold, it is only through some accidental hindrance; they are-all + potentially gold. But, of course, this seed of gold is most easily + obtainable from well-matured gold itself.... Remember that I am now + speaking of metallic seed, and not of Mercury.... The seed of metals is + hidden out of sight still more completely than that of animals; + nevertheless, it is within the compass of our Art to extract it. The seed + of animals and vegetables is something separate, and may be cut out, or + otherwise separately exhibited; but metallic seed is diffused throughout + the metal, and contained in all its smallest parts; neither can it be + discerned from its body: its extraction is therefore a task which may well + tax the ingenuity of the most experienced philosopher; the virtues of the + whole metal have to be intensified, so as to convert it into the sperm of + our seed, which, by circulation, receives the virtues of superiors and + inferiors, then next becomes wholly form, or heavenly virtue, which can + communicate this to others related to it by homogeneity of matter. ... The + place in which the seed resides is—approximately speaking—water; + for, to speak properly and exactly, the seed is the smallest part of the + metal, and is invisible; but as this invisible presence is diffused + throughout the water of its kind, and exerts its virtue therein, nothing + being visible to the eye but water, we are left to conclude from rational + induction that this inward agent (which is, properly speaking, the seed) + is really there. Hence we call the whole of the water seed, just as we + call the whole of the grain seed, though the germ of life is only a + smallest particle of the grain."(1b) + </p> + <p> + (1) <i>The Answer of</i> BERNARDUS TREVISANUS, <i>etc</i>. <i>Op. cit</i>. + p. 218. + </p> + <p> + (2) <i>op. cit</i>., p. 22. + </p> + <p> + (3) <i>Ibid</i>., p. 16. + </p> + <p> + (1b) EIRENAEUS PHILALETHES: <i>The Metamorphosis of Metals</i>. (See <i>The + Hermetic Museum</i>, vol. ii. pp. 238-240.) + </p> + <p> + To say that "PHILALETHES'" seed resembles the modern electron is, perhaps, + to draw a rather fanciful analogy, since the electron is a very precise + idea, the result of the mathematical interpretation of the results of + exact experimentation. But though it would be absurd to speak of this + concept of the one seed of all metals as an anticipation of the electron, + to apply the expression "metallic seed" to the electron, now that the + concept of it has been reached, does not seem so absurd. + </p> + <p> + According to "PHILALETHES," the extraction of the seed is a very difficult + process, accomplishable, however, by the aid of mercury—the water + homogeneous therewith. Mercury, again, is the form of the seed thereby + obtained. He writes: "When the sperm hidden in the body of gold is brought + out by means of our Art, it appears under the form of Mercury, whence it + is exalted into the quintessence which is first white, and then, by means + of continuous coction, becomes red." And again: "There is a womb into + which the gold (if placed therein) will, of its own accord, emit its seed, + until it is debilitated and dies, and by its death is renewed into a most + glorious King, who thenceforward receives power to deliver all his + brethren from the fear of death."(1) + </p> + <p> + (1) EIRENAEUS PHILALETHES: <i>The Metamorphosis of Metals</i>. (See <i>The + Hermetic Museum</i>, vol. ii. pp. 241 and 244.) + </p> + <p> + The fifteenth-century alchemist THOMAS NORTON was peculiar in his views, + inasmuch as he denied that metals have seed. He writes: "Nature never + multiplies anything, except in either one or the other of these two ways: + either by decay, which we call putrefaction, or, in the case of animate + creatures, by propagation. In the case of metals there can be no + propagation, though our Stone exhibits something like it.... Nothing can + be multiplied by inward action unless it belong to the vegetable kingdom, + or the family of sensitive creatures. But the metals are elementary + objects, and possess neither seed nor sensation."(1) + </p> + <p> + (1) THOMAS NORTON: <i>The Ordinal of Alchemy</i>. (See <i>The Hermetic + Museum</i>, vol. ii. pp. 15 and 16.) + </p> + <p> + His theory of the origin of the metals is astral rather than phallic. "The + only efficient cause of metals," he says, "is the mineral virtue, which is + not found in every kind of earth, but only in certain places and chosen + mines, into which the celestial sphere pours its rays in a straight + direction year by year, and according to the arrangement of the metallic + substance in these places, this or that metal is gradually formed."(2) + </p> + <p> + (2) <i>Ibid</i>., pp. 15 and 16. + </p> + <p> + In view of the astrological symbolism of these metals, that gold should be + masculine, silver feminine, does not surprise us, because the idea of the + masculinity of the sun and the femininity of the moon is a bit of + phallicism that still remains with us. It was by the marriage of gold and + silver that very many alchemists considered that the <i>magnum opus</i> + was to be achieved. Writes BERNARD of TREVISAN: "The subject of this + admired Science (alchemy) is <i>Sol</i> and <i>Luna</i>, or rather Male + and Female, the Male is hot and dry, the Female cold and moyst." The aim + of the work, he tells us, is the extraction of the spirit of gold, which + alone can enter into bodies and tinge them. Both <i>Sol</i> and <i>Luna</i> + are absolutely necessary, and "whoever...shall think that a Tincture can + be made without these two Bodyes,... he proceedeth to the Practice like + one that is blind."(1) + </p> + <p> + (1) BERNARD, Earl of TREVISAN: <i>A Treatise, etc., Op. cit</i>. pp. 83 + and 87. + </p> + <p> + KELLY has teaching to the same effect, the Mercury of the Philosophers + being for him the menstruum or medium wherein the copulation of Gold with + Silver is to be accomplished. Mercury, in fact, seems to have been + everything and to have been capable of effecting everything in the eyes of + the alchemists. Concerning gold and silver, KELLY writes: "Only one metal, + viz. gold, is absolutely perfect and mature. Hence it is called the + perfect male body... Silver is less bounded by aqueous immaturity than the + rest of the metals, though it may indeed be regarded as to a certain + extent impure, still its water is already covered with the congealing + vesture of its earth, and it thus tends to perfection. This condition is + the reason why silver is everywhere called by the Sages the perfect female + body." And later he writes: "In short, our whole Magistery consists in the + union of the male and female, or active and passive, elements through the + mediation of our metallic water and a proper degree of heat. Now, the male + and female are two metallic bodies, and this I will again prove by + irrefragable quotations from the Sages." Some of the quotations will be + given: "Avicenna: 'Purify husband and wife separately, in order that they + may unite more intimately; for if you do not purify them, they cannot love + each other. By conjunction of the two natures you get a clear and lucid + nature, which, when it ascends, becomes bright and serviceable.'... + Senior: 'I, the Sun, am hot and dry, and thou, the Moon, are cold and + moist; when we are wedded together in a closed chamber, I will gently + steal away thy soul.'... Rosinus: 'When the Sun, my brother, for the love + of me (silver) pours his sperm (<i>i.e</i>. his solar fatness) into the + chamber (<i>i.e</i>. my Lunar body), namely, when we become one in a + strong and complete complexion and union, the child of our wedded love + will be born.... 'Rosary': 'The ferment of the Sun is the sperm of the + man, the ferment of the Moon, the sperm of the woman. Of both we get a + chaste union and a true generation.'... Aristotle: 'Take your beloved son, + and wed him to his sister, his white sister, in equal marriage, and give + them the cup of love, for it is a food which prompts to union.' "(1a) + KELLY, of course, accepts the traditional authorship of the works from + which he quotes, though in many cases such authorship is doubtful, to say + the least. The alchemical works ascribed to ARISTOTLE (384-322 B.C.), for + instance, are beyond question forgeries. Indeed, the symbol of a union + between brother and sister, here quoted, could hardly be held as + acceptable to Greek thought, to which incest was the most abominable and + unforgiveable sin. It seems likelier that it originated with the + Egyptians, to whom such unions were tolerable in fact. The symbol is often + met with in Latin alchemy. MICHAEL MAIER (1568-1622) also says: "<i>conjunge + fratrem cum sorore et propina illis poculum amoris</i>," the words forming + a motto to a picture of a man and woman clasped in each other's arms, to + whom an older man offers a goblet. This symbolic picture occurs in his <i>Atalanta + Fugiens, hoc est, Emblemata nova de Secretis Naturae Chymica, etc</i>. + (Oppenheim, 1617). This work is an exceedingly curious one. It consists of + a number of carefully executed pictures, each accompanied by a motto, a + verse of poetry set to music, with a prose text. Many of the pictures are + phallic in conception, and practically all of them are anthropomorphic. + Not only the primary function of sex, but especially its secondary one of + lactation, is made use of. The most curious of these emblematic pictures, + perhaps, is one symbolising the conjunction of gold and silver. It shows + on the right a man and woman, representing the sun and moon, in the act of + coition, standing up to the thighs in a lake. On the left, on a hill above + the lake, a woman (with the moon as halo) gives birth to a child. A boy is + coming out of the water towards her. The verse informs us that: "The bath + glows red at the conception of the boy, the air at his birth." We learn + also that "there is a stone, and yet there is not, which is the noble gift + of God. If God grants it, fortunate will be he who shall receive it."(1) + </p> + <p> + (1a) EDWARD KELLY: <i>The Stone of the Philosophers, Op. cit</i>., pp 13, + 14, 33, 35, 36, 38-40, and 47. + </p> + <p> + (1) <i>Op. Cit</i>., p. 145 + </p> + <p> + Concerning the nature of gold, there is a discussion in <i>The Answer of</i> + BERNARDUS TREVISANUS <i>to the Epistle of Thomas of Bononia</i>, with + which I shall close my consideration of the present aspect of the subject. + Its interest for us lies in the arguments which are used and held to be + valid. "Besides, you say that Gold, as most think, is nothing else than <i>Quick-silver</i> + coagulated naturally by the force of <i>Sulphur</i>; yet so, that nothing + of the <i>Sulphur</i> which generated the Gold, doth remain in the + substance of the Gold: as in an humane <i>Embryo</i>, when it is conceived + in the Womb, there remains nothing of the Father's Seed, according to <i>Aristotle's</i> + opinion, but the Seed of the Man doth only coagulate the <i>menstrual</i> + blood of the Woman: in the same manner you say, that after <i>Quick-silver</i> + is so coagulated, the form of Gold is perfected in it, by virtue of the + Heavenly Bodies, and especially of the Sun."(1) BERNARD, however, decides + against this view, holding that gold contains both mercury and sulphur, + for "we must not imagine, according to their mistake who say, that the + Male Agent himself approaches the Female in the coagulation, and departs + afterwards; because, as is known in every generation, the conception is + active and passive: Both the active and the passive, that is, all the four + Elements, must always abide together, otherwise there would be no mixture, + and the hope of generating an off-spring would be extinguished."(2) + </p> + <p> + (1) <i>Op. cit</i>., pp. 206 and 207. + </p> + <p> + (2) <i>Ibid</i>., pp. 212 and 213. + </p> + <p> + In conclusion, I wish to say something of the role of sex in spiritual + alchemy. But in doing this I am venturing outside the original field of + inquiry of this essay and making a by no means necessary addition to my + thesis; and I am anxious that what follows should be understood as such, + so that no confusion as to the issues may arise. + </p> + <p> + In the great alchemical collection of J. J. MANGET, there is a curious + work (originally published in 1677), entitled <i>Mutus Liber</i>, which + consists entirely of plates, without letterpress. Its interest for us in + our present concern is that the alchemist, from the commencement of the + work until its achievement, is shown working in conjunction with a woman. + We are reminded of NICOLAS FLAMEL (1330-1418), who is reputed to have + achieved the <i>magnum opus</i> together with his wife PERNELLE, as well + as of the many other women workers in the Art of whom we read. It would be + of interest in this connection to know exactly what association of ideas + was present in the mind of MICHAEL MAIER when he commanded the alchemist: + "Perform a work of women on the molten white lead, that is, cook,"(1a) and + illustrated his behest with a picture of a pregnant woman watching a fire + over which is suspended a cauldron and on which are three jars. There is a + cat in the background, and a tub containing two fish in the foreground, + the whole forming a very curious collection of emblems. Mr WAITE, who has + dealt with some of these matters, luminously, though briefly, says: "The + evidences with which we have been dealing concern solely the physical work + of alchemy and there is nothing of its mystical aspects. The <i>Mutus + Liber</i> is undoubtedly on the literal side of metallic transmutation; + the memorials of Nicholas Flamel are also on that side," <i>etc</i>. He + adds, however, that "It is on record that an unknown master testified to + his possession of the mystery, but he added that he had not proceeded to + the work because he had failed to meet with an elect woman who was + necessary thereto"; and proceeds to say: "I suppose that the statement + will awaken in most minds only a vague sense of wonder, and I can merely + indicate in a few general words that which I see behind it. Those Hermetic + texts which bear a spiritual interpretation and are as if a record of + spiritual experience present, like the literature of physical alchemy, the + following aspects of symbolism: (<i>a</i>) the marriage of sun and moon; (<i>b</i>) + of a mystical king and queen; (<i>c</i>) an union between natures which + are one at the root but diverse in manifestation; (<i>d</i>) a + transmutation which follows this union and an abiding glory therein. It is + ever a conjunction between male and female in a mystical sense; it is ever + the bringing together by art of things separated by an imperfect order of + things; it is ever the perfection of natures by means of this conjunction. + But if the mystical work of alchemy is an inward work in consciousness, + then the union between male and female is an union in consciousness; and + if we remember the traditions of a state when male and female had not as + yet been divided, it may dawn upon us that the higher alchemy was a + practice for the return into this ineffable mode of being. The traditional + doctrine is set forth in the <i>Zohar</i> and it is found in writers like + Jacob Boehme; it is intimated in the early chapters of Genesis and, + according to an apocryphal saying of Christ, the kingdom of heaven will be + manifested when two shall be as one, or when that state has been once + again attained. In the light of this construction we can understand why + the mystical adept went in search of a wise woman with whom the work could + be performed; but few there be that find her, and he confessed to his own + failure. The part of woman in the physical practice of alchemy is like a + reflection at a distance of this more exalted process, and there is + evidence that those who worked in metals and sought for a material elixir + knew that there were other and greater aspects of the Hermetic + mystery."(1b) + </p> + <p> + (1a) MICHAEL MATER: <i>Atalanta Fugiens</i> (1617), p. 97. + </p> + <p> + (1b) A E. WAITE: "Woman and the Hermetic Mystery," <i>The Occult Review</i> + (June 1912), vol. xv. pp. 325 and 326. + </p> + <p> + So far Mr WAITE, whose impressive words I have quoted at some length; and + he has given us a fuller account of the theory as found in the <i>Zohar</i> + in his valuable work on <i>The Secret Doctrine in Israel</i> (1913). The + <i>Zohar</i> regards marriage and the performance of the sexual function + in marriage as of supreme importance, and this not merely because marriage + symbolises a divine union, unless that expression is held to include all + that logically follows from the fact, but because, as it seems, the sexual + act in marriage may, in fact, become a ritual of transcendental magic. + </p> + <p> + At least three varieties of opinion can be traced from the view of sex we + have under consideration, as to the nature of the perfect man, and hence + of the most adequate symbol for transmutation. According to one, and this + appears to have been JACOB BOEHME'S view, the perfect man is conceived of + as non-sexual, the male and female elements united in him having, as it + were, neutralised each other. According to another, he is pictured as a + hermaphroditic being, a concept we frequently come across in alchemical + literature. It plays a prominent part in MAIER'S book <i>Atalanta Fugiens</i>, + to which reference has already been made. MAIER'S hermaphrodite has two + heads, one male, one female, but only one body, one pair of arms, and one + pair of legs. The two sexual organs, which are placed side by side, are + delineated in the illustrations with considerable care, showing the + importance MAIER attached to the idea. This concept seems to me not only + crude, but unnatural and repellent. But it may be said of both the + opinions I have mentioned, that they confuse between union and identity. + It is the old mistake, with respect to a lesser goal, of those who hope + for absorption in the Divine Nature and consequent loss of personality. It + seems to be forgotten that a certain degree of distinction is necessary to + the joy of union. "Distinction" and "separation," it should be remembered, + have different connotations. If the supreme joy is that of self-sacrifice, + then the self must be such that it can be continually sacrificed, else the + joy is a purely transitory one, or rather, is destroyed at the moment of + its consummation. Hence, though sacrificed, the self must still remain + itself. + </p> + <p> + The third view of perfection, to which these remarks naturally lead, is + that which sees it typified in marriage. The mystic-philosopher SWEDENBORG + has some exceedingly suggestive things to say on the matter in his + extraordinary work on <i>Conjugial Love</i>, which, curiously enough, seem + largely to have escaped the notice of students of these high mysteries. + </p> + <p> + SWEDENBORG'S heaven is a sexual heaven, because for him sex is primarily a + spiritual fact, and only secondarily, and because of what it is primarily, + a physical fact; and salvation is hardly possible, according to him, apart + from a genuine marriage (whether achieved here or hereafter). Man and + woman are considered as complementary beings, and it is only through the + union of one man with one woman that the perfect angel results. The + altruistic tendency of such a theory as contrasted with the egotism of one + in which perfection is regarded as obtainable by each personality of + itself alone, is a point worth emphasising. As to the nature of this + union, it is, to use SWEDENBORG'S own terms, a conjunction of the will of + the wife with the understanding of the man, and reciprocally of the + understanding of the man with the will of the wife. It is thus a + manifestation of that fundamental marriage between the good and the true + which is at the root of all existence; and it is because of this + fundamental marriage that all men and women are born into the desire to + complete themselves by conjunction. The symbol of sexual intercourse is a + legitimate one to use in speaking of this heavenly union; indeed, we may + describe the highest bliss attainable by the soul, or conceivable by the + mind, as a spiritual orgasm. Into conjugal love "are collected," says + SWEDENBORG, "all the blessednesses, blissfulnesses, delightsomenesses, + pleasantnesses, and pleasures, which could possibly be conferred upon man + by the Lord the Creator."(1) In another place he writes: "Married partners + (in heaven) enjoy similar intercourse with each other as in the world, but + more delightful and blessed; yet without prolification, for which, or in + place of which, they have spiritual prolification, which is that of love + and wisdom." "The reason," he adds, "why the intercourse then is more + delightful and blessed is, that when conjugial love becomes of the spirit, + it becomes more interior and pure, and consequently more perceptible; and + every delightsomeness grows according to the perception, and grows even + until its blessedness is discernible in its delightsomeness."(1b) Such + love, however, he says, is rarely to be found on earth. + </p> + <p> + (1) EMANUEL SWEDENBORG: <i>The Delights of Wisdom relating to Conjugial + Love</i> (trans. by A. H. SEARLE, 1891), SE 68. + </p> + <p> + (1b) EMANUEL SWEDENBORG: <i>Op. cit</i>., SE 51. + </p> + <p> + A learned Japanese speaks with approval of Idealism as a "dream where + sensuousness and spirituality find themselves to be blood brothers or + sisters."(2) It is a statement which involves either the grossest and most + dangerous error, or the profoundest truth, according to the understanding + of it. Woman is a road whereby man travels either to God or the devil. The + problem of sex is a far deeper problem than appears at first sight, + involving mysteries both the direst and most holy. It is by no means a + fantastic hypothesis that the inmost mystery of what a certain school of + mystics calls "the Secret Tradition" was a sexual one. At any rate, the + fact that some of those, at least, to whom alchemy connoted a mystical + process, were alive to the profound spiritual significance of sex, renders + of double interest what they have to intimate of the achievement of the <i>Magnum + Opus</i> in man. + </p> + <p> + (2) YONE NOGUCHI: <i>The Spirit of Japanese Art</i> (1915), p. 37. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0013" id="link2H_4_0013"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XI. ROGER BACON: AN APPRECIATION + </h2> + <p> + IT has been said that "a prophet is not without honour, save in his own + country." Thereto might be added, "and in his own time"; for, whilst there + is continuity in time, there is also evolution, and England of to-day, for + instance, is not the same country as England of the Middle Ages. In his + own day ROGER BACON was accounted a magician, whose heretical views called + for suppression by the Church. And for many a long day afterwards was he + mainly remembered as a co-worker in the black art with Friar BUNGAY, who + together with him constructed, by the aid of the devil and diabolical + rites, a brazen head which should possess the power of speech—the + experiment only failing through the negligence of an assistant.(1) Such + was ROGER BACON in the memory of the later Middle Ages and many succeeding + years; he was the typical alchemist, where that term carries with it the + depth of disrepute, though indeed alchemy was for him but one, and that + not the greatest, of many interests. + </p> + <p> + (1) The story, of course, is entirely fictitious. For further particulars + see Sir J. E. SANDYS' essay on "Roger Bacon in English Literature," in <i>Roger + Bacon Essays</i> (1914), referred to below. + </p> + <p> + Ilchester, in Somerset, claims the honour of being the place of ROGER + BACON'S birth, which interesting and important event occurred, probably, + in 1214. Young BACON studied theology, philosophy, and what then passed + under the name of "science," first at Oxford, then the centre of liberal + thought, and afterwards at Paris, in the rigid orthodoxy of whose + professors he found more to criticise than to admire. Whilst at Oxford he + joined the Franciscan Order, and at Paris he is said, though this is + probably an error, to have graduated as Doctor of Theology. During + 1250-1256 we find him back in England, no doubt engaged in study and + teaching. About the latter year, however, he is said to have been banished—on + a charge of holding heterodox views and indulging in magical practices—to + Paris, where he was kept in close confinement and forbidden to write. Mr + LITTLE,(1) however, believes this to be an error, based on a misreading of + a passage in one of BACON'S works, and that ROGER was not imprisoned, but + stricken with sickness. At any rate it is not improbable that some + restrictions as to his writing were placed on him by his superiors of the + Franciscan Order. In 1266 BACON received a letter from Pope CLEMENT asking + him to send His Holiness his works in writing without delay. This letter + came as a most pleasant surprise to BACON; but he had nothing of + importance written, and in great haste and excitement, therefore, he + composed three works explicating his philosophy, the <i>Opus Majus</i>, + the <i>Opus Minus</i>, and the <i>Opus Tertium</i>, which were completed + and dispatched to the Pope by the end of the following year. This, as Mr + ROWBOTTOM remarks, is "surely one of the literary feats of history, + perhaps only surpassed by Swedenborg when he wrote six theological and + philosophical treatises in one year."(1b) + </p> + <p> + (1) See his contribution, "On Roger Bacon's Life and Works," to <i>Roger + Bacon Essays</i>. + </p> + <p> + (1b) B. R. ROWBOTTOM: "Roger Bacon," <i>The Journal of the Alchemical + Society</i>, vol. ii. (1914), p. 77. + </p> + <p> + The works appear to have been well received. We next find BACON at Oxford + writing his <i>Compendium Studii Philosophiae</i>, in which work he + indulged in some by no means unjust criticisms of the clergy, for which he + fell under the condemnation of his order, and was imprisoned in 1277 on a + charge of teaching "suspected novelties". In those days any knowledge of + natural phenomena beyond that of the quasi-science of the times was + regarded as magic, and no doubt some of ROGER BACON'S "suspected + novelties" were of this nature; his recognition of the value of the + writings of non-Christian moralists was, no doubt, another "suspected + novelty". Appeals for his release directed to the Pope proved fruitless, + being frustrated by JEROME D'ASCOLI, General of the Franciscan Order, who + shortly afterwards succeeded to the Holy See under the title of NICHOLAS + IV. The latter died in 1292, whereupon RAYMOND GAUFREDI, who had been + elected General of the Franciscan Order, and who, it is thought, was well + disposed towards BACON, because of certain alchemical secrets the latter + had revealed to him, ordered his release. BACON returned to Oxford, where + he wrote his last work, the <i>Compendium Studii Theologiae</i>. He died + either in this year or in 1294.(1) + </p> + <p> + (1) For further details concerning BACON'S life, EMILE CHARLES: <i>Roger + Bacon, sa Vie, ses Ouvrages, ses Doctrines</i> (1861); J. H. BRIDGES: <i>The + Life & Work of Roger Bacon, an Introduction to the Opus Majus</i> + (edited by H. G. JONES, 1914); and Mr A. G. LITTLE'S essay in <i>Roger + Bacon Essays</i>, may be consulted. + </p> + <p> + It was not until the publication by Dr SAMUEL JEBB, in 1733, of the + greater part of BACON'S <i>Opus Majus</i>, nearly four and a half + centuries after his death, that anything like his rightful position in the + history of philosophy began to be assigned to him. But let his spirit be + no longer troubled, if it were ever troubled by neglect or slander, for + the world, and first and foremost his own country, has paid him due + honour. His septcentenary was duly celebrated in 1914 at his <i>alma mater</i>, + Oxford, his statue has there been raised as a memorial to his greatness, + and savants have meted out praise to him in no grudging tones.(2) Indeed, + a voice has here and there been heard depreciating his better-known + namesake FRANCIS,(3) so that the later luminary should not, standing in + the way, obscure the light of the earlier; though, for my part, I would + suggest that one need not be so one-eyed as to fail to see both lights at + once. + </p> + <p> + (2) See <i>Roger Bacon, Essays contributed by various Writers on the + Occasion of the Commemoration of the Seventh Centenary of his Birth</i>. + Collected and edited by A. G. LITTLE (1914); also Sir J. E. SANDYS' <i>Roger + Bacon</i> (from <i>The Proceedings of the British Association</i>, vol. + vi., 1914). + </p> + <p> + (3) For example, that of ERNST DUHRING. See an article entitled "The Two + Bacons," translated from his <i>Kritische Geschichte der Philosophie</i> + in <i>The Open Court</i> for August 1914. + </p> + <p> + To those who like to observe coincidences, it may be of interest that the + septcentenary of the discoverer of gunpowder should have coincided with + the outbreak of the greatest war under which the world has yet groaned, + even though gunpowder is no longer employed as a military propellant. + </p> + <p> + BACON'S reference to gunpowder occurs in his <i>Epistola de Secretis + Operibus Artis et Naturae, et de Nullitate Magiae</i> (Hamburg, 1618) a + little tract written against magic, in which he endeavours to show, and + succeeds very well in the first eight chapters, that Nature and art can + perform far more extraordinary feats than are claimed by the workers in + the black art. The last three chapters are written in an alchemical jargon + of which even one versed in the symbolic language of alchemy can make no + sense. They are evidently cryptogramic, and probably deal with the + preparation and purification of saltpetre, which had only recently been + discovered as a distinct body.(1) In chapter xi. there is reference to an + explosive body, which can only be gunpowder; by means of it, says BACON, + you may, "if you know the trick, produce a bright flash and a thundering + noise." He mentions two of the ingredients, saltpetre and sulphur, but + conceals the third (<i>i.e</i>. charcoal) under an anagram. Claims have, + indeed, been put forth for the Greek, Arab, Hindu, and Chinese origins of + gunpowder, but a close examination of the original ancient accounts + purporting to contain references to gunpowder, shows that only incendiary + and not explosive bodies are really dealt with. But whilst ROGER BACON + knew of the explosive property of a mixture in right proportions of + sulphur, charcoal, and pure saltpetre (which he no doubt accidentally hit + upon whilst experimenting with the last-named body), he was unaware of its + projective power. That discovery, so detrimental to the happiness of man + ever since, was, in all probability, due to BERTHOLD SCHWARZ about 1330. + </p> + <p> + (1) For an attempted explanation of this cryptogram, and evidence that + BACON was the discoverer of gunpowder, see Lieut.-Col. H. W. L. HIME'S <i>Gunpowder + and Ammunition: their Origin and Progress</i> (1904). + </p> + <p> + ROGER BACON has been credited(1) with many other discoveries. In the work + already referred to he allows his imagination freely to speculate as to + the wonders that might be accomplished by a scientific utilisation of + Nature's forces—marvellous things with lenses, in bringing distant + objects near and so forth, carriages propelled by mechanical means, flying + machines...—but in no case is the word "discovery" in any sense + applicable, for not even in the case of the telescope does BACON describe + means by which his speculations might be realised. + </p> + <p> + (1) For instance by Mr M. M. P. MUIR. See his contribution, on "Roger + Bacon: His Relations to Alchemy and Chemistry," to <i>Roger Bacon Essays</i>. + </p> + <p> + On the other hand, ROGER BACON has often been maligned for his beliefs in + astrology and alchemy, but, as the late Dr BRIDGES (who was quite + sceptical of the claims of both) pointed out, not to have believed in them + in BACON'S day would have been rather an evidence of mental weakness than + otherwise. What relevant facts were known supported alchemical and + astrological hypotheses. Astrology, Dr BRIDGES writes, "conformed to the + first law of Comte's <i>philosophia prima</i>, as being the best + hypothesis of which ascertained phenomena admitted."(1) And in his + alchemical speculations BACON was much in advance of his contemporaries, + and stated problems which are amongst those of modern chemistry. + </p> + <p> + (1) <i>Op. cit</i>., p.84. + </p> + <p> + ROGER BACON'S greatness does not lie in the fact that he discovered + gunpowder, nor in the further fact that his speculations have been + validated by other men. His greatness lies in his secure grip of + scientific method as a combination of mathematical reasoning and + experiment. Men before him had experimented, but none seemed to have + realised the importance of the experimental method. Nor was he, of course, + by any means the first mathematician—there was a long line of Greek + and Arabian mathematicians behind him, men whose knowledge of the science + was in many cases much greater than his—or the most learned + mathematician of his day; but none realised the importance of mathematics + as an organon of scientific research as he did; and he was assuredly the + priest who joined mathematics to experiment in the bonds of sacred + matrimony. We must not, indeed, look for precise rules of inductive + reasoning in the works of this pioneer writer on scientific method. Nor do + we find really satisfactory rules of induction even in the works of + FRANCIS BACON. Moreover, the latter despised mathematics, and it was not + until in quite recent years that the scientific world came to realise that + ROGER'S method is the more fruitful—witness the modern revolution in + chemistry produced by the adoption of mathematical methods. + </p> + <p> + ROGER BACON, it may be said, was many centuries in advance of his time; + but it is equally true that he was the child of his time; this may account + for his defects judged by modern standards. He owed not a little to his + contemporaries: for his knowledge and high estimate of philosophy he was + largely indebted to his Oxford master GROSSETESTE (<i>c</i>. 1175-1253), + whilst PETER PEREGRINUS, his friend at Paris, fostered his love of + experiment, and the Arab mathematicians, whose works he knew, inclined his + mind to mathematical studies. He was violently opposed to the scholastic + views current in Paris at his time, and attacked great thinkers like + THOMAS AQUINAS (<i>c</i>. 1225-1274) and ALBERTUS MAGNUS (1193-1280), as + well as obscurantists, such as ALEXANDER of HALES (<i>ob</i>. 1245). But + he himself was a scholastic philosopher, though of no servile type, taking + part in scholastic arguments. If he declared that he would have all the + works of ARISTOTLE burned, it was not because he hated the Peripatetic's + philosophy—though he could criticise as well as appreciate at times,—but + because of the rottenness of the translations that were then used. It + seems commonplace now, but it was a truly wonderful thing then: ROGER + BACON believed in accuracy, and was by no means destitute of literary + ethics. He believed in correct translation, correct quotation, and the + acknowledgment of the sources of one's quotations—unheard-of things, + almost, in those days. But even he was not free from all the vices of his + age: in spite of his insistence upon experimental verification of the + conclusions of deductive reasoning, in one place, at least, he adopts a + view concerning lenses from another writer, of which the simplest attempt + at such verification would have revealed the falsity. For such lapses, + however, we can make allowances. + </p> + <p> + Another and undeniable claim to greatness rests on ROGER BACON'S + broad-mindedness. He could actually value at their true worth the moral + philosophies of non-Christian writers—SENECA (<i>c</i>. 5 B.C.-A.D. + 65) and AL GHAZZALI (1058-1111), for instance. But if he was catholic in + the original meaning of that term, he was also catholic in its restricted + sense. He was no heretic: the Pope for him was the Vicar of CHRIST, whom + he wished to see reign over the whole world, not by force of arms, but by + the assimilation of all that was worthy in that world. To his mind—and + here he was certainly a child of his age, in its best sense, perhaps—all + other sciences were handmaidens to theology, queen of them all. All were + to be subservient to her aims: the Church he called "Catholic" was to + embrace in her arms all that was worthy in the works of "profane" writers—true + prophets of God, he held, in so far as writing worthily they unconsciously + bore testimony to the truth of Christianity,—and all that Nature + might yield by patient experiment and speculation guided by mathematics. + Some minds see in this a defect in his system, which limited his aims and + outlook; others see it as the unifying principle giving coherence to the + whole. At any rate, the Church, as we have seen, regarded his views as + dangerous, and restrained his pen for at least a considerable portion of + his life. + </p> + <p> + ROGER BACON may seem egotistic in argument, but his mind was humble to + learn. He was not superstitious, but he would listen to common folk who + worked with their hands, to astrologers, and even magicians, denying + nothing which seemed to him to have some evidence in experience: if he + denied much of magical belief, it was because he found it lacking in such + evidence. He often went astray in his views; he sometimes failed to apply + his own method, and that method was, in any case, primitive and crude. But + it was the RIGHT method, in embryo at least, and ROGER BACON, in spite of + tremendous opposition, greater than that under which any man of science + may now suffer, persisted in that method to the end, calling upon his + contemporaries to adopt it as the only one which results in right + knowledge. Across the centuries—or, rather, across the gulf that + divides this world from the next—let us salute this great and noble + spirit. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0014" id="link2H_4_0014"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XII. THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS + </h2> + <p> + THERE is an opinion, unfortunately very common, that religious mysticism + is a product of the emotional temperament, and is diametrically opposed to + the spirit of rationalism. No doubt this opinion is not without some + element of justification, and one could quote the works of not a few + religious mystics to the effect that self-surrender to God implies, not + merely a giving up of will, but also of reason. But that this teaching is + not an essential element in mysticism, that it is, indeed, rather its + perversion, there is adequate evidence to demonstrate. SWEDENBORG is, I + suppose, the outstanding instance of an intellectual mystic; but the + essential unity of mysticism and rationalism is almost as forcibly made + evident in the case of the Cambridge Platonists. That little band of + "Latitude men," as their contemporaries called them, constitutes one of + the finest schools of philosophy that England has produced; yet their + works are rarely read, I am afraid, save by specialists. Possibly, + however, if it were more commonly known what a wealth of sound philosophy + and true spiritual teaching they contain, the case would be otherwise. + </p> + <p> + The Cambridge Platonists—BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE, JOHN SMITH, NATHANAEL + CULVERWEL, RALPH CUDWORTH, and HENRY MORE are the more outstanding names—were + educated as Puritans; but they clearly realised the fundamental error of + Puritanism, which tended to make a man's eternal salvation depend upon the + accuracy and extent of his beliefs; nor could they approve of the + exaggerated import given by the High Church party to matters of Church + polity. The term "Cambridge Platonists" is, perhaps, less appropriate than + that of "Latitudinarians," which latter name emphasises their + broad-mindedness (even if it carries with it something of disapproval). + For although they owed much to PTATO, and, perhaps, more to PLOTINUS (<i>c</i>. + A.D. 203-262), they were Christians first and Platonists afterwards, and, + with the exception, perhaps, of MORE, they took nothing from these + philosophers which was not conformable to the Scriptures. + </p> + <p> + BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE was born in 1609, at Whichcote Hall, in the parish of + Stoke, Shropshire. In 1626 he entered Emmanuel College, Cambridge, then + regarded as the chief Puritan college of the University. Here his college + tutor was ANTHONY TUCKNEY (1599-1670), a man of rare character, combining + learning, wit, and piety. Between WHICHCOTE and TUCKNEY there grew up a + firm friendship, founded on mutual affection and esteem. But TUCKNEY was + unable to agree with all WHICHCOTE'S broad-minded views concerning reason + and authority; and in later years this gave rise to a controversy between + them, in which TUCKNEY sought to controvert WHICHCOTE'S opinions: it was, + however, carried on without acrimony, and did not destroy their + friendship. + </p> + <p> + WHICHCOTE became M.A., and was elected a fellow of his college, in 1633, + having obtained his B.A. four years previously. He was ordained by JOHN + WILLIAMS in 1636, and received the important appointment of Sunday + afternoon lecturer at Trinity Church. His lectures, which he gave with the + object of turning men's minds from polemics to the great moral and + spiritual realities at the basis of the Christian religion, from mere + formal discussions to a true searching into the reason of things, were + well attended and highly appreciated; and he held the appointment for + twenty years. In 1634 he became college tutor at Emmanuel. He possessed + all the characteristics that go to make up an efficient and well-beloved + tutor, and his personal influence was such as to inspire all his pupils, + amongst whom were both JOHN SMITH and NATHANAEL CULVERWEL, who + considerably amplified his philosophical and religious doctrines. In 1640 + he became B.D., and nine years after was created D.D. The college living + of North Cadbury, in Somerset, was presented to him in 1643, and shortly + afterwards he married. In the next year, however, he was recalled to + Cambridge, and installed as Provost of King's College in place of the + ejected Dr SAMUEL COLLINS. But it was greatly against his wish that he + received the appointment, and he only consented to do so on the condition + that part of his stipend should be paid to COLLINS—an act which + gives us a good insight into the character of the man. In 1650 he resigned + North Cadbury, and the living was presented to CUDWORTH (see below), and + towards the end of this year he was elected Vice-Chancellor of the + University in succession to TUCKNEY. It was during his Vice-Chancellorship + that he preached the sermon that gave rise to the controversy with the + latter. About this time also he was presented with the living of Milton, + in Cambridgeshire. At the Restoration he was ejected from the Provostship, + but, having complied with the Act of Uniformity, he was, in 1662, + appointed to the cure of St Anne's, Blackfriars. This church being + destroyed in the Great Fire, WHICHCOTE retired to Milton, where he showed + great kindness to the poor. But some years later he returned to London, + having received the vicarage of St Lawrence, Jewry. His friends at + Cambridge, however, still saw him on occasional visits, and it was on one + such visit to CUDWORTH, in 1683, that he caught the cold which caused his + death. + </p> + <p> + JOHN SMITH was born at Achurch, near Oundle, in 1618. He entered Emmanuel + College in 1636, became B.A. in 1640, and proceeded to M.A. in 1644, in + which year he was appointed a fellow of Queen's College. Here he lectured + on arithmetic with considerable success. He was noted for his great + learning, especially in theology and Oriental languages, as well as for + his justness, uprightness, and humility. He died of consumption in 1652. + </p> + <p> + NATHANAEL CULVERWEL was probably born about the same year as SMITH. He + entered Emmanuel College in 1633, gained his B.A. in 1636, and became M.A. + in 1640. Soon afterwards he was elected a fellow of his college. He died + about 1651. Beyond these scant details, nothing is known of his life. He + was a man of very great erudition, as his posthumous treatise on <i>The + Light of Nature</i> makes evident. + </p> + <p> + HENRY MORE was born at Grantham in 1614. From his earliest days he was + interested in theological problems, and his precociousness in this respect + appears to have brought down on him the wrath of an uncle. His early + education was conducted at Eton. In 1631 he entered Christ's College, + Cambridge, graduated B.A. in 1635, and received his M.A. in 1639. In the + latter year he was elected a fellow of Christ's and received Holy Orders. + He lived a very retired life, refusing all preferment, though many + valuable and honourable appointments were offered to him. Indeed, he + rarely left Christ's, except to visit his "heroine pupil," Lady CONWAY, + whose country seat, Ragley, was in Warwickshire. Lady CONWAY (<i>ob</i>. + 1679) appears to be remembered only for the fact that, dying whilst her + husband was away, her physician, F. M. VAN HELMONT (1618-1699) (son of the + famous alchemist, J. B. VAN HELMONT, whom we have met already on these + excursions), preserved her body in spirits of wine, so that he could have + the pleasure of beholding it on his return. She seems to have been a woman + of considerable learning, though not free from fantastic ideas. Her + ultimate conversion to Quakerism was a severe blow to MORE, who, whilst + admiring the holy lives of the Friends, regarded them as enthusiasts. MORE + died in 1687. + </p> + <p> + MORE'S earliest works were in verse, and exhibit fine feeling. The + following lines, quoted from a poem on "Charitie and Humilitie," are full + of charm, and well exhibit MORE'S character:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Farre have I clambred in my mind + But nought so great as love I find: + Deep-searching wit, mount-moving might, + Are nought compar'd to that great spright. + Life of Delight and soul of blisse! + Sure source of lasting happinesse! + Higher than Heaven! lower than hell! + What is thy tent? Where maist thou dwell? + My mansion highs humilitie, + Heaven's vastest capabilitie + The further it doth downward tend + The higher up it doth ascend; + If it go down to utmost nought + It shall return with that it sought."(1) +</pre> + <p> + (1) See <i>The Life of the Learned and Pious Dr Henry More... by</i> + RICHARD WARD, A.M., <i>to which are annexed Divers Philosophical Poems and + Hymns</i>. Edited by M. F. HOWARD (1911), pp. 250 and 251. + </p> + <p> + Later he took to prose, and it must be confessed that he wrote too much + and frequently descended to polemics (for example, his controversy with + the alchemist THOMAS VAUGHAN, in which both combatants freely used abuse). + </p> + <p> + Although in his main views MORE is thoroughly characteristic of the school + to which he belonged, many of his less important opinions are more or less + peculiar to himself. + </p> + <p> + The relation between MORE's and DESCARTES' (1596-1650) theories as to the + nature of spirit is interesting. When MORE first read DESCARTES' works he + was favourably impressed with his views, though without entirely agreeing + with him on all points; but later the difference became accentuated. + DESCARTES regarded extension as the chief characteristic of matter, and + asserted that spirit was extra-spatial. To MORE this seemed like denying + the existence of spirit, which he regarded as extended, and he postulated + divisibility and impenetrability as the chief characteristics of matter. + In order, however, to get over some of the inherent difficulties of this + view, he put forward the suggestion that spirit is extended in four + dimensions: thus, its apparent (<i>i.e</i>. three-dimensional) extension + can change, whilst its true (<i>i.e</i>. four-dimensional) extension + remains constant; just as the surface of a piece of metal can be increased + by hammering it out, without increasing the volume of the metal. Here, I + think, we have a not wholly inadequate symbol of the truth; but it + remained for BERKELEY (1685-1753) to show position, by demonstrating that, + since space and extension are perceptions of the mind, and thus exist only + in the mind as ideas, space exists in spirit: not spirit in space. + </p> + <p> + MORE was a keen believer in witchcraft, and eagerly investigated all cases + of these and like marvels that came under his notice. In this he was + largely influenced by JOSEPH GLANVIL (1636-1680), whose book on + witchcraft, the well-known <i>Saducismus Triumphatus</i>, MORE largely + contributed to, and probably edited. MORE was wholly unsuited for + psychical research; free from guile himself, he was too inclined to judge + others to be of this nature also. But his common sense and critical + attitude towards enthusiasm saved him, no doubt, from many falls into the + mire of fantasy. + </p> + <p> + As Principal TULLOCH has pointed out, whilst MORE is the most interesting + personality amongst the Cambridge Platonists, his works are the least + interesting of those of his school. They are dull and scholastic, and + MORE'S retired existence prevented him from grasping in their fulness some + of the more acute problems of life. His attempt to harmonise catastrophes + with Providence, on the ground that the evil of certain parts may be + necessary for the good of the whole, just as dark colours, as well as + bright, are essential to the beauty of a picture—a theory which is + practically the same as that of modern Absolutism,(1)—is a case in + point. No doubt this harmony may be accomplished, but in another key. + </p> + <p> + (1) Cf. BERNARD BOSANQUET, LL.D., D.C.L.: <i>The Principle of + Individuality and Value</i> (1912). + </p> + <p> + RALPH CUDWORTH was born at Aller, in Somersetshire, in 1617. He entered + Emmanuel College in 1632, three years afterwards gained his B.A., and + became M.A. in 1639. In the latter year he was elected a fellow of his + college. Later he obtained the B.D. degree. In 1645 he was appointed + Master of Clare Hall, in place of the ejected Dr PASHE, and was elected + Regius Professor of Hebrew. On 31st March 1647 he preached a sermon of + remarkable eloquence and power before the House of Commons, which + admirably expresses the attitude of his school as concerns the nature of + true religion. I shall refer to it again later. In 1650 CUDWORTH was + presented with the college living of North Cadbury, which WHICHCOTE had + resigned, and was made D.D. in the following year. In 1654 he was elected + Master of Christ's College, with an improvement in his financial position, + there having been some difficulty in obtaining his stipend at Clare Hall. + In this year he married. In 1662 Bishop SHELDON presented him with the + rectory of Ashwell, in Hertfordshire. He died in 1688. He was a pious man + of fine intellect; but his character was marred by a certain + suspiciousness which caused him wrongfully to accuse MORE, in 1665, of + attempting to forestall him in writing a work on ethics, which should + demonstrate that the principles of Christian morality are not based on any + arbitrary decrees of God, but are inherent in the nature and reason of + things. CUDWORTH'S great work—or, at least, the first part, which + alone was completed,—<i>The Intellectual System of the World</i>, + appeared in 1678. In it CUDWORTH deals with atheism on the ground of + reason, demonstrating its irrationality. The book is remarkable for the + fairness and fulness with which CUDWORTH states the arguments in favour of + atheism. + </p> + <p> + So much for the lives and individual characteristics of the Cambridge + Platonists: what were the great principles that animated both their lives + and their philosophy? These, I think, were two: first, the essential unity + of religion and morality; second, the essential unity of revelation and + reason. + </p> + <p> + With clearer perception of ethical truth than either Puritan or High + Churchman, the Cambridge Platonists saw that true Christianity is neither + a matter of mere belief, nor consists in the mere performance of good + works; but is rather a matter of character. To them Christianity connoted + regeneration. "Religion," says WHICHCOTE, "is the Frame and TEMPER of our + Minds, and the RULE of our Lives"; and again, "Heaven is FIRST a Temper, + and THEN a Place."(1) To the man of heavenly temper, they taught, the + performance of good works would be no irksome matter imposed merely by a + sense of duty, but would be done spontaneously as a delight. To drudge in + religion may very well be necessary as an initial stage, but it is not its + perfection. + </p> + <p> + (1) My quotations from WHICHCOTE and SMITH are taken from the selection of + their discourses edited by E. T. CAMPAGNAC, M.A. (1901). + </p> + <p> + In his sermon before the House of Commons, CUDWORTH well exposes the error + of those who made the mere holding of certain beliefs the essential + element in Christianity. There are many passages I should like to quote + from this eloquent discourse, but the following must suffice: "We must not + judge of our knowing of Christ, by our skill in Books and Papers, but by + our keeping of his Commandments... He is the best Christian, whose heart + beats with the truest pulse towards heaven; not he whose head spinneth out + the finest cobwebs. He that endeavours really to mortifie his lusts, and + to comply with that truth in his life, which his Conscience is convinced + of; is neerer a Christian, though he never heard of Christ; then he that + believes all the vulgar Articles of the Christian faith, and plainly + denyeth Christ in his life.... The great Mysterie of the Gospel, it doth + not lie only in CHRIST WITHOUT US, (though we must know also what he hath + done for us) but the very Pith and Kernel of it, consists in <i>*Christ + inwardly formed</i> in our hearts. Nothing is truly Ours, but what lives + in our Spirits. SALVATION it self cannot SAVE us, as long as it is onely + without us; no more then HEALTH can cure us, and make us sound, when it is + not within us, but somewhere at distance from us; no more than <i>Arts and + Sciences</i>, whilst they lie onely in Books and Papers without us; can + make us learned."(1) + </p> + <p> + (1) RALPH CUDWORTH, B.D.: <i>A Sermon Preached before the Honourable House + of Commons at Westminster, Mar</i>. 31, 1647 (1st edn.), pp. 3, 14, 42, + and 43. + </p> + <p> + The Cambridge Platonists were not ascetics; their moral doctrine was one + of temperance. Their sound wisdom on this point is well evident in the + following passage from WHICHCOTE: "What can be alledged for Intemperance; + since Nature is content with very few things? Why should any one over-do + in this kind? A Man is better in Health and Strength, if he be temperate. + We enjoy ourselves more in a sober and temperate Use of ourselves."(2) + </p> + <p> + (2) BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE: <i>The Venerable Nature and Transcendant Benefit + of Christian Religion. Op. cit</i>., p. 40. + </p> + <p> + The other great principle animating their philosophy was, as I have said, + the essential unity of reason and revelation. To those who argued that + self-surrender implied a giving up of reason, they replied that "To go + against REASON, is to go against GOD: it is the self same thing, to do + that which the Reason of the Case doth require; and that which God Himself + doth appoint: Reason is the DIVINE Governor of Man's Life; it is the very + Voice of God."(3) Reason, Conscience, and the Scriptures, these, taught + the Cambridge Platonists, testify of one another and are the true guides + which alone a man should follow. All other authority they repudiated. But + true reason is not merely sensuous, and the only way whereby it may be + gained is by the purification of the self from the desires that draw it + away from the Source of all Reason. "God," writes MORE, "reserves His + choicest secrets for the purest Minds," adding his conviction that "true + Holiness (is) the only safe Entrance into Divine Knowledge." Or as SMITH, + who speaks of "a GOOD LIFE as the PROLEPSIS and Fundamental principle of + DIVINE SCIENCE," puts it, "... if... KNOWLEDGE be not attended with + HUMILITY and a deep sense of SELF-PENURY and <i>*Self-emptiness</i>, we + may easily fall short of that True Knowledge of God which we seem to + aspire after."(1b) Right Reason, however, they taught, is the product of + the sight of the soul, the true mystic vision. + </p> + <p> + (3) BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE: <i>Moral and Religious Aphorisms OP. cit</i>., p. + 67. + </p> + <p> + (1b) JOHN SMITH: <i>A Discourse concerning the true Way or Method of + attaining to Divine Knowledge. Op. cit</i>., pp. 80 and 96. + </p> + <p> + In what respects, it may be asked in conclusion, is the philosophy of the + Cambridge Platonists open to criticism? They lacked, perhaps, a + sufficiently clear concept of the Church as a unity, and although they + clearly realised that Nature is a symbol which it is the function of + reason to interpret spiritually, they failed, I think, to appreciate the + value of symbols. Thus they have little to teach with respect to the + Sacraments of the Church, though, indeed, the highest view, perhaps, is + that which regards every act as potentially a sacrament; and, whilst + admiring his morality, they criticised BOEHME as an enthusiast. But, + although he spoke in a very different language, spiritually he had much in + common with them. Compared with what is of positive value in their + philosophy, however, the defects of the Cambridge Platonists are but + comparatively slight. I commend their works to lovers of spiritual wisdom. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Bygone Beliefs, by H. Stanley Redgrove + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BYGONE BELIEFS *** + +***** This file should be named 1271-h.htm or 1271-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/7/1271/ + +Produced by Charles Keller, and David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Stanley Redgrove + +Posting Date: August 15, 2008 [EBook #1271] +Release Date: [Updated edition of: etext98/byblf11.txt; byblf11.zip] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BYGONE BELIEFS *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Keller + + + + + +BYGONE BELIEFS BEING A SERIES OF EXCURSIONS IN THE BYWAYS OF THOUGHT + +By H. Stanley Redgrove + + + _Alle Erfahrung ist Magic, und nur magisch erklarbar_. + NOVALIS (Friedrich von Hardenberg). + + Everything possible to be believ'd is an image of truth. + WILLIAM BLAKE. + + +TO MY WIFE + + +Transcriber's Note: + + <.> = coordinate covalent bond. + <#s> = subscripted #. + <#S> = superscripted #. + {} mark non-ascii characters. + "Emphasis" _italics_ have a * mark. + @@@ marks a reference to internal page numbers. + Comments and guessed at characters in {braces} need stripped/fixed. + Footnotes have not been re-numbered, however, (#) are moved to EOParagraph. + The footnotes that have duplicate numbers across 2 pages are "a" and "b". + "Protected" indentations have a space before the [Tab]. + EOL - have been converted to ([Soft Hyphen]). + Greek letters are encoded in <gr > brackets, and the letters are + based on Adobe's Symbol font. + Hebrew letters are encoded in <hb > brackets. + + + + +PREFACE + +THESE Excursions in the Byways of Thought were undertaken at different +times and on different occasions; consequently, the reader may be able +to detect in them inequalities of treatment. He may feel that I have +lingered too long in some byways and hurried too rapidly through others, +taking, as it were, but a general view of the road in the latter case, +whilst examining everything that could be seen in the former with, +perhaps, undue care. As a matter of fact, how ever, all these excursions +have been undertaken with one and the same object in view, that, namely, +of understanding aright and appreciating at their true worth some of the +more curious byways along which human thought has travelled. It is easy +for the superficial thinker to dismiss much of the thought of the past +(and, indeed, of the present) as _mere_ superstition, not worth the +trouble of investigation: but it is not scientific. There is a reason +for every belief, even the most fantastic, and it should be our object +to discover this reason. How far, if at all, the reason in any case +justifies us in holding a similar belief is, of course, another +question. Some of the beliefs I have dealt with I have treated at +greater length than others, because it seems to me that the truths of +which they are the images--vague and distorted in many cases though they +be--are truths which we have either forgotten nowadays, or are in danger +of forgetting. We moderns may, indeed, learn something from the thought +of the past, even in its most fantastic aspects. In one excursion at +least, namely, the essay on "The Cambridge Platonists," I have ventured +to deal with a higher phase--perhaps I should say the highest phase--of +the thought of a bygone age, to which the modern world may be completely +debtor. + +"Some Characteristics of Mediaeval Thought," and the two essays on +Alchemy, have appeared in _The Journal of the Alchemical Society_. +In others I have utilised material I have contributed to _The Occult +Review_, to the editor of which journal my thanks are due for permission +so to do. I have also to express my gratitude to the Rev. A. H. COLLINS, +and others to be referred to in due course, for permission here to +reproduce illustrations of which they are the copyright holders. I have +further to offer my hearty thanks to Mr B. R. ROWBOTTOM and my wife for +valuable assistance in reading the proofs. H. S. R. + +BLETCHLEY, BUCKS, _December_ 1919. + + + +CONTENTS PAGE + + PREFACE........................... ix + LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.................... xiii + 1. SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF MEDIAEVAL THOUGHT......... 1 + 2. PYTHAGORAS AND HIS PHILOSOPHY............... 8 + 3. MEDICINE AND MAGIC..................... 25 + 4. SUPERSTITIONS CONCERNING BIRDS .............. 34 + 5. THE POWDER OF SYMPATHY: A CURIOUS MEDICAL SUPERSTITION.. 47 + 6. THE BELIEF IN TALISMANS.................. 57 + 7. CEREMONIAL MAGIC IN THEORY AND PRACTICE.......... 87 + 8. ARCHITECTURAL SYMBOLISM..................111 + 9. THE QUEST OF THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE............121 + 10. THE PHALLIC ELEMENT IN ALCHEMICAL DOCTRINE.........149 + 11. ROGER BACON: AN APPRECIATION...............183 + 12. THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS..................193 + + +{the LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS are incomplete and raw OCR output!} + + PAGE 46. Symbolic Alchemical Design from Mutus Liber (1677). + PLATE: 25, to face p.176 + 47. Symbolic Alchemical Design illustrating the Work of Woman, + from MAIER's Atalanta Fugiens...,, 26,,, 178 + 48. Symbolic Alchemica Design, Hermaphrodite, + from MAIER's Atalanta Fugiens..,, 27,,, 180 + 49. ROGER BACON presenting a Book to a King, from a Fifteenth Century + Miniature in the Bodleian Library, Oxford...,, 28,,, 184 + 50. ROGER BACON, from a Portrait in Knole Castle..,, 29,,, 188 + 51. BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE, from an engraved Portrait + by ROBERT WHITE....30...194 + 52. HENRY MORE, from a Portrait by DAVID LOGGAN, engraved ad vivum, 1679 + ...,, 31,,, 198 + 53. RALPH CUDWORTH, from an engraved Portrait by VERTUE, after LOGGAN, + forming the Frontispiece to CUDWORTH's Treatise Concerning Morality + (1731) ,, 32,,, 3~ + + + + +BYGONE BELIEFS + + + + +I. SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF MEDAEVAL THOUGHT + +IN the earliest days of his upward evolution man was satisfied with +a very crude explanation of natural phenomena--that to which the name +"animism" has been given. In this stage of mental development all the +various forces of Nature are personified: the rushing torrent, the +devastating fire, the wind rustling the forest leaves--in the mind of +the animistic savage all these are personalities, spirits, like himself, +but animated by motives more or less antagonistic to him. + +I suppose that no possible exception could be taken to the statement +that modern science renders animism impossible. But let us inquire +in exactly what sense this is true. It is not true that science robs +natural phenomena of their spiritual significance. The mistake is often +made of supposing that science explains, or endeavours to explain, +phenomena. But that is the business of philosophy. The task science +attempts is the simpler one of the correlation of natural phenomena, and +in this effort leaves the ultimate problems of metaphysics untouched. A +universe, however, whose phenomena are not only capable of some degree +of correlation, but present the extraordinary degree of harmony and +unity which science makes manifest in Nature, cannot be, as in animism, +the product of a vast number of inco-ordinated and antagonistic wills, +but must either be the product of one Will, or not the product of will +at all. + +The latter alternative means that the Cosmos is inexplicable, which not +only man's growing experience, but the fact that man and the +universe form essentially a unity, forbid us to believe. The term +"anthropomorphic" is too easily applied to philosophical systems, as if +it constituted a criticism of their validity. For if it be true, as +all must admit, that the unknown can only be explained in terms of +the known, then the universe must either be explained in terms of +man--_i.e_. in terms of will or desire--or remain incomprehensible. That +is to say, a philosophy must either be anthropomorphic, or no philosophy +at all. + +Thus a metaphysical scrutiny of the results of modern science leads us +to a belief in God. But man felt the need of unity, and crude animism, +though a step in the right direction, failed to satisfy his thought, +long before the days of modern science. The spirits of animism, however, +were not discarded, but were modified, co-ordinated, and worked into a +system as servants of the Most High. Polytheism may mark a stage in this +process; or, perhaps, it was a result of mental degeneracy. + +What I may term systematised as distinguished from crude animism +persisted throughout the Middle Ages. The work of systematisation had +already been accomplished, to a large extent, by the Neo-Platonists +and whoever were responsible for the Kabala. It is true that these main +sources of magical or animistic philosophy remained hidden during the +greater part of the Middle Ages; but at about their close the youthful +and enthusiastic CORNELIUS AGRIPPA (1486-1535)(1) slaked his thirst +thereat and produced his own attempt at the systematisation of magical +belief in the famous _Three Books of Occult Philosophy_. But the waters +of magical philosophy reached the mediaeval mind through various devious +channels, traditional on the one hand and literary on the other. And of +the latter, the works of pseudo-DIONYSIUS,(2) whose immense influence +upon mediaeval thought has sometimes been neglected, must certainly be +noted. + + +(1) The story of his life has been admirably told by HENRY MORLEY (2 +vols., 1856). + +(2) These writings were first heard of in the early part of the sixth +century, and were probably the work of a Syrian monk of that date, who +fathered them on to DIONYSIUS the Areopagite as a pious fraud. See Dean +INGE'S _Christian Mysticism_ (1899), pp. 104--122, and VAUGHAN'S _Hours +with the Mystics_ (7th ed., 1895), vol. i. pp. 111-124. The books have +been translated into English by the Rev. JOHN PARKER (2 vols.1897-1899), +who believes in the genuineness of their alleged authorship. + + +The most obvious example of a mediaeval animistic belief is that in +"elementals"--the spirits which personify the primordial forces of +Nature, and are symbolised by the four elements, immanent in which they +were supposed to exist, and through which they were held to manifest +their powers. And astrology, it must be remembered, is essentially a +systematised animism. The stars, to the ancients, were not material +bodies like the earth, but spiritual beings. PLATO (427-347 B.C.) speaks +of them as "gods". Mediaeval thought did not regard them in quite this +way. But for those who believed in astrology, and few, I think, did +not, the stars were still symbols of spiritual forces operative on man. +Evidences of the wide extent of astrological belief in those days are +abundant, many instances of which we shall doubtless encounter in our +excursions. + +It has been said that the theological and philosophical atmosphere of +the Middle Ages was "scholastic," not mystical. No doubt "mysticism," as +a mode of life aiming at the realisation of the presence of God, is +as distinct from scholasticism as empiricism is from rationalism, +or "tough-minded" philosophy (to use JAMES' happy phrase) is from +"tender-minded". But no philosophy can be absolutely and purely +deductive. It must start from certain empirically determined facts. A +man might be an extreme empiricist in religion (_i.e_. a mystic), +and yet might attempt to deduce all other forms of knowledge from the +results of his religious experiences, never caring to gather experience +in any other realm. Hence the breach between mysticism and scholasticism +is not really so wide as may appear at first sight. Indeed, +scholasticism officially recognised three branches of theology, of which +the MYSTICAL was one. I think that mysticism and scholasticism both had +a profound influence on the mediaeval mind, sometimes acting as opposing +forces, sometimes operating harmoniously with one another. As Professor +WINDELBAND puts it: "We no longer onesidedly characterise the philosophy +of the middle ages as scholasticism, but rather place mysticism beside +it as of equal rank, and even as being the more fruitful and promising +movement."(1) + + +(1) Professor WILHELM WINDELBAND, Ph.D.: "Present-Day Mysticism," _The +Quest_, vol. iv. (1913), P. 205. + + +Alchemy, with its four Aristotelian or scholastic elements and its +three mystical principles--sulphur, mercury, salt,--must be cited as +the outstanding product of the combined influence of mysticism and +scholasticism: of mysticism, which postulated the unity of the Cosmos, +and hence taught that everything natural is the expressive image and +type of some supernatural reality; of scholasticism, which taught men +to rely upon deduction and to restrict experimentation to the smallest +possible limits. + +The mind naturally proceeds from the known, or from what is supposed to +be known, to the unknown. Indeed, as I have already indicated, it must +so proceed if truth is to be gained. Now what did the men of the Middle +Ages regard as falling into the category of the known? Why, surely, the +truths of revealed religion, whether accepted upon authority or upon +the evidence of their own experience. The realm of spiritual and moral +reality: there, they felt, they were on firm ground. Nature was a realm +unknown; but they had analogy to guide, or, rather, misguide them. +Nevertheless if, as we know, it misguided, this was not, I think, +because the mystical doctrine of the correspondence between the +spiritual and the natural is unsound, but because these ancient seekers +into Nature's secrets knew so little, and so frequently misapplied what +they did know. So alchemical philosophy arose and became systematised, +with its wonderful endeavour to perfect the base metals by the +Philosopher's Stone--the concentrated Essence of Nature,--as man's soul +is perfected through the life-giving power of JESUS CHRIST. + +I want, in conclusion to these brief introductory remarks, to say a +few words concerning phallicism in connection with my topic. For some +"tender-minded"(1) and, to my thought, obscure, reason the subject is +tabooed. Even the British Museum does not include works on phallicism +in its catalogue, and special permission has to be obtained to consult +them. Yet the subject is of vast importance as concerns the origin +and development of religion and philosophy, and the extent of phallic +worship may be gathered from the widespread occurrence of obelisks and +similar objects amongst ancient relics. Our own maypole dances may be +instanced as one survival of the ancient worship of the male generative +principle. + + +(1) I here use the term with the extended meaning Mr H. G. WELLS has +given to it. See _The New Machiavelli_. + + +What could be more easy to understand than that, when man first +questioned as to the creation of the earth, he should suppose it to have +been generated by some process analogous to that which he saw held in +the case of man? How else could he account for its origin, if knowledge +must proceed from the known to the unknown? No one questions at all +that the worship of the human generative organs as symbols of the dual +generative principle of Nature degenerated into orgies of the most +frightful character, but the view of Nature which thus degenerated is +not, I think, an altogether unsound one, and very interesting remnants +of it are to be found in mediaeval philosophy. + +These remnants are very marked in alchemy. The metals, as I have +suggested, are there regarded as types of man; hence they are +produced from seed, through the combination of male and female +principles--mercury and sulphur, which on the spiritual plane are +intelligence and love. The same is true of that Stone which is perfect +Man. As BERNARD of TREVISAN (1406-1490) wrote in the fifteenth century: +"This Stone then is compounded of a Body and Spirit, or of a volatile +and fixed Substance, and that is therefore done, because nothing in +the World can be generated and brought to light without these two +Substances, to wit, a Male and Female: From whence it appeareth, that +although these two Substances are not of one and the same species, yet +one Stone doth thence arise, and although they appear and are said to be +two Substances, yet in truth it is but one, to wit, _Argent-vive_."(1) +No doubt this sounds fantastic; but with all their seeming intellectual +follies these old thinkers were no fools. The fact of sex is the most +fundamental fact of the universe, and is a spiritual and physical as +well as a physiological fact. I shall deal with the subject as concerns +the speculations of the alchemists in some detail in a later excursion. + + +(1) BERNARD, Earl of TREVISAN: _A Treatise of the Philosopher's Stone_, +1683. (See _Collectanea Chymica: A Collection of Ten Several Treatises +in Chemistry_, 1684, p. 91.) + + + + +II. PYTHAGORAS AND HIS PHILOSOPHY + +IT is a matter for enduring regret that so little is known to us +concerning PYTHAGORAS. What little we do know serves but to enhance +for us the interest of the man and his philosophy, to make him, in many +ways, the most attractive of Greek thinkers; and, basing our estimate +on the extent of his influence on the thought of succeeding ages, we +recognise in him one of the world's master-minds. + +PYTHAGORAS was born about 582 B.C. at Samos, one of the Grecian isles. +In his youth he came in contact with THALES--the Father of Geometry, +as he is well called,--and though he did not become a member of THALES' +school, his contact with the latter no doubt helped to turn his mind +towards the study of geometry. This interest found the right ground for +its development in Egypt, which he visited when still young. Egypt is +generally regarded as the birthplace of geometry, the subject having, it +is supposed, been forced on the minds of the Egyptians by the necessity +of fixing the boundaries of lands against the annual overflowing of the +Nile. But the Egyptians were what is called an essentially practical +people, and their geometrical knowledge did not extend beyond a few +empirical rules useful for fixing these boundaries and in constructing +their temples. Striking evidence of this fact is supplied by the AHMES +papyrus, compiled some little time before 1700 B.C. from an older +work dating from about 3400 B.C.,(1) a papyrus which almost certainly +represents the highest mathematical knowledge reached by the Egyptians +of that day. Geometry is treated very superficially and as of subsidiary +interest to arithmetic; there is no ordered series of reasoned +geometrical propositions given--nothing, indeed, beyond isolated rules, +and of these some are wanting in accuracy. + + +(1) See AUGUST EISENLOHR: _Ein mathematisches Handbuch der alten +Aegypter_ (1877); J. Gow: _A Short History of Greek Mathematics_ (1884); +and V. E. JOHNSON: _Egyptian Science from the Monuments and Ancient +Books_ (1891). + + +One geometrical fact known to the Egyptians was that if a triangle be +constructed having its sides 3, 4, and 5 units long respectively, then +the angle opposite the longest side is exactly a right angle; and the +Egyptian builders used this rule for constructing walls perpendicular to +each other, employing a cord graduated in the required manner. The +Greek mind was not, however, satisfied with the bald statement of mere +facts--it cared little for practical applications, but sought above all +for the underlying REASON of everything. Nowadays we are beginning to +realise that the results achieved by this type of mind, the general laws +of Nature's behaviour formulated by its endeavours, are frequently +of immense practical importance--of far more importance than the mere +rules-of-thumb beyond which so-called practical minds never advance. +The classic example of the utility of seemingly useless knowledge is +afforded by Sir WILLIAM HAMILTON'S discovery, or, rather, invention of +Quarternions, but no better example of the utilitarian triumph of the +theoretical over the so-called practical mind can be adduced than that +afforded by PYTHAGORAS. Given this rule for constructing a right angle, +about whose reason the Egyptian who used it never bothered himself, and +the mind of PYTHAGORAS, searching for its full significance, made that +gigantic geometrical discovery which is to this day known as the Theorem +of PYTHAGORAS--the law that in every right-angled triangle the square +on the side opposite the right angle is equal in area to the sum of the +squares on the other two sides.(1) The importance of this discovery +can hardly be overestimated. It is of fundamental importance in most +branches of geometry, and the basis of the whole of trigonometry--the +special branch of geometry that deals with the practical mensuration of +triangles. EUCLID devoted the whole of the first book of his _Elements +of Geometry_ to establishing the truth of this theorem; how PYTHAGORAS +demonstrated it we unfortunately do not know. + + +(1) Fig. 3 affords an interesting practical demonstration of the truth +of this theorem. If the reader will copy this figure, cut out the +squares on the two shorter sides of the triangle and divide them along +the lines AD, BE, EF, he will find that the five pieces so obtained can +be made exactly to fit the square on the longest side as shown by the +dotted lines. The size and shape of the triangle ABC, so long as it +has a right angle at C, is immaterial. The lines AD, BE are obtained +by continuing the sides of the square on the side AB, _i.e_. the side +opposite the right angle, and EF is drawn at right angles to BE. + +After absorbing what knowledge was to be gained in Egypt, PYTHAGORAS +journeyed to Babylon, where he probably came into contact with even +greater traditions and more potent influences and sources of knowledge +than in Egypt, for there is reason for believing that the ancient +Chaldeans were the builders of the Pyramids and in many ways the +intellectual superiors of the Egyptians. + +At last, after having travelled still further East, probably as far as +India, PYTHAGORAS returned to his birthplace to teach the men of his +native land the knowledge he had gained. But CROESUS was tyrant over +Samos, and so oppressive was his rule that none had leisure in which to +learn. Not a student came to PYTHAGORAS, until, in despair, so the story +runs, he offered to pay an artisan if he would but learn geometry. The +man accepted, and later, when PYTHAGORAS pretended inability any longer +to continue the payments, he offered, so fascinating did he find +the subject, to pay his teacher instead if the lessons might only be +continued. PYTHAGORAS no doubt was much gratified at this; and the +motto he adopted for his great Brotherhood, of which we shall make the +acquaintance in a moment, was in all likelihood based on this event. It +ran, "Honour a figure and a step before a figure and a tribolus"; or, as +a freer translation renders it:-- + +"A figure and a step onward Not a figure and a florin." + + +"At all events," as Mr FRANKLAND remarks, "the motto is a lasting witness +to a very singular devotion to knowledge for its own sake."(1) + + +(1) W. B. FRANKLAND, M.A.: _The Story of Euclid_ (1902), p. 33 + +But PYTHAGORAS needed a greater audience than one man, however +enthusiastic a pupil he might be, and he left Samos for Southern +Italy, the rich inhabitants of whose cities had both the leisure and +inclination to study. Delphi, far-famed for its Oracles, was visited _en +route_, and PYTHAGORAS, after a sojourn at Tarentum, settled at Croton, +where he gathered about him a great band of pupils, mainly young people +of the aristocratic class. By consent of the Senate of Croton, he formed +out of these a great philosophical brotherhood, whose members lived +apart from the ordinary people, forming, as it were, a separate +community. They were bound to PYTHAGORAS by the closest ties of +admiration and reverence, and, for years after his death, discoveries +made by Pythagoreans were invariably attributed to the Master, a fact +which makes it very difficult exactly to gauge the extent of PYTHAGORAS' +own knowledge and achievements. The regime of the Brotherhood, or +Pythagorean Order, was a strict one, entailing "high thinking and low +living" at all times. A restricted diet, the exact nature of which is +in dispute, was observed by all members, and long periods of silence, as +conducive to deep thinking, were imposed on novices. Women were admitted +to the Order, and PYTHAGORAS' asceticism did not prohibit romance, +for we read that one of his fair pupils won her way to his heart, and, +declaring her affection for him, found it reciprocated and became his +wife. + +SCHURE writes: "By his marriage with Theano, Pythagoras affixed _the +seal of realization_ to his work. The union and fusion of the two lives +was complete. One day when the master's wife was asked what length of +time elapsed before a woman could become pure after intercourse with a +man, she replied: 'If it is with her husband, she is pure all the time; +if with another man, she is never pure.'" "Many women," adds the writer, +"would smilingly remark that to give such a reply one must be the wife +of Pythagoras, and love him as Theano did. And they would be in the +right, for it is not marriage that sanctifies love, it is love which +justifies marriage."(1) + + +(1) EDOUARD SCHURE: _Pythagoras and the Delphic Mysteries_, trans. by F. +ROTHWELL, B.A. (1906), pp. 164 and 165. + + +PYTHAGORAS was not merely a mathematician, he was first and foremost a +philosopher, whose philosophy found in number the basis of all things, +because number, for him, alone possessed stability of relationship. As I +have remarked on a former occasion, "The theory that the Cosmos has its +origin and explanation in Number... is one for which it is not difficult +to account if we take into consideration the nature of the times in +which it was formulated. The Greek of the period, looking upon Nature, +beheld no picture of harmony, uniformity and fundamental unity. The +outer world appeared to him rather as a discordant chaos, the mere sport +and plaything of the gods. The theory of the uniformity of Nature--that +Nature is ever like to herself--the very essence of the modern +scientific spirit, had yet to be born of years of unwearied labour +and unceasing delving into Nature's innermost secrets. Only in +Mathematics--in the properties of geometrical figures, and of +numbers--was the reign of law, the principle of harmony, perceivable. +Even at this present day when the marvellous has become commonplace, +that property of right-angled triangles... already discussed... comes +to the mind as a remarkable and notable fact: it must have seemed a +stupendous marvel to its discoverer, to whom, it appears, the regular +alternation of the odd and even numbers, a fact so obvious to us that +we are inclined to attach no importance to it, seemed, itself, to be +something wonderful. Here in Geometry and Arithmetic, here was order and +harmony unsurpassed and unsurpassable. What wonder then that Pythagoras +concluded that the solution of the mighty riddle of the Universe was +contained in the mysteries of Geometry? What wonder that he read mystic +meanings into the laws of Arithmetic, and believed Number to be the +explanation and origin of all that is?"(1) + + +(1) _A Mathematical Theory of Spirit_ (1912), pp. 64-65. + + +No doubt the Pythagorean theory suffers from a defect similar to that +of the Kabalistic doctrine, which, starting from the fact that all words +are composed of letters, representing the primary sounds of language, +maintained that all the things represented by these words were created +by God by means of the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. But at +the same time the Pythagorean theory certainly embodies a considerable +element of truth. Modern science demonstrates nothing more clearly +than the importance of numerical relationships. Indeed, "the history of +science shows us the gradual transformation of crude facts of experience +into increasingly exact generalisations by the application to them of +mathematics. The enormous advances that have been made in recent years +in physics and chemistry are very largely due to mathematical methods +of interpreting and co-ordinating facts experimentally revealed, whereby +further experiments have been suggested, the results of which have +themselves been mathematically interpreted. Both physics and chemistry, +especially the former, are now highly mathematical. In the biological +sciences and especially in psychology it is true that mathematical +methods are, as yet, not so largely employed. But these sciences are far +less highly developed, far less exact and systematic, that is to say, +far less scientific, at present, than is either physics or chemistry. +However, the application of statistical methods promises good results, +and there are not wanting generalisations already arrived at which +are expressible mathematically; Weber's Law in psychology, and the law +concerning the arrangement of the leaves about the stems of plants in +biology, may be instanced as cases in point."(1) + + +(1) Quoted from a lecture by the present writer on "The Law of +Correspondences Mathematically Considered," delivered before The +Theological and Philosophical Society on 26th April 1912, and published +in _Morning Light_, vol. xxxv (1912), p. 434 _et seq_. + + +The Pythagorean doctrine of the Cosmos, in its most reasonable form, +however, is confronted with one great difficulty which it seems +incapable of overcoming, namely, that of continuity. Modern science, +with its atomic theories of matter and electricity, does, indeed, show +us that the apparent continuity of material things is spurious, that all +material things consist of discrete particles, and are hence measurable +in numerical terms. But modern science is also obliged to postulate an +ether behind these atoms, an ether which is wholly continuous, and hence +transcends the domain of number.(1) It is true that, in quite recent +times, a certain school of thought has argued that the ether is +also atomic in constitution--that all things, indeed, have a grained +structure, even forces being made up of a large number of quantums +or indivisible units of force. But this view has not gained general +acceptance, and it seems to necessitate the postulation of an ether +beyond the ether, filling the interspaces between its atoms, to obviate +the difficulty of conceiving of action at a distance. + + +(1) Cf. chap. iii., "On Nature as the Embodiment of Number," of my _A +Mathematical Theory of Spirit_, to which reference has already been +made. + + +According to BERGSON, life--the reality that can only be lived, not +understood--is absolutely continuous (_i.e_. not amenable to numerical +treatment). It is because life is absolutely continuous that we cannot, +he says, understand it; for reason acts discontinuously, grasping only, +so to speak, a cinematographic view of life, made up of an immense +number of instantaneous glimpses. All that passes between the glimpses +is lost, and so the true whole, reason can never synthesise from that +which it possesses. On the other hand, one might also argue--extending, +in a way, the teaching of the physical sciences of the period between +the postulation of DALTON'S atomic theory and the discovery of the +significance of the ether of space--that reality is essentially +discontinuous, our idea that it is continuous being a mere illusion +arising from the coarseness of our senses. That might provide a complete +vindication of the Pythagorean view; but a better vindication, if not +of that theory, at any rate of PYTHAGORAS' philosophical attitude, +is forthcoming, I think, in the fact that modern mathematics has +transcended the shackles of number, and has enlarged her kingdom, so as +to include quantities other than numerical. PYTHAGORAS, had he been +born in these latter centuries, would surely have rejoiced in this, +enlargement, whereby the continuous as well as the discontinuous is +brought, if not under the rule of number, under the rule of mathematics +indeed. + +PYTHAGORAS' foremost achievement in mathematics I have already +mentioned. Another notable piece of work in the same department was +the discovery of a method of constructing a parallelogram having a side +equal to a given line, an angle equal to a given angle, and its area +equal to that of a given triangle. PYTHAGORAS is said to have celebrated +this discovery by the sacrifice of a whole ox. The problem appears in +the first book of EUCLID'S _Elements of Geometry_ as proposition 44. In +fact, many of the propositions of EUCLID'S first, second, fourth, and +sixth books were worked out by PYTHAGORAS and the Pythagoreans; but, +curiously enough, they seem greatly to have neglected the geometry of +the circle. + +The symmetrical solids were regarded by PYTHAGORAS, and by the Greek +thinkers after him, as of the greatest importance. To be perfectly +symmetrical or regular, a solid must have an equal number of faces +meeting at each of its angles, and these faces must be equal regular +polygons, _i.e_. figures whose sides and angles are all equal. +PYTHAGORAS, perhaps, may be credited with the great discovery that there +are only five such solids. These are as follows:-- + +The Tetrahedron, having four equilateral triangles as faces. + +The Cube, having six squares as faces. + +The Octahedron, having eight equilateral triangles as faces. + +The Dodecahedron, having twelve regular pentagons (or five-sided +figures) as faces. + +The Icosahedron, having twenty equilateral triangles as faces.(1) + + +(1) If the reader will copy figs. 4 to 8 on cardboard or stiff paper, +bend each along the dotted lines so as to form a solid, fastening +together the free edges with gummed paper, he will be in possession of +models of the five solids in question. + + +Now, the Greeks believed the world to be composed of four +elements--earth, air, fire, water,--and to the Greek mind the conclusion +was inevitable(2a) that the shapes of the particles of the elements +were those of the regular solids. Earth-particles were cubical, the cube +being the regular solid possessed of greatest stability; fire-particles +were tetrahedral, the tetrahedron being the simplest and, hence, +lightest solid. Water-particles were icosahedral for exactly the reverse +reason, whilst air-particles, as intermediate between the two latter, +were octahedral. The dodecahedron was, to these ancient mathematicians, +the most mysterious of the solids: it was by far the most difficult to +construct, the accurate drawing of the regular pentagon necessitating a +rather elaborate application of PYTHAGORAS' great theorem.(1) Hence the +conclusion, as PLATO put it, that "this (the regular dodecahedron) the +Deity employed in tracing the plan of the Universe."(2b) Hence also +the high esteem in which the pentagon was held by the Pythagoreans. By +producing each side of this latter figure the five-pointed star (fig. +9), known as the pentagram, is obtained. This was adopted by the +Pythagoreans as the badge of their Society, and for many ages was held +as a symbol possessed of magic powers. The mediaeval magicians made use +of it in their evocations, and as a talisman it was held in the highest +esteem. + + +(2a) _Cf_. PLATO: The Timaeus, SESE xxviii--xxx. + +(1) In reference to this matter FRANKLAND remarks: "In those early days +the innermost secrets of nature lay in the lap of geometry, and the +extraordinary inference follows that Euclid's _Elements_, which are +devoted to the investigation of the regular solids, are therefore in +reality and at bottom an attempt to 'solve the universe.' Euclid, +in fact, made this goal of the Pythagoreans the aim of his +_Elements_."--_Op. cit_., p. 35. + +(2b) _Op. cit_., SE xxix. + + +Music played an important part in the curriculum of the Pythagorean +Brotherhood, and the important discovery that the relations between +the notes of musical scales can be expressed by means of numbers is a +Pythagorean one. It must have seemed to its discoverer--as, in a sense, +it indeed is--a striking confirmation of the numerical theory of the +Cosmos. The Pythagoreans held that the positions of the heavenly bodies +were governed by similar numerical relations, and that in consequence +their motion was productive of celestial music. This concept of "the +harmony of the spheres" is among the most celebrated of the Pythagorean +doctrines, and has found ready acceptance in many mystically-speculative +minds. "Look how the floor of heaven," says Lorenzo in SHAKESPEARE'S +_The Merchant of Venice_-- + + "... Look how the floor of heaven + Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold: + There's not the smallest orb which thou behold's" + But in his motion like an angel sings, + Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins; + Such harmony is in immortal souls; + But whilst this muddy vesture of decay + Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it."(1) + + +(1) Act v. scene i. + +Or, as KINGSLEY writes in one of his letters, "When I walk the fields I +am oppressed every now and then with an innate feeling that everything +I see has a meaning, if I could but understand it. And this feeling +of being surrounded with truths which I cannot grasp, amounts to an +indescribable awe sometimes! Everything seems to be full of God's +reflex, if we could but see it. Oh! how I have prayed to have the +mystery unfolded, at least hereafter. To see, if but for a moment, the +whole harmony of the great system! To hear once the music which the +whole universe makes as it performs His bidding!"(1) In this connection +may be mentioned the very significant fact that the Pythagoreans did +not consider the earth, in accordance with current opinion, to be a +stationary body, but believed that it and the other planets revolved +about a central point, or fire, as they called it. + + +(1) CHARLES KINGSLEY: _His Letters and Memories of His Life_, edited by +his wife (1883), p. 28. + + +As concerns PYTHAGORAS' ethical teaching, judging from the so-called +_Golden Verses_ attributed to him, and no doubt written by one of his +disciples,(2) this would appear to be in some respects similar to that +of the Stoics who came later, but free from the materialism of the Stoic +doctrines. Due regard for oneself is blended with regard for the gods +and for other men, the atmosphere of the whole being at once rational +and austere. One verse--"Thou shalt likewise know, according to Justice, +that the nature of this Universe is in all things alike"(3)--is of +particular interest, as showing PYTHAGORAS' belief in that principle of +analogy--that "What is below is as that which is above, what is above is +as that which is below"--which held so dominant a sway over the minds of +ancient and mediaeval philosophers, leading them--in spite, I suggest, +of its fundamental truth--into so many fantastic errors, as we shall +see in future excursions. Metempsychosis was another of the Pythagorean +tenets, a fact which is interesting in view of the modern revival +of this doctrine. PYTHAGORAS, no doubt, derived it from the East, +apparently introducing it for the first time to Western thought. + + +(2) It seems probable, though not certain, that PYTHAGORAS wrote nothing +himself, but taught always by the oral method. + +(3) Cf. the remarks of HIEROCLES on this verse in his _Commentary_. + + +Such, in brief, were the outstanding doctrines of the Pythagorean +Brotherhood. Their teachings included, as we have seen, what may justly +be called scientific discoveries of the first importance, as well as +doctrines which, though we may feel compelled--perhaps rightly--to +regard them as fantastic now, had an immense influence on the thought of +succeeding ages, especially on Greek philosophy as represented by PLATO +and the Neo-Platonists, and the more speculative minds--the occult +philosophers, shall I say?--of the latter mediaeval period and +succeeding centuries. The Brotherhood, however, was not destined to +continue its days in peace. As I have indicated, it was a philosophical, +not a political, association; but naturally PYTHAGORAS' philosophy +included political doctrines. At any rate, the Brotherhood acquired a +considerable share in the government of Croton, a fact which was greatly +resented by the members of the democratic party, who feared the loss of +their rights; and, urged thereto, it is said, by a rejected applicant +for membership of the Order, the mob made an onslaught on the +Brotherhood's place of assembly and burnt it to the ground. One account +has it that PYTHAGORAS himself died in the conflagration, a sacrifice +to the mad fury of the mob. According to another account--and we like to +believe that this is the true one--he escaped to Tarentum, from which he +was banished, to find an asylum in Metapontum, where he lived his last +years in peace. + +The Pythagorean Order was broken up, but the bonds of brotherhood still +existed between its members. "One of them who had fallen upon sickness +and poverty was kindly taken in by an innkeeper. Before dying he traced +a few mysterious signs (the pentagram, no doubt) on the door of the inn +and said to the host: 'Do not be uneasy, one of my brothers will pay my +debts.' A year afterwards, as a stranger was passing by this inn he saw +the signs and said to the host: 'I am a Pythagorean; one of my brothers +died here; tell me what I owe you on his account.'"(1) + + + +(1) EDOUARD SCHURE: _Op. cit_., p. 174. + + +In endeavouring to estimate the worth of PYTHAGORAS' discoveries and +teaching, Mr FRANKLAND writes, with reference to his achievements in +geometry: "Even after making a considerable allowance for his pupils' +share, the Master's geometrical work calls for much admiration"; and, +"... it cannot be far wrong to suppose that it was Pythagoras' wont +to insist upon proofs, and so to secure that rigour which gives to +mathematics its honourable position amongst the sciences." And of his +work in arithmetic, music, and astronomy, the same author writes: "... +everywhere he appears to have inaugurated genuinely scientific methods, +and to have laid the foundations of a high and liberal education"; +adding, "For nearly a score of centuries, to the very close of the +Middle Ages, the four Pythagorean subjects of study--arithmetic, +geometry, astronomy, music--were the staple educational course, and were +bound together into a fourfold way of knowledge--the Quadrivium."(1) +With these words of due praise, our present excursion may fittingly +close. + + +(1) _Op. cit_., pp. 35, 37, and 38. + + + + +III. MEDICINE AND MAGIC + +THERE are few tasks at once so instructive and so fascinating as the +tracing of the development of the human mind as manifested in the +evolution of scientific and philosophical theories. And this is, +perhaps, especially true when, as in the case of medicine, this +evolution has followed paths so tortuous, intersected by so many +fantastic byways, that one is not infrequently doubtful as to the true +road. The history of medicine is at once the history of human wisdom and +the history of human credulity and folly, and the romantic element (to +use the expression in its popular acceptation) thus introduced, whilst +making the subject more entertaining, by no means detracts from its +importance considered psychologically. + +To whom the honour of having first invented medicines is due is unknown, +the origins of pharmacy being lost in the twilight of myth. OSIRIS and +ISIS, BACCHUS, APOLLO father of the famous physician AESCULAPIUS, and +CHIRON the Centaur, tutor of the latter, are among the many mythological +personages who have been accredited with the invention of physic. It +is certain that the art of compounding medicines is extraordinarily +ancient. There is a papyrus in the British Museum containing medical +prescriptions which was written about 1200 B.C.; and the famous EBERS +papyrus, which is devoted to medical matters, is reckoned to date +from about the year 1550 B.C. It is interesting to note that in the +prescriptions given in this latter papyrus, as seems to have been the +case throughout the history of medicine, the principle that the efficacy +of a medicine is in proportion to its nastiness appears to have been the +main idea. Indeed, many old medicines contained ingredients of the +most disgusting nature imaginable: a mediaeval remedy known as oil of +puppies, made by cutting up two newly-born puppies and boiling them with +one pound of live earthworms, may be cited as a comparatively pleasant +example of the remedies (?) used in the days when all sorts of excreta +were prescribed as medicines.(1) + + +(1) See the late Mr A. C. WOOTTON'S excellent work, _Chronicles of +Pharmacy_ (2 vols, 1910), to which I gladly acknowledge my indebtedness. + + +Presumably the oldest theory concerning the causation of disease is that +which attributes all the ills of mankind to the malignant operations of +evil spirits, a theory which someone has rather fancifully suggested is +not so erroneous after all, if we may be allowed to apply the term "evil +spirits" to the microbes of modern bacteriology. Remnants of this theory +(which does--shall I say?--conceal a transcendental truth), that is, +in its original form, still survive to the present day in various +superstitious customs, whose absurdity does not need emphasising: for +example, the use of red flannel by old-fashioned folk with which to +tie up sore throats--red having once been supposed to be a colour very +angatonistic to evil spirits; so much so that at one time red cloth hung +in the patient's room was much employed as a cure for smallpox! + +Medicine and magic have always been closely associated. Indeed, the +greatest name in the history of pharmacy is also what is probably the +greatest name in the history of magic--the reference, of course, being +to PARACELSUS (1493-1541). Until PARACELSUS, partly by his vigorous +invective and partly by his remarkable cures of various diseases, +demolished the old school of medicine, no one dared contest the +authority of GALEN (130-_circa_ 205) and AVICENNA (980--1037). GALEN'S +theory of disease was largely based upon that of the four humours +in man--bile, blood, phlegm, and black bile,--which were regarded as +related to (but not identical with) the four elements--fire, air, water, +and earth,--being supposed to have characters similar to these. Thus, to +bile, as to fire, were attributed the properties of hotness and dryness; +to blood and air those of hotness and moistness; to phlegm and water +those of coldness and moistness; and, finally, black bile, like earth, +was said to be cold and dry. GALEN supposed that an alteration in the +due proportion of these humours gives rise to disease, though he did not +consider this to be its only cause; thus, cancer, it was thought, might +result from an excess of black bile, and rheumatism from an excess of +phlegm. Drugs, GALEN argued, are of efficiency in the curing of disease, +according as they possess one or more of these so-called fundamental +properties, hotness, dryness, coldness, and moistness, whereby it was +considered that an excess of any humour might be counteracted; moreover, +it was further assumed that four degrees of each property exist, and +that only those drugs are of use in curing a disease which contain the +necessary property or properties in the degree proportionate to that +in which the opposite humour or humours are in excess in the patient's +system. + +PARACELSUS' views were based upon his theory (undoubtedly true in a +sense) that man is a microcosm, a world in miniature.(1) Now, all things +material, taught PARACELSUS, contain the three principles termed in +alchemistic phraseology salt, sulphur, and mercury. This is true, +therefore, of man: the healthy body, he argued, is a sort of chemical +compound in which these three principles are harmoniously blended (as +in the Macrocosm) in due proportion, whilst disease is due to a +preponderance of one principle, fevers, for example, being the result +of an excess of sulphur (_i.e_. the fiery principle), _etc_. PARACELSUS, +although his theory was not so different from that of GALEN, whose views +he denounced, was thus led to seek for CHEMICAL remedies, containing +these principles in varying proportions; he was not content with +medicinal herbs and minerals in their crude state, but attempted +to extract their effective essences; indeed, he maintained that the +preparation of new and better drugs is the chief business of chemistry. + + +(1) See the "Note on the Paracelsian Doctrine of the Microcosm" below. + + +This theory of disease and of the efficacy of drugs was complicated by +many fantastic additions;(1) thus there is the "Archaeus," a sort +of benevolent demon, supposed by PARACELSUS to look after all the +unconscious functions of the bodily organism, who has to be taken into +account. PARACELSUS also held the Doctrine of Signatures, according to +which the medicinal value of plants and minerals is indicated by their +external form, or by some sign impressed upon them by the operation of +the stars. A very old example of this belief is to be found in the use +of mandrake (whose roots resemble the human form) by the Hebrews and +Greeks as a cure for sterility; or, to give an instance which is still +accredited by some, the use of eye-bright (_Euphrasia officinalis_, L., +a plant with a black pupil-like spot in its corolla) for complaints of +the eyes.(2) Allied to this doctrine are such beliefs, once held, as +that the lungs of foxes are good for bronchial troubles, or that the +heart of a lion will endow one with courage; as CORNELIUS AGRIPPA put +it, "It is well known amongst physicians that brain helps the brain, and +lungs the lungs."(3) + + +(1) The question of PARACELSUS' pharmacy is further complicated by the +fact that this eccentric genius coined many new words (without regard to +the principles of etymology) as names for his medicines, and often used +the same term to stand for quite different bodies. Some of his disciples +maintained that he must not always be understood in a literal sense, +in which probably there is an element of truth. See, for instance, _A +Golden and Blessed Casket of Nature's Marvels_, by BENEDICTUS FIGULUS +(trans. by A. E. WAITE, 1893). + +(2) See Dr ALFRED C. HADDON'S _Magic and Fetishism_ (1906), p. 15. + +(3) HENRY CORNELIUS AGRIPPA: _Occult Philosophy_, bk. i. chap. xv. +(WHITEHEAD'S edition, Chicago, 1898, P. 72). + + +In modern times homoeopathy--according to which a drug is a cure, +if administered in small doses, for that disease whose symptoms it +produces, if given in large doses to a healthy person---seems to bear +some resemblance to these old medical theories concerning the curing of +like by like. That the system of HAHNEMANN (1755--1843), the founder +of homoeopathy, is free from error could be scarcely maintained, but +certain recent discoveries in connection with serum-therapy appear to +indicate that the last word has not yet been said on the subject, and +the formula "like cures like" may still have another lease of life to +run. + +To return to PARACELSUS, however. It may be thought that his views were +not so great an advance on those of GALEN; but whether or not this be +the case, his union of chemistry and medicine was of immense benefit +to each science, and marked a new era in pharmacy. Even if his theories +were highly fantastic, it was he who freed medicine from the shackles of +traditionalism, and rendered progress in medical science possible. + +I must not conclude these brief notes without some reference to the +medical theory of the medicinal efficacy of words. The EBERS papyrus +already mentioned gives various formulas which must be pronounced when +preparing and when administering a drug; and there is a draught used by +the Eastern Jews as a cure for bronchial complaints prepared by writing +certain words on a plate, washing them off with wine, and adding three +grains of a citron which has been used at the Tabernacle festival. But +enough for our present excursion; we must hie us back to the modern +world, with its alkaloids, serums, and anti-toxins--another day we will, +perhaps, wander again down the by-paths of Medicinal Magic. + + +NOTE ON THE PARACELSIAN DOCTRINE OF THE MICROCOSM + + +"Man's nature," writes CORNELIUS AGRIPPA, "_is the most complete Image +of the whole Universe_."(1) This theory, especially connected with the +name of PARACELSUS, is worthy of more than passing reference; but as +the consideration of it leads us from medicine to metaphysics, I have +thought it preferable to deal with the subject in a note. + + +(1) H. C. AGRIPPA: _Occult Philosophy_, bk. i. chap. xxxiii. +(WHITEHEAD'S edition, p. 111). + + +Man, taught the old mystical philosophers, is threefold in nature, +consisting of spirit, soul, and body. The Paracelsian mercury, sulphur, +and salt were the mineral analogues of these. "As to the Spirit," writes +VALENTINE WEIGEL (1533--1588), a disciple of PARACELSUS, "we are of God, +move in God, and live in God, and are nourished of God. Hence God is in +us and we are in God; God hath put and placed Himself in us, and we are +put and placed in God. As to the Soul, we are from the Firmament and +Stars, we live and move therein, and are nourished thereof. Hence the +Firmament with its astralic virtues and operations is in us, and we in +it. The Firmament is put and placed in us, and we are put and placed in +the Firmament. As to the Body, we are of the elements, we move and live +therein, and are nourished of them:--hence the elements are in us, and +we in them. The elements, by the slime, are put and placed in us, and we +are put and placed in them."(1) Or, to quote from PARACELSUS himself, in +his _Hermetic Astronomy_ he writes: "God took the body out of which He +built up man from those things which He created from nothingness into +something... Hence man is now a microcosm, or a little world, because +he is an extract from all the stars and planets of the whole firmament, +from the earth and the elements, and so he is their quintessence.... But +between the macrocosm and the microcosm this difference occurs, that the +form, image, species, and substance of man are diverse therefrom. In man +the earth is flesh, the water is blood, fire is the heat thereof, and +air is the balsam. These properties have not been changed but only the +substance of the body. So man is man, not a world, yet made from the +world, made in the likeness, not of the world, but of God. Yet man +comprises in himself all the qualities of the world.... His body is from +the world, and therefore must be fed and nourished by that world from +which he has sprung.... He has been taken from the earth and from the +elements, and therefore, must be nourished by these.... Now, man is not +only flesh and blood, but there is within the intellect which does not, +like the complexion, come from the elements, but from the stars. And +the condition of the stars is this, that all the wisdom, intelligence, +industry of the animal, and all the arts peculiar to man are contained +in them. From the stars man has these same things, and that is called +the light of Nature; in fact, it is whatever man has found by the light +of Nature.... Such, then, is the condition of man, that, out of the +great universe he needs both elements and stars, seeing that he himself +is constituted in that way."(1b) + + +(1) VALENTINE WEIGEL: "_Astrology Theologised": The Spiritual +Hermeneutics of Astrology and Holy Writ_, ed. by ANNA BONUS KINGSFORD +(1886), p. 59. + +(1b) _The Hermetic and Alchemical Writings of_ PARACELSUS, ed. by A. E. +WAITE (1894), vol. ii. pp. 289-291. + + + +It is not difficult to discern a certain truth in all this, making +allowances for modes of thought which are not those of the present day. +The Swedish philosopher SWEDENBORG (1688-1772) reaffirmed the theory +in later years; but, as he points out,(2) the reason that man is a +microcosm lies deeper than in the facts that his body is of the elements +of this earth and is nourished thereby. According to this profound +thinker, FORM, spiritually understood, is the expression of USE, the +uses of things being indicated by their forms. Now, the human form is +the highest of all forms, because it subserves the highest of all uses. +Hence, both the world of matter and the world of spirit are in the +human form, because there is a correspondence in use between man and +the Cosmos. We may, therefore, call man as to his body a microcosm, or +little world; as to his soul a micro-uranos, or little heaven. Or we may +speak of the macrocosm, or great world, as the Grand Man, and we may +say that the Soul of this Grand Man, the self-existent, substantial, and +efficient cause of all things, at once immanent within yet transcending +all things, is God. + +(2) See especially his _Divine Love and Wisdom_, SESE 251 and 319. + + + + +IV. SUPERSTITIONS CONCERNING BIRDS + +AMONGST the most remarkable of natural occurrences must be included +many of the phenomena connected with the behaviour of birds. Undoubtedly +numerous species of birds are susceptible to atmospheric changes (of +an electrical and barometric nature) too slight to be observed by man's +unaided senses; thus only is to be explained the phenomenon of migration +and also the many other peculiarities in the behaviour of birds whereby +approaching changes in the weather may be foretold. Probably, also, this +fact has much to do with the extraordinary homing instinct of pigeons. +But, of course, in the days when meteorological science had yet to be +born, no such explanation as this could be known. The ancients observed +that birds by their migrations or by other peculiarities in their +behaviour prognosticated coming changes in the seasons of the year and +other changes connected with the weather (such as storms, _etc_.); they +saw, too, in the homing instincts of pigeons an apparent exhibition of +intelligence exceeding that of man. What more natural, then, for them +to attribute foresight to birds, and to suppose that all sorts of coming +events (other than those of an atmospheric nature) might be foretold by +careful observation of their flight and song? + +Augury--that is, the art of divination by observing the behaviour of +birds--was extensively cultivated by the Etrurians and Romans.(1) It +is still used, I believe, by the natives of Samoa. The Romans had an +official college of augurs, the members of which were originally three +patricians. About 300 B.C. the number of patrician augurs was increased +by one, and five plebeian augurs were added. Later the number was again +increased to fifteen. The object of augury was not so much to foretell +the future as to indicate what line of action should be followed, in +any given circumstances, by the nation. The augurs were consulted on all +matters of importance, and the position of augur was thus one of great +consequence. In what appears to be the oldest method, the augur, arrayed +in a special costume, and carrying a staff with which to mark out the +visible heavens into houses, proceeded to an elevated piece of ground, +where a sacrifice was made and a prayer repeated. Then, gazing towards +the sky, he waited until a bird appeared. The point in the heavens where +it first made its appearance was carefully noted, also the manner and +direction of its flight, and the point where it was lost sight of. From +these particulars an augury was derived, but, in order to be of effect, +it had to be confirmed by a further one. + + +(1) This is not quite an accurate definition, as "auguries" were +also obtained from other animals and from celestial phenomena (_e.g_. +lightning), _etc_. + +Auguries were also drawn from the notes of birds, birds being divided by +the augurs into two classes: (i) _oscines_, "those which give omens by +their note," and (ii) _alites_, "those which afford presages by their +flight."(1) Another method of augury was performed by the feeding of +chickens specially kept for this purpose. This was done just before +sunrise by the _pullarius_ or feeder, strict silence being observed. If +the birds manifested no desire for their food, the omen was of a +most direful nature. On the other hand, if from the greediness of the +chickens the grain fell from their beaks and rebounded from the +ground, the augury was most favourable. This latter augury was known as +_tripudium solistimum_. "Any fraud practiced by the 'pullarius'," writes +the Rev. EDWARD SMEDLEY, "reverted to his own head. Of this we have a +memorable instance in the great battle between Papirius Cursor and the +Samnites in the year of Rome 459. So anxious were the troops for battle, +that the 'pullarius' dared to announce to the consul a 'tripudium +solistimum,' although the chickens refused to eat. Papirius +unhesitatingly gave the signal for fight, when his son, having +discovered the false augury, hastened to communicate it to his father. +'Do thy part well,' was his reply, 'and let the deceit of the augur fall +on himself. The "tripudium" has been announced to me, and no omen could +be better for the Roman army and people!' As the troops advanced, a +javelin thrown at random struck the 'pullatius' dead. 'The hand of +heaven is in the battle,' cried Papirius; 'the guilty is punished!' and +he advanced and conquered."(1b) A coincidence of this sort, if it really +occurred, would very greatly strengthen the popular belief in auguries. + + +(1) PLINY: _Natural History_, bk. x. chap. xxii. (BOSTOCK and RILEY'S +trans., vol. ii., 1855, p. 495). + +(1b) Rev. EDWARD SMEDLEY, M.A.: _The Occult Sciences_ (_Encyclopaedia +Metropolitana_), ed. by ELIHU RICH (1855), p. 144. + + +The _cock_ has always been reckoned a bird possessed of magic power. At +its crowing, we are told, all unquiet spirits who roam the earth +depart to their dismal abodes, and the orgies of the Witches' Sabbath +terminate. A cock is the favourite sacrifice offered to evil spirits +in Ceylon and elsewhere. Alectromancy(2) was an ancient and peculiarly +senseless method of divination (so called) in which a cock was employed. +The bird had to be young and quite white. Its feet were cut off and +crammed down its throat with a piece of parchment on which were written +certain Hebrew words. The cock, after the repetition of a prayer by the +operator, was placed in a circle divided into parts corresponding to the +letters of the alphabet, in each of which a grain of wheat was placed. +A certain psalm was recited, and then the letters were noted from which +the cock picked up the grains, a fresh grain being put down for each +one picked up. These letters, properly arranged, were said to give the +answer to the inquiry for which divination was made. I am not sure what +one was supposed to do if, as seems likely, the cock refused to act in +the required manner. + + +(2) Cf. ARTHUR EDWARD WAITE: _The Occult Sciences_ (1891), pp. 124 and +125. + + +The _owl_ was reckoned a bird of evil omen with the Romans, who derived +this opinion from the Etrurians, along with much else of their so-called +science of augury. It was particularly dreaded if seen in a city, or, +indeed, anywhere by day. PLINY (Caius Plinius Secundus, A.D. 61-before +115) informs us that on one occasion "a horned owl entered the very +sanctuary of the Capitol;... in consequence of which, Rome was purified +on the nones of March in that year."(1) + + +(1) PLINY: _Natural History_, bk. x. chap. xvi. (BOSTOCK and RILEY'S +trans., vol. ii., 1855, p. 492). + + +The folk-lore of the British Isles abounds with quaint beliefs and +stories concerning birds. There is a charming Welsh legend concerning +the _robin_, which the Rev. T. F. T. DYER quotes from _Notes and +Queries_:--"Far, far away, is a land of woe, darkness, spirits of evil, +and fire. Day by day does this little bird bear in his bill a drop of +water to quench the flame. So near the burning stream does he fly, +that his dear little feathers are SCORCHED; and hence he is named +Brou-rhuddyn (Breast-burnt). To serve little children, the robin +dares approach the infernal pit. No good child will hurt the devoted +benefactor of man. The robin returns from the land of fire, and +therefore he feels the cold of winter far more than his brother birds. +He shivers in the brumal blast; hungry, he chirps before your door."(2) + + +(2) T. F. THISELTON DYER, M.A.: _English Folk-Lore_ (1878), pp. 65 and +66. + + +Another legend accounts for the robin's red breast by supposing this +bird to have tried to pluck a thorn from the crown encircling the brow +of the crucified CHRIST, in order to alleviate His sufferings. No doubt +it is on account of these legends that it is considered a crime, which +will be punished with great misfortune, to kill a robin. In some places +the same prohibition extends to the _wren_, which is popularly believed +to be the wife of the robin. In other parts, however, the wren is (or +at least was) cruelly hunted on certain days. In the Isle of Man the +wren-hunt took place on Christmas Eve and St Stephen's Day, and is +accounted for by a legend concerning an evil fairy who lured many men to +destruction, but had to assume the form of a wren to escape punishment +at the hands of an ingenious knight-errant. + +For several centuries there was prevalent over the whole of civilised +Europe a most extraordinary superstition concerning the small Arctic +bird resembling, but not so large as, the common wild goose, known as +the _barnacle_ or _bernicle goose_. MAX MUELLER(1) has suggested that +this word was really derived from _Hibernicula_, the name thus referring +to Ireland, where the birds were caught; but common opinion associated +the barnacle goose with the shell-fish known as the barnacle (which +is found on timber exposed to the sea), supposing that the former was +generated out of the latter. Thus in one old medical writer we find: +"There are founde in the north parts of Scotland, and the Ilands +adjacent, called Orchades (Orkney Islands), certain trees, whereon +doe growe certaine shell fishes, of a white colour tending to russet; +wherein are conteined little liuing creatures: which shells in time of +maturitie doe open, and out of them grow those little living things; +which falling into the water, doe become foules, whom we call +Barnakles... but the other that do fall vpon the land, perish and come +to nothing: this much by the writings of others, and also from the +mouths of the people of those parts...."(1b) + + +(1) See F. MAX MUELLER'S _Lectures on the Science of Language_ (1885), +where a very full account of the tradition concerning the origin of the +barnacle goose will be found. + +(1b) JOHN GERARDE: _The Herball; or, Generall Historie of Plantes_ +(1597). 1391. + + +The writer, however, who was a well-known surgeon and botanist of +his day, adds that he had personally examined certain shell-fish from +Lancashire, and on opening the shells had observed within birds in +various stages of development. No doubt he was deceived by some purely +superficial resemblances--for example, the feet of the barnacle fish +resemble somewhat the feathers of a bird. He gives an imaginative +illustration of the barnacle fowl escaping from its shell, which is +reproduced in fig. 12. + +Turning now from superstitions concerning actual birds to legends of +those that are purely mythical, passing reference must be made to the +_roc_, a bird existing in Arabian legend, which we meet in the _Arabian +Nights_, and which is chiefly remarkable for its size and strength. + +The _phoenix_, perhaps, is of more interest. Of "that famous bird of +Arabia," PLINY writes as follows, prefixing his description of it with +the cautious remark, "I am not quite sure that its existence is not all +a fable." "It is said that there is only one in existence in the whole +world, and that that one has not been seen very often. We are told that +this bird is of the size of an eagle, and has a brilliant golden plumage +around the neck, while the rest of the body is of a purple colour; +except the tail, which is azure, with long feathers intermingled of a +roseate hue; the throat is adorned with a crest, and the head with a +tuft of feathers. The first Roman who described this bird... was the +senator Manilius.... He tells us that no person has ever seen this bird +eat, that in Arabia it is looked upon as sacred to the sun, that it +lives five hundred and forty years, that when it becomes old it builds a +nest of cassia and sprigs of incense, which it fills with perfumes, and +then lays its body down upon them to die; that from its bones and marrow +there springs at first a sort of small worm, which in time changes +into a little bird; that the first thing that it does is to perform the +obsequies of its predecessor, and to carry the nest entire to the city +of the Sun near Panchaia, and there deposit it upon the altar of that +divinity. + +"The same Manilius states also, that the revolution of the great year +is completed with the life of this bird, and that then a new cycle comes +round again with the same characteristics as the former one, in the +seasons and the appearance of the stars. ... This bird was brought to +Rome in the censorship of the Emperor Claudius... and was exposed to +public view.... This fact is attested by the public Annals, but there is +no one that doubts that it was a fictitious phoenix only."(1) + + +(1) PLINY: _Natural History_, bk. x. chap. ii. (BOSTOCK and RILEY'S +trans., vol. ii., 1855, PP. 479-481). + + +The description of the plumage, _etc_., of this bird applies fairly +well, as CUVIER has pointed out,(2) to the golden pheasant, and a +specimen of the latter may have been the "fictitious phoenix" +referred to above. That this bird should have been credited with the +extraordinary and wholly fabulous properties related by PLINY and others +is not, however, easy to understand. The phoenix was frequently used +to illustrate the doctrine of the immortality of the soul (_e.g_. in +CLEMENT'S _First Epistle to the Corinthians_), and it is not impossible +that originally it was nothing more than a symbol of immortality which +in time became to be believed in as a really existing bird. The fact, +however, that there was supposed to be only one phoenix, and also that +the length of each of its lives coincided with what the ancients +termed a "great year," may indicate that the phoenix was a symbol +of cosmological periodicity. On the other hand, some ancient writers +(e_.g_. TACITUS, A.D. 55-120) explicitly refer to the phoenix as a +symbol of the sun, and in the minds of the ancients the sun was closely +connected with the idea of immortality. Certainly the accounts of +the gorgeous colours of the plumage of the phoenix might well be +descriptions of the rising sun. It appears, moreover, that the Egyptian +hieroglyphic _benu_, {glyph}, which is a figure of a heron or crane (and +thus akin to the phoenix), was employed to designate the rising sun. + + +(2) See CUVIER'S _The Animal Kingdom_, GRIFFITH'S trans., vol. viii. +(1829), p. 23. + + +There are some curious Jewish legends to account for the supposed +immortality of the phoenix. According to one, it was the sole animal +that refused to eat of the forbidden tree when tempted by EVE. According +to another, its immortality was conferred on it by NOAH because of its +considerate behaviour in the Ark, the phoenix not clamouring for food +like the other animals.(1) + + +(1) The existence of such fables as these shows how grossly the real +meanings of the Sacred Writings have been misunderstood. + + +There is a celebrated bird in Chinese tradition, the _Fung Hwang_, which +some sinologues identify with the phoenix of the West.(2) According to +a commentator on the '_Rh Ya_, this "felicitous and perfect bird has a +cock's head, a snake's neck, a swallow's beak, a tortoise's back, is of +five different colours and more than six feet high." + + +(2) Mr CHAS. GOULD, B.A., to whose book _Mythical Monsters_ (1886) I am +very largely indebted for my account of this bird, and from which I have +culled extracts from the Chinese, is not of this opinion. Certainly the +fact that we read of Fung Hwangs in the plural, whilst tradition asserts +that there is only one phoenix, seems to point to a difference in +origin. + + +Another account (that in the _Lun Yu Tseh Shwai Shing_) tells us that +"its head resembles heaven, its eye the sun, its back the moon, +its wings the wind, its foot the ground, and its tail the woof." +Furthermore, "its mouth contains commands, its heart is conformable to +regulations, its ear is thoroughly acute in hearing, its tongue utters +sincerity, its colour is luminous, its comb resembles uprightness, its +spur is sharp and curved, its voice is sonorous, and its belly is the +treasure of literature." Like the dragon, tortoise, and unicorn, it was +considered to be a spiritual creature; but, unlike the Western phoenix, +more than one Fung Hwang was, as I have pointed out, believed to exist. +The birds were not always to be seen, but, according to Chinese records, +they made their appearance during the reigns of certain sovereigns. The +Fung Hwang is regarded by the Chinese as an omen of great happiness and +prosperity, and its likeness is embroidered on the robes of empresses +to ensure success. Probably, if the bird is not to be regarded as purely +mythological and symbolic in origin, we have in the stories of it no +more than exaggerated accounts of some species of pheasant. Japanese +literature contains similar stories. + +Of other fabulous bird-forms mention may be made of the _griffin_ and +the _harpy_. The former was a creature half eagle, half lion, popularly +supposed to be the progeny of the union of these two latter. It is +described in the so-called _Voiage and Travaile of Sir_ JOHN MAUNDEVILLE +in the following terms(1): "Sum men seyn, that thei ben the Body upward, +as an Egle, and benethe as a Lyoun: and treuly thei seyn sothe, that +thei ben of that schapp. But o Griffoun hathe the body more gret and +is more strong thanne 8 Lyouns, of suche Lyouns as ben o this half; and +more gret and strongere, than an 100 Egles, suche as we ben amonges us. +For o Griffoun there will bere, fleynge to his Nest, a gret Hors, or +2 Oxen zoked to gidere, as thei gon at the Plowghe. For he hathe his +Talouns so longe and so large and grete, upon his Feet, as thoughe thei +weren Hornes of grete Oxen or of Bugles or of Kyzn; so that men maken +Cuppes of hem, to drynken of: and of hire Ribbes and of the Pennes of +hire Wenges, men maken Bowes fulle strong, to schote with Arwes +and Quarelle." The special characteristic of the griffin was its +watchfulness, its chief function being thought to be that of guarding +secret treasure. This characteristic, no doubt, accounts for its +frequent use in heraldry as a supporter to the arms. It was sacred to +APOLLO, the sun-god, whose chariot was, according to early sculptures, +drawn by griffins. PLINY, who speaks of it as a bird having long ears +and a hooked beak, regarded it as fabulous. + + +(1) _The Voiage and Travaile of Sir_ JOHN MAUNDEVILLE, _Kt. Which +treateth of the Way to Hierusalem; and of Marvayles of Inde, with other +Ilands and Countryes. Now Publish'd entire from an Original MS. in The +Cotton Library_ (London, 1727), cap. xxvi. pp. 325 and 326. + +"This work is mainly a compilation from the writings of William of +Boldensele, Friar Odoric of Pordenone, Hetoum of Armenia, Vincent de +Beauvais, and other geographers. It is probable that the name John de +Mandeville should be regarded as a pseudonym concealing the identity +of Jean de Bourgogne, a physician at Liege, mentioned under the name of +Joannes ad Barbam in the vulgate Latin version of the Travels." (Note in +British Museum Catalogue). The work, which was first published in French +during the latter part of the fourteenth century, achieved an immense +popularity, the marvels that it relates being readily received by the +credulous folk of that and many a succeeding day. + + +The harpies (_i.e_. snatchers) in Greek mythology are creatures like +vultures as to their bodies, but with the faces of women, and armed with +sharp claws. + +"Of Monsters all, most Monstrous this; no greater Wrath God sends +'mongst Men; it comes from depth of pitchy Hell: And Virgin's Face, but +Womb like Gulf unsatiate hath, Her Hands are griping Claws, her Colour +pale and fell."(1) + + +(1) Quoted from VERGIL by JOHN GUILLIM in his _A Display of Heraldry_ +(sixth edition, 1724), p. 271. + + +We meet with the harpies in the story of PHINEUS, a son of AGENOR, +King of Thrace. At the bidding of his jealous wife, IDAEA, daughter of +DARDANUS, PHINEUS put out the sight of his children by his former wife, +CLEOPATRA, daughter of BOREAS. To punish this cruelty, the gods caused +him to become blind, and the harpies were sent continually to harass +and affright him, and to snatch away his food or defile it by their +presence. They were afterwards driven away by his brothers-in-law, +ZETES and CALAIS. It has been suggested that originally the harpies were +nothing more than personifications of the swift storm-winds; and few +of the old naturalists, credulous as they were, regarded them as real +creatures, though this cannot be said of all. Some other fabulous +bird-forms are to be met with in Greek and Arabian mythologies, _etc_., +but they are not of any particular interest. And it is time for us to +conclude our present excursion, and to seek for other byways. + + + + +V. THE POWDER OF SYMPATHY: A CURIOUS MEDICAL SUPERSTITION + +OUT of the superstitions of the past the science of the present has +gradually evolved. In the Middle Ages, what by courtesy we may term +medical science was, as we have seen, little better than a heterogeneous +collection of superstitions, and although various reforms were +instituted with the passing of time, superstition still continued for +long to play a prominent part in medical practice. + +One of the most curious of these old medical (or perhaps I should say +surgical) superstitions was that relating to the Powder of Sympathy, a +remedy (?) chiefly remembered in connection with the name of Sir KENELM +DIGBY (1603-1665), though he was probably not the first to employ it. +The Powder itself, which was used as a cure for wounds, was, in fact, +nothing else than common vitriol,(1) though an improved and more elegant +form (if one may so describe it) was composed of vitriol desiccated by +the sun's rays, mixed with _gum tragacanth_. It was in the application +of the Powder that the remedy was peculiar. It was not, as one might +expect, applied to the wound itself, but any article that might have +blood from the wound upon it was either sprinkled with the Powder or +else placed in a basin of water in which the Powder had been dissolved, +and maintained at a temperate heat. Meanwhile, the wound was kept clean +and cool. + + +(1) Green vitriol, ferrous sulphate heptahydrate, a compound of iron, +sulphur, and oxygen, crystallised with seven molecules of water, +represented by the formula FeSO4<.>7H2O. On exposure to the air it loses +water, and is gradually converted into basic ferric sulphate. For long, +green vitriol was confused with blue vitriol, which generally occurs +as an impurity in crude green vitriol. Blue vitriol is copper sulphate +pentahydrate, CuSO4<.>5H2O. + + +Sir KENELM DIGBY appears to have delivered a discourse dealing with the +famous Powder before a learned assembly at Montpellier in France; at +least a work purporting to be a translation of such a discourse was +published in 1658,(1) and further editions appeared in 1660 and 1664. +KENELM was a son of the Sir EVERARD DIGBY (1578-1606) who was executed +for his share in the Gunpowder Plot. In spite of this fact, however, +JAMES I. appears to have regarded him with favour. He was a man of +romantic temperament, possessed of charming manners, considerable +learning, and even greater credulity. His contemporaries seem to have +differed in their opinions concerning him. EVELYN (1620-1706), the +diarist, after inspecting his chemical laboratory, rather harshly speaks +of him as "an errant mountebank". Elsewhere he well refers to him as "a +teller of strange things"--this was on the occasion of DIGBY'S relating +a story of a lady who had such an aversion to roses that one laid on her +cheek produced a blister! + +(1) _A late Discourse... by Sir_ KENELM DIGBY, _Kt.&c. Touching the Cure +of Wounds by the Powder of Sympathy...rendered... out of French into +English by_ R. WHITE, Gent. (1658). This is entitled the second edition, +but appears to have been the first. + + +To return to the _Late Discourse_: after some preliminary remarks, Sir +KENELM records a cure which he claims to have effected by means of +the Powder. It appears that JAMES HOWELL (1594-1666, afterwards +historiographer royal to CHARLES II.), had, in the attempt to separate +two friends engaged in a duel, received two serious wounds in the hand. +To proceed in the writer's own words:--"It was my chance to be lodged +hard by him; and four or five days after, as I was making myself ready, +he (Mr Howell) came to my House, and prayed me to view his wounds; for +I understand, said he, that you have extraordinary remedies upon such +occasions, and my Surgeons apprehend some fear, that it may grow to a +Gangrene, and so the hand must be cut off.... + +"I asked him then for any thing that had the blood upon it, so he +presently sent for his Garter, wherewith his hand was first bound: and +having called for a Bason of water, as if I would wash my hands; I took +an handfull of Powder of Vitrol, which I had in my study, and presently +dissolved it. As soon as the bloody garter was brought me, I put it +within the Bason, observing in the interim what Mr _Howel_ did, +who stood talking with a Gentleman in the corner of my Chamber, not +regarding at all what I was doing: but he started suddenly, as if he had +found some strange alteration in himself; I asked him what he ailed? I +know not what ailes me, but I find that I feel no more pain, methinks +that a pleasing kind of freshnesse, as it were a wet cold Napkin +did spread over my hand, which hath taken away the inflammation that +tormented me before; I replied, since that you feel already so good an +effect of my medicament, I advise you to cast away all your Plaisters, +onely keep the wound clean, and in a moderate temper 'twixt heat and +cold. This was presently reported to the Duke of _Buckingham_, and a +little after to the King (James I.), who were both very curious to know +the issue of the businesse, which was, that after dinner I took the +garter out of the water, and put it to dry before a great fire; it was +scarce dry, but Mr _Howels_ servant came running (and told me), that his +Master felt as much burning as ever he had done, if not more, for the +heat was such, as if his hand were betwixt coales of fire: I answered, +that although that had happened at present, yet he should find ease in +a short time; for I knew the reason of this new accident, and I +would provide accordingly, for his Master should be free from that +inflammation, it may be, before he could possibly return unto him: but +in case he found no ease, I wished him to come presently back again, if +not he might forbear coming. Thereupon he went, and at the instant I +did put again the garter into the water; thereupon he found his Master +without any pain at all. To be brief, there was no sense of pain +afterward: but within five or six dayes the wounds were cicatrized, and +entirely healed."(1) + + +(1) _Ibid_., pp. 7-11. + + +Sir KENELM proceeds, in this discourse, to relate that he obtained the +secret of the Powder from a Carmelite who had learnt it in the East. +Sir KENELM says that he told it only to King JAMES and his celebrated +physician, Sir THEODORE MAYERNE (1573-1655). The latter disclosed it to +the Duke of MAYERNE, whose surgeon sold the secret to various persons, +until ultimately, as Sir KENELM remarks, it became known to every +country barber. However, DIGBY'S real connection with the Powder has +been questioned. In an Appendix to Dr NATHANAEL HIGHMORE'S (1613-1685) +_The History of Generation_, published in 1651, entitled _A Discourse +of the Cure of Wounds by Sympathy_, the Powder is referred to as Sir +GILBERT TALBOT'S Powder; nor does it appear to have been DIGBY who +brought the claims of the Sympathetic Powder before the notice of +the then recently-formed Royal Society, although he was a by no means +inactive member of the Society. HIGHMORE, however, in the Appendix +to the work referred to above, does refer to DIGBY'S reputed cure of +HOWELL'S wounds already mentioned; and after the publication of DIGBY'S +_Discourse_ the Powder became generally known as Sir KENELM DIGBY'S +Sympathetic Powder. As such it is referred to in an advertisement +appended to _Wit and Drollery_ (1661) by the bookseller, NATHANAEL +BROOK.(1) + + +(1) This advertisement is as follows: "These are to give notice, that +Sir _Kenelme Digbies_ Sympathetical Powder prepar'd by Promethean fire, +curing all green wounds that come within the compass of a Remedy; and +likewise the Tooth-ache infallibly in a very short time: Is to be had at +Mr _Nathanael Brook's_ at the Angel in _Cornhil_." + +The belief in cure by sympathy, however, is much older than DIGBY'S or +TALBOT'S Sympathetic Powder. PARACELSUS described an ointment consisting +essentially of the moss on the skull of a man who had died a violent +death, combined with boar's and bear's fat, burnt worms, dried boar's +brain, red sandal-wood and mummy, which was used to cure (?) wounds in a +similar manner, being applied to the weapon with which the hurt had been +inflicted. With reference to this ointment, readers will probably recall +the passage in SCOTT'S _Lay of the Last Minstrel_ (canto 3, stanza 23), +respecting the magical cure of WILLIAM of DELORAINE'S wound by "the +Ladye of Branksome":-- + + "She drew the splinter from the wound + And with a charm she stanch'd the blood; + She bade the gash be cleans'd and bound: + No longer by his couch she stood; + But she had ta'en the broken lance, + And washed it from the clotted gore + And salved the splinter o'er and o'er. + William of Deloraine, in trance, + Whene'er she turned it round and round, + Twisted as if she gall'd his wound. + Then to her maidens she did say + That he should be whole man and sound + Within the course of a night and day. + Full long she toil'd; for she did rue + Mishap to friend so stout and true." + + +FRANCIS BACON (1561-1626) writes of sympathetic cures as follows:--"It +is constantly Received, and Avouched, that the _Anointing_ of the +_Weapon_, that maketh the _Wound_, wil heale the _Wound_ it selfe. In +this _Experiment_, upon the Relation of _Men of Credit_, (though my +selfe, as yet, am not fully inclined to beleeve it,) you shal note +the _Points_ following; First, the _Ointment_... is made of Divers +_ingredients_; whereof the Strangest and Hardest to come by, are the +Mosse upon the _Skull_ of a _dead Man, Vnburied_; And the _Fats_ of a +_Boare_, and a _Beare_, killed in the _Act of Generation_. These Two +last I could easily suspect to be prescribed as a Starting Hole; That if +the _Experiment_ proved not, it mought be pretended, that the _Beasts_ +were not killed in due Time; For as for the _Mosse_, it is certain +there is great Quantity of it in _Ireland_, upon _Slain Bodies_, laid +on _Heaps, Vnburied_. The other _Ingredients_ are, the _Bloud-Stone_ +in _Powder_, and some other _Things_, which seeme to have a _Vertue_ to +_Stanch Bloud_; As also the _Mosse_ hath.... Secondly, the same _kind_ +of _Ointment_, applied to the Hurt it selfe, worketh not the _Effect_; +but onely applied to the _Weapon_..... Fourthly, it may be applied to +the _Weapon_, though the Party Hurt be at a great Distance. Fifthly, it +seemeth the _Imagination_ of the Party, to be _Cured_, is not needfull +to Concurre; For it may be done without the knowledge of the _Party +Wounded_; And thus much hath been tried, that the _Ointment_ (for +_Experiments_ sake,) hath been wiped off the _Weapon_, without the +knowledge of the _Party Hurt_, and presently the _Party Hurt_, hath been +in great _Rage of Paine_, till the _Weapon_ was _Reannointed_. Sixthly, +it is affirmed, that if you cannot get the _Weapon_, yet if you put an +_Instrument_ of _Iron_, or _Wood_, resembling the _Weapon_, into the +_Wound_, whereby it bleedeth, the _Annointing_ of that _Instrument_ will +serve, and work the _Effect_. This I doubt should be a Device, to keep +this strange _Forme of Cure_, in Request, and Use; Because many times +you cannot come by the _Weapon_ it selve. Seventhly, the _Wound_ be at +first _Washed clean_ with _White Wine_ or the _Parties_ own _Water_; And +then bound up close in _Fine Linen_ and no more _Dressing_ renewed, till +it be _whole_."(1) + + +(1) FRANCIS BACON: _Sylva Sylvarum: or, A Natural History... Published +after the Authors death... The sixt Edition_ u.. (1651), p. 217. + + +Owing to the demand for making this ointment, quite a considerable trade +was done in skulls from Ireland upon which moss had grown owing to +their exposure to the atmosphere, high prices being obtained for fine +specimens. + +The idea underlying the belief in the efficacy of sympathetic remedies, +namely, that by acting on part of a thing or on a symbol of it, one +thereby acts magically on the whole or the thing symbolised, is the +root-idea of all magic, and is of extreme antiquity. DIGBY and others, +however, tried to give a natural explanation to the supposed efficacy +of the Powder. They argued that particles of the blood would ascend from +the bloody cloth or weapon, only coming to rest when they had reached +their natural home in the wound from which they had originally issued. +These particles would carry with them the more volatile part of the +vitriol, which would effect a cure more readily than when combined with +the grosser part of the vitriol. In the days when there was hardly any +knowledge of chemistry and physics, this theory no doubt bore every +semblance of truth. In passing, however, it is interesting to note +that DIGBY'S _Discourse_ called forth a reply from J. F. HELVETIUS +(or SCHWETTZER, 1625-1709), physician to the Prince of Orange, who +afterwards became celebrated as an alchemist who had achieved the magnum +opus.(1) + + +(1) See my _Alchemy: Ancient and Modern_ (1911), SESE 63-67. + + +Writing of the Sympathetic Powder, Professor DE MORGAN wittily argues +that it must have been quite efficacious. He says: "The directions were +to keep the wound clean and cool, and to take care of diet, rubbing the +salve on the knife or sword. If we remember the dreadful notions upon +drugs which prevailed, both as to quantity and quality, we shall readily +see that any way of NOT dressing the wound would have been useful. If +the physicians had taken the hint, had been careful of diet, _etc_., +and had poured the little barrels of medicine down the throat of a +practicable doll, THEY would have had their magical cures as well as the +surgeons."(2) As Dr PETTIGREW has pointed out,(3) Nature exhibits very +remarkable powers in effecting the healing of wounds by adhesion, when +her processes are not impeded. In fact, many cases have been recorded in +which noses, ears, and fingers severed from the body have been rejoined +thereto, merely by washing the parts, placing them in close continuity, +and allowing the natural powers of the body to effect the healing. +Moreover, in spite of BACON'S remarks on this point, the effect of +the imagination of the patient, who was usually not ignorant that a +sympathetic cure was to be attempted, must be taken into account; for, +without going to the excesses of "Christian Science" in this respect, +the fact must be recognised that the state of the mind exercises a +powerful effect on the natural forces of the body, and a firm faith is +undoubtedly helpful in effecting the cure of any sort of ill. + + +(2) Professor AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN: _A Budget of Paradoxes_ (1872), p 66. + +(3) THOMAS JOSEPH PETTIGREW, F.R.S.: _On Superstitions connected with +the History and Practice of Medicine and Surgery_ (1844), pp. 164-167. + + + + +VI. THE BELIEF IN TALISMANS + +THE word "talisman" is derived from the Arabic "tilsam," "a magical +image," through the plural form "tilsamen." This Arabic word is itself +probably derived from the Greek telesma in its late meaning of "a +religious mystery" or "consecrated object". The term is often employed +to designate amulets in general, but, correctly speaking, it has a more +restricted and special significance. A talisman may be defined briefly +as an astrological or other symbol expressive of the influence and power +of one of the planets, engraved on a sympathetic stone or metal (or +inscribed on specially prepared parchment) under the auspices of this +planet. + +Before proceeding to an account of the preparation of talismans proper, +it will not be out of place to notice some of the more interesting and +curious of other amulets. All sorts of substances have been employed +as charms, sometimes of a very unpleasant nature, such as dried toads. +Generally, however, amulets consist of stones, herbs, or passages from +Sacred Writings written on paper. This latter class are sometimes +called "characts," as an example of which may be mentioned the Jewish +phylacteries. + +Every precious stone was supposed to exercise its own peculiar virtue; +for instance, amber was regarded as a good remedy for throat troubles, +and agate was thought to preserve from snake-bites. ELIHU RICH(1) gives +a very full list of stones and their supposed virtues. Each sign of the +zodiac was supposed to have its own particular stone(2) (as shown in the +annexed table), and hence the superstitious though not inartistic custom +of wearing one's birth- + + Month (com- + Astrological mencing 21st + Sign of the Zodiac. of preceding + Symbol. month). Stone. + + + Aries, the Ram . {} April Sardonyx. + Taurus the Bull . {} May Cornelian. + Gemini the Twins . {} June Topaz. + Cancer, the Crab . {} July Chalcedony. + Leo, the Lion . . {} August Jasper. + Virgo, the Virgin . {} September Emerald. + Libra, the Balance . {} October Beryl. + Scorpio, the Scorpion {} November Amethyst. + Sagittarius, the Archer {} December Hyacinth (=Sapphire). + Capricorn, the Goat . {} January Chrysoprase. + Aquarius, the Water- {} February Crystal. + bearer + Pisces, the Fishes . {} March Sapphire.(=Lapis lazuli). + + +stone for "luck". The belief in the occult powers of certain stones +is by no means non-existent at the present day; for even in these +enlightened times there are not wanting those who fear the beautiful +opal, and put their faith in the virtues of New Zealand green-stone. + + +(1) ELIHU RICH: _The Occult Sciences (Encyclopaedia Metropolitana_, +1855), pp. 348 _et seq_. + +(2) With regard to these stones, however, there is much confusion and +difference of opinion. The arrangement adopted in the table here +given is that of CORNELIUS AGRIPPA (_Occult Philosophy_, bk. ii.). A +comparatively recent work, esteemed by modern occultists, namely, _The +Light of Egypt, or the Science of the Soul and the Stars_ (1889), gives +the following scheme:-- + +{}=Amethyst. {}=Emerald. {}=Diamond. {}=Onyx (Chalcedony). + +{}=Agate. {}=Ruby. {}=Topaz. {}=Sapphire (skyblue). + +{}=Beryl. {}=Jasper. {}=Carbuncle. {}=Chrysolite. + + +Common superstitious opinion regarding birth-stones, as reflected, for +example, in the "lucky birth charms" exhibited in the windows of the +jewellers' shops, considerably diverges in this matter from the views of +both these authorities. The usual scheme is as follows:-- + + Jan.=Garnet. May =Emerald. Sept.=Sapphire, + Feb.=Amethyst. June=Agate. Oct. =Opal. + Mar.=Bloodstone. July=Ruby. Nov. =Topaz. + Apr.=Diamond. Aug.=Sardonyx. Dec. =Turquoise. + + +The bloodstone is frequently assigned either to Aries or Scorpio, owing +to its symbolical connection with Mars; and the opal to Cancer, which in +astrology is the constellation of the moon. + +Confusion is rendered still worse by the fact that the ancients whilst +in some cases using the same names as ourselves, applied them to +different stones; thus their "hyacinth" is our "sapphire," whilst their +"sapphire" is our "lapis lazuli". + + +Certain herbs, culled at favourable conjunctions of the planets and worn +as amulets, were held to be very efficacious against various diseases. +Precious stones and metals were also taken internally for the same +purpose--"remedies" which in certain cases must have proved exceedingly +harmful. One theory put forward for the supposed medical value of +amulets was the Doctrine of Effluvia. This theory supposes the amulets +to give off vapours or effluvia which penetrate into the body and effect +a cure. It is, of course, true that certain herbs, _etc_., might, under +the heat of the body, give off such effluvia, but the theory on the +whole is manifestly absurd. The Doctrine of Signatures, which we have +already encountered in our excursions,(1) may also be mentioned in this +connection as a complementary and equally untenable hypothesis. + +According to ELIHU RICH,(2) the following were the commonest Egyptian +amulets:-- + + +1. Those inscribed with the figure of _Serapis_, used to preserve +against evils inflicted by earth. + +2. Figure of _Canopus_, against evil by water. + +3. Figure of a _hawk_, against evil from the air. + +4. Figure of an _asp_, against evil by fire. + + +PARACELSUS believed there to be much occult virtue in an alloy of +the seven chief metals, which he called _Electrum_. Certain definite +proportions of these metals had to be taken, and each was to be added +during a favourable conjunction of the planets. From this electrum he +supposed that valuable amulets and magic mirrors could be prepared. + + +(1) See "Medicine and Magic." (2) _Op. Cit_., p. 343 + + +A curious and ancient amulet for the cure of various diseases, +particularly the ague, was a triangle formed of the letters of the word +"Abracadabra." The usual form was that shown in fig. 19, and that shown +in fig. 20 was also known. The origin of this magical word is lost in +obscurity. + +The belief in the horn as a powerful amulet, especially prevalent in +Italy, where is it the custom of the common people to make the sign of +the _mano cornuto_ to avoid the consequence of the dreaded _jettatore_ +or evil eye, can be traced to the fact that the horn was the symbol +of the Goddess of the Moon. Probably the belief in the powers of the +horse-shoe had a similar origin. Indeed, it seems likely that not only +this, but most other amulets, like talismans proper--as will appear +below,--were originally designed as appeals to gods and other powerful +spiritual beings. + + + \ ABRACADABRA / \ ABRACADABRA | + \ ABRACADABR / \ BRACADABRA | + \ ABRACADAB / \ RACADABRA | + \ ABRACADA / \ ACADABRA | + \ ABRACAD / \ CADABRA | + \ ABRACA / \ ADABRA | + \ ABRAC / \ DABRA | + \ ABRA / \ ABRA | + \ ABR / \ BRA | + \ AB / \ RA | + \ A/ \ A | + \/ \ | + + +(1) See FREDERICK T. ELWORTHY'S _Horns of Honour_ (1900), especially pp. +56 _et seq_. + +To turn our attention, however, to the art of preparing talismans +proper: I may remark at the outset that it was necessary for the +talisman to be prepared by one's own self--a task by no means easy as +a rule. Indeed, the right mental attitude of the occultist was insisted +upon as essential to the operation. + +As to the various signs to be engraver on the talismans, various +authorities differ, though there are certain points connected with the +art of talismanic magic on which they all agree. It so happened that the +ancients were acquainted with seven metals and seven planets (including +the sun and moon as planets), and the days of the week are also seven. +It was concluded, therefore, that there was some occult connection +between the planets, metals, and days of the week. Each of the seven +days of the week was supposed to be under the auspices of the spirits of +one of the planets; so also was the generation in the womb of Nature of +each of the seven chief metals. + +In the following table are shown these particulars in detail:-- + + + Planet. Symbol. Day of Metal. Colour. + + Sun. {} Sunday Gold Gold or yellow. + Moon. {} Monday Silver Silver or white. + Mars. {} Tuesday Iron Red. + Mercury {} Wednesday (1)Mercury Mixed colours or purple. + Jupiter {} Thursday Tin Violet or blue. + Venus {} Friday Copper Turquoise or green. + Saturn. {} Saturday Lead Black. + +(1) Used in the form of a solid amalgam for talismans. + +Consequently, the metal of which a talisman was to be made, and also the +time of its preparation, had to be chosen with due regard to the planet +under which it was to be prepared.(1) The power of such a talisman was +thought to be due to the genie of this planet--a talisman, was, in fact, +a silent evocation of an astral spirit. Examples of the belief that a +genie can be bound up in an amulet in some way are afforded by the story +of ALADDIN'S lamp and ring and other stories in the _Thousand and +One Nights_. Sometimes the talismanic signs were engraved on precious +stones, sometimes they were inscribed on parchment; in both cases the +same principle held good, the nature of the stone chosen, or the colour +of the ink employed, being that in correspondence with the planet under +whose auspices the talisman was prepared. + + +(1) In this connection a rather surprising discovery made by Mr W. +GORNOLD (see his _A Manual of Occultism_, 1911, pp. 7 and 8) must be +mentioned. The ancient Chaldeans appear invariably to have enumerated +the planets in the following order: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, +Mercury, Moon--which order was adopted by the mediaeval astrologers. +Let us commence with the Sun in the above sequence, and write down every +third planet; we then have-- Sun . . . . Sunday. + Moon. . . . Monday. + Mars. . . . Tuesday. + Mercury. . . . Wednesday. + Jupiter.. . . Thursday. + Venus. . . . Friday. + Saturn. . . . Saturday. + +That is to say, we have the planets in the order in which they were +supposed to rule over the days of the week. This is perhaps, not so +surprising, because it seems probable that, each day being first divided +into twenty-four hours, it was assumed that the planets ruled for one +hour in turn, in the order first mentioned above. Each day was then +named after the planet which ruled during its first hour. It will be +found that if we start with the Sun and write down every twenty-fourth +planet, the result is exactly the same as if we write down every third. +But Mr OLD points out further, doing so by means of a diagram which +seems to be rather cumbersome that if we start with Saturn in the first +place, and write down every fifth planet, and then for each planet +substitute the metal over which it was supposed to rule, we then have +these metals arranged in descending order of atomic weights, thus:-- + + Saturn . . . Lead (=207). + Mercury . . . Mercury (=200). + Sun. . . . Gold (=197). + Jupiter . . . Tin (=119). + Moon. . . . Silver (=108). + Venus . . Copper (=64). + Mars. . . . Iron (=56). + + +Similarly we can, starting from any one of these orders, pass to the +other two. The fact is a very surprising one, because the ancients could +not possibly have been acquainted with the atomic weights of the metals, +and, it is important to note, the order of the densities of these +metals, which might possibly have been known to them, is by no means the +same as the order of their atomic weights. Whether the fact indicates a +real relationship between the planets and the metals, or whether there +is some other explanation, I am not prepared to say. Certainly some +explanation is needed: to say that the fact is mere coincidence is +unsatisfactory, seeing that the odds against, not merely this, but any +such regularity occurring by chance--as calculated by the mathematical +theory of probability--are 119 to 1. + + +All the instruments employed in the art had to be specially prepared and +consecrated. Special robes had to be worn, perfumes and incense burnt, +and invocations, conjurations, _etc_., recited, all of which depended +on the planet ruling the operation. A description of a few typical +talismans in detail will not here be out of place. + +In _The Key of Solomon the King_ (translated by S. L. M. MATHERS, +1889)(1) are described five, six, or seven talismans for each planet. +Each of these was supposed to have its own peculiar virtues, and many of +them are stated to be of use in the evocation of spirits. The majority +of them consist of a central design encircled by a verse of Hebrew +Scripture. The central designs are of a varied character, generally +geometrical figures and Hebrew letters or words, or magical characters. +Five of these talismans are here portrayed, the first three described +differing from the above. The translations of the Hebrew verses, _etc_., +given below are due to Mr MATHERS. + + +(1) The _Clavicula Salomonis_, or _Key of Solomon the King_, consists +mainly of an elaborate ritual for the evocation of the various planetary +spirits, in which process the use of talismans or pentacles plays a +prominent part. It is claimed to be a work of white magic, but, inasmuch +as it, like other old books making the same claim, gives descriptions +of a pentacle for causing ruin, destruction, and death, and another for +causing earthquakes--to give only two examples,--the distinction between +black and white magic, which we shall no doubt encounter again in later +excursions, appears to be somewhat arbitrary. + +Regarding the authorship of the work, Mr MATHERS, translator and editor +of the first printed copy of the book, says, "I see no reason to +doubt the tradition which assigns the authorship of the 'Key' to King +Solomon." If this view be accepted, however, it is abundantly evident +that the _Key_ as it stands at present (in which we find S. JOHN +quoted, and mention made of SS. PETER and PAUL) must have received some +considerable alterations and additions at the hands of later editors. +But even if we are compelled to assign the _Clavicula Salomonis_ in its +present form to the fourteenth or fifteenth century, we must, I think, +allow that it was based upon traditions of the past, and, of course, +the possibility remains that it might have been based upon some earlier +work. With regard to the antiquity of the planetary sigils, Mr MATHERS +notes "that, among the Gnostic talismans in the British Museum, there is +a ring of copper with the sigils of Venus, which are exactly the same as +those given by mediaeval writers on magic." + +In spite of the absurdity of its claims, viewed in the light of modern +knowledge, the _Clavicula Salomonis_ exercised a considerable influence +in the past, and is to be regarded as one of the chief sources of +mediaeval ceremonial magic. Historically speaking, therefore, it is a +book of no little importance. + + +_The First Pentacle of the Sun_.--"The Countenance of Shaddai the +Almighty, at Whose aspect all creatures obey, and the Angelic Spirits +do reverence on bended knees." About the face is the name "El Shaddai". +Around is written in Latin: "Behold His face and form by Whom all things +were made, and Whom all creatures obey" (see fig. 21). + + +_The Fifth Pentacle of Mars_.--"Write thou this Pentacle upon virgin +parchment or paper because it is terrible unto the Demons, and at +its sight and aspect they will obey thee, for they cannot resist its +presence." The design is a Scorpion,(1) around which the word Hvl is +repeated. The Hebrew versicle is from _Psalm_ xci. 13: "Thou shalt go +upon the lion and adder, the young lion and the dragon shalt thou tread +under thy feet" (see fig. 22). + + +(1) In astrology the zodiacal sign of the scorpion is the "night house" +of the planet Mars. + + +_The Third Pentacle of the Moon_.--"This being duly borne with thee when +upon a journey, if it be properly made, serveth against all attacks by +night, and against every kind of danger and peril by Water." The design +consists of a hand and sleeved forearm (this occurs on three other +moon talismans), together with the Hebrew names Aub and Vevaphel. The +versicle is from _Psalm_ xl. 13: "Be pleased O IHVH to deliver me, O +IHVH make haste to help me" (see fig 23) + +_The Third Pentacle of Venus_.--"This, if it be only shown unto any +person, serveth to attract love. Its Angel Monachiel should be invoked +in the day and hour of Venus, at one o'clock or at eight." The design +consists of two triangles joined at their apices, with the following +names--IHVH, Adonai, Ruach, Achides, AEgalmiel, Monachiel, and Degaliel. +The versicle is from _Genesis_ i. 28: "And the Elohim blessed them, and +the Elohim said unto them, Be ye fruitful, and multiply, and replenish +the earth, and subdue it" (see fig. 24). + +_The Third Pentacle of Mercury_.--"This serves to invoke the Spirits +subject unto Mercury; and especially those who are written in this +Pentacle." The design consists of crossed lines and magical characters +of Mercury. Around are the names of the angels, Kokaviel, Ghedoriah, +Savaniah, and Chokmahiel (see fig. 25). + + +CORNELIUS AGRIPPA, in his _Three Books of Occult Philosophy_, describes +another interesting system of talismans. FRANCIS BARRETT'S _Magus, or +Celestial Intelligencer_, a well-known occult work published in the +first year of the nineteenth century, I may mention, copies AGRIPPA'S +system of talismans, without acknowledgment, almost word for word. To +each of the planets is assigned a magic square or table, _i.e_. a square +composed of numbers so arranged that the sum of each row or column is +always the same. For example, the table for Mars is as follows:-- + + 11 24 7 20 3 + 4 12 25 8 16 + 17 5 13 21 9 + 10 18 1 14 22 + 23 6 19 2 15 + + +It will be noticed that every number from 1 up to the highest possible +occurs once, and that no number occurs twice. It will also be seen that +the sum of each row and of each column is always 65. Similar squares +can be constructed containing any square number of figures, and it is, +indeed, by no means surprising that the remarkable properties of such +"magic squares," before these were explained mathematically, gave rise +to the belief that they had some occult significance and virtue. From +the magic squares can be obtained certain numbers which are said to be +the numbers of the planets; their orderliness, we are told, reflects +the order of the heavens, and from a consideration of them the magical +properties of the planets which they represent can be arrived at. For +example, in the above table the number of rows of numbers is 5. The +total number of numbers in the table is the square of this number, +namely, 25, which is also the greatest number in the table. The sum of +any row or column is 65. And, finally, the sum of all the numbers is +the product of the number of rows (namely, 5) and the sum of any row +(namely, 65), _i.e_. 325. These numbers, namely, 5, 25, 65, and 325, are +the numbers of Mars. Sets of numbers for the other planets are obtained +in exactly the same manner.(1) + + +(1) Readers acquainted with mathematics will notice that if _n_ is the +number of rows in such a "magic square," the other numbers derived as +above will be n<2S>, 1/2_n_(_n_<2S> + 1), and 1/2_n_<2S>(_n_<2S> + 1). +This can readily be proved by the laws of arithmetical progressions. +Rather similar but more complicated and less uniform "magic squares" are +attributed to PARACELSUS. + + +Now to each planet is assigned an Intelligence or good spirit, and an +Evil Spirit or demon; and the names of these spirits are related to +certain of the numbers of the planets. The other numbers are also +connected with holy and magical Hebrew names. AGRIPPA, and BARRETT +copying him, gives the following table of "names answering to the +numbers of Mars":-- + + 5. He, the letter of the holy name. <hb > + 25. <hb ___> + 65. Adonai. <hb ____> + 325. Graphiel, the Intelligence of Mars. <hb _______> + 325. Barzabel, the Spirit of Mars. <hb _______> + +Similar tables are given for the other planets. The numbers can be +derived from the names by regarding the Hebrew letters of which they +are composed as numbers, in which case <hb > (Aleph) to <hb > (Teth) +represent the units 1 to 9 in order, <hb > (Jod) to <hb > (Tzade) the +tens 10 to 90 in order, <hb > (Koph) to <hb > (Tau) the hundreds 100 to +400, whilst the hundreds 500 to 900 are represented by special terminal +forms of certain of the Hebrew letters.(2) It is evident that no little +wasted ingenuity must have been employed in working all this out. + + +(2) It may be noticed that this makes <hb _______> equal to 326, one +unit too much. Possibly an Alelph should be omitted. + + +Each planet has its own seal or signature, as well as the signature of +its intelligence and the signature of its demon. These signatures were +supposed to represent the characters of the planets' intelligences and +demons respectively. The signature of Mars is shown in fig. 26, that of +its intelligence in fig. 27, and that of its demon in fig. 28. + +These various details were inscribed on the talismans each of which was +supposed to confer its own peculiar benefits--as follows: On one side +must be engraved the proper magic table and the astrological sign of +the planet, together with the highest planetary number, the sacred names +corresponding to the planet, and the name of the intelligence of +the planet, but not the name of its demon. On the other side must be +engraved the seals of the planet and of its intelligence, and also the +astrological sign. BARRETT says, regarding the demons:(1) "It is to be +understood that the intelligences are the presiding good angels that are +set over the planets; but that the spirits or daemons, with their names, +seals, or characters, are never inscribed upon any Talisman, except to +execute any evil effect, and that they are subject to the intelligences, +or good spirits; and again, when the spirits and their characters are +used, it will be more conducive to the effect to add some divine name +appropriate to that effect which we desire." Evil talismans can also be +prepared, we are informed, by using a metal antagonistic to the signs +engraved thereon. The complete talisman of Mars is shown in fig. 29. + + +(1) FRANCIS BARRETT: _The Magus, or Celestial Intelligencer_ (1801), bk. +i. p. 146. + + +ALPHONSE LOUIS CONSTANT,(1) a famous French occultist of the nineteenth +century, who wrote under the name of "ELIPHAS LEVI," describes yet +another system of talismans. He says: "The Pentagram must be always +engraved on one side of the talisman, with a circle for the Sun, a +crescent for the Moon, a winged caduceus for Mercury, a sword for Mars, +a G for Venus, a crown for Jupiter, and a scythe for Saturn. The other +side of the talisman should bear the sign of Solomon, that is, the +six-pointed star formed by two interlaced triangles; in the centre there +should be placed a human figure for the sun talismans, a cup for those +of the Moon, a dog's head for those of Jupiter, a lion for those of +Mars, a dove's for those of Venus, a bull's or goat's for those of +Saturn. The names of the seven angels should be added either in Hebrew, +Arabic, or magic characters similar to those of the alphabets of +Trimethius. The two triangles of Solomon may be replaced by the double +cross of Ezekiel's wheels, this being found on a great number of ancient +pentacles. All objects of this nature, whether in metals or in precious +stones, should be carefully wrapped in silk satchels of a colour +analogous to the spirit of the planet, perfumed with the perfumes of the +corresponding day, and preserved from all impure looks and touches."(2) + +(1) For a biographical and critical account of this extraordinary +personage and his views, see Mr A. E. WAITE'S _The Mysteries of Magic: a +Digest of the writings of_ ELIPHAS LEVI (1897). + +(2) _Op. cit_., p. 201. + + +ELIPHAS LEVI, following PYTHAGORAS and many of the mediaeval magicians, +regarded the pentagram, or five-pointed star, as an extremely powerful +pentacle. According to him, if with one horn in the ascendant it is the +sign of the microcosm--Man. With two horns in the ascendant, however, +it is the sign of the Devil, "the accursed Goat of Mendes," and an +instrument of black magic. We can, indeed, trace some faint likeness +between the pentagram and the outline form of a man, or of a goat's +head, according to whether it has one or two horns in the ascendant +respectively, which resemblances may account for this idea. Fig. 30 +shows the pentagram embellished with other symbols according to ELIPHAS +LEVI, whilst fig. 31 shows his embellished form of the six-pointed star, +or Seal of SOLOMON. This, he says, is "the sign of the Macrocosmos, +but is less powerful than the Pentagram, the microcosmic sign," thus +contradicting PYTHAGORAS, who, as we have seen, regarded the pentagram +as the sign of the Macrocosm. ELIPHAS LEVI asserts that he attempted the +evocation of the spirit of APOLLONIUS of Tyana in London on 24th July +1854, by the aid of a pentagram and other magical apparatus and ritual, +apparently with success, if we may believe his word. But he sensibly +suggests that probably the apparition which appeared was due to the +effect of the ceremonies on his own imagination, and comes to the +conclusion that such magical experiments are injurious to health.(1) + + +(1) _Op cit_. pp. 446-450. + + +Magical rings were prepared on the same principle as were talismans. +Says CORNELIUS AGRIPPA: "The manner of making these kinds of Magical +Rings is this, viz.: When any Star ascends fortunately, with the +fortunate aspect or conjunction of the Moon, we must take a stone and +herb that is under that Star, and make a ring of the metal that is +suitable to this Star, and in it fasten the stone, putting the herb +or root under it--not omitting the inscriptions of images, names, and +characters, as also the proper suffumigations...."(1) SOLOMON'S ring +was supposed to have been possessed of remarkable occult virtue. Says +JOSEPHUS (_c_. A.D. 37-100): "God also enabled him (SOLOMON) to learn +that skill which expels demons, which is a science useful and sanative +to men. He composed such incantations also by which distempers are +alleviated. And he left behind him the manner of using exorcisms, by +which they drive away demons, so that they never return; and this method +of cure is of great force unto this day; for I have seen a certain man +of my own country, whose name was Eleazar, releasing people that were +demoniacal in the presence of Vespasian, and his sons, and his captains, +and the whole multitude of his soldiers. The manner of the cure was +this; he put a ring that had under the seal a root of one of those sorts +mentioned by Solomon, to the nostrils of the demoniac, after which he +drew out the demon through his nostrils: and when the man fell down +immediately, he abjured him to return unto him no more, making still +mention of Solomon, and reciting the incantations which he composed."(2) + +(1) H. C. AGRIPPA: _Occult Philosophy_, bk. i. chap. xlvii. (WHITEHEAD'S +edition, pp. 141 and 142). + +(2) FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS: _The Antiquities of the Jews_ (trans. by W. +WHISTON), bk. viii. chap. ii., SE 5 (45) to (47). + +Enough has been said already to indicate the general nature of +talismanic magic. No one could maintain otherwise than that much of it +is pure nonsense; but the subject should not, therefore, be dismissed as +valueless, or lacking significance. It is past belief that amulets and +talismans should have been believed in for so long unless they APPEARED +to be productive of some of the desired results, though these may have +been due to forces quite other than those which were supposed to be +operative. Indeed, it may be said that there has been no widely held +superstition which does not embody some truth, like some small specks of +gold hidden in an uninviting mass of quartz. As the poet BLAKE put it: +"Everything possible to be believ'd is an image of truth";(1) and the +attempt may here be made to extract the gold of truth from the quartz of +superstition concerning talismanic magic. For this purpose the various +theories regarding the supposed efficacy of talismans must be examined. + + +(1) "Proverbs of Hell" (_The Marriage of Heaven and Hell_). + + +Two of these theories have already been noted, but the doctrine of +effluvia admittedly applied only to a certain class of amulets, and, I +think, need not be seriously considered. The "astral-spirit theory" (as +it may be called), in its ancient form at any rate, is equally untenable +to-day. The discoveries of new planets and new metals seem destructive +of the belief that there can be any occult connection between planets, +metals, and the days of the week, although the curious fact discovered +by Mr OLD, to which I have referred (footnote, p. 63@@@), assuredly +demands an explanation, and a certain validity may, perhaps, be allowed +to astrological symbolism. As concerns the belief in the existence +of what may be called (although the term is not a very happy one) +"discarnate spirits," however, the matter, in view of the modern +investigation of spiritistic and other abnormal psychical phenomena, +stands in a different position. There can, indeed, be little doubt that +very many of the phenomena observed at spiritistic seances come under +the category of deliberate fraud, and an even larger number, perhaps, +can be explained on the theory of the subconscious self. I think, +however, that the evidence goes to show that there is a residuum of +phenomena which can only be explained by the operation, in some way, +of discarnate intelligences.(1) Psychical research may be said to +have supplied the modern world with the evidence of the existence of +discarnate personalities, and of their operation on the material plane, +which the ancient world lacked. But so far as our present subject is +concerned, all the evidence obtainable goes to show that the phenomena +in question only take place in the presence of what is called "a +medium"--a person of peculiar nervous or psychical organisation. +That this is the case, moreover, appears to be the general belief of +spiritists on the subject. In the sense, then, in which "a talisman" +connotes a material object of such a nature that by its aid the powers +of discarnate intelligences may become operative on material things, we +might apply the term "talisman" to the nervous system of a medium: +but then that would be the only talisman. Consequently, even if one is +prepared to admit the whole of modern spiritistic theory, nothing is +thereby gained towards a belief in talismans, and no light is shed upon +the subject. + + +(1) The publications of The Society for Psychical Research, and +FREDERICK MYERS' monumental work on _Human Personality and its Survival +of Bodily Death_, should be specially consulted. I have attempted a +brief discussion of modern spiritualism and psychical research in my +_Matter, Spirit, and the Cosmos_ (1910), chap. ii. + + +Another theory concerning talismans which commended itself to many of +the old occult philosophers, PARACELSUS for instance, is what may be +called the "occult force" theory. This theory assumes the existence of +an occult mental force, a force capable of being exerted by the human +will, apart from its usual mode of operation by means of the body. It +was believed to be possible to concentrate this mental energy and infuse +it into some suitable medium, with the production of a talisman, which +was thus regarded as a sort of accumulator for mental energy. The theory +seems a fantastic one to modern thought, though, in view of the many +startling phenomena brought to light by psychical research, it is not +advisable to be too positive regarding the limitations of the powers of +the human mind. However, I think we shall find the element of truth in +the otherwise absurd belief in talismans by means of what may be called, +not altogether fancifully perhaps, a transcendental interpretation of +this "occult force" theory. I suggest, that is, that when a believer +makes a talisman, the transference of the occult energy is ideal, not +actual; that the power, believed to reside in the talisman itself, is +the power due to the reflex action of the believer's mind. The power +of what transcendentalists call "the imagination" cannot be denied; for +example, no one can deny that a man with a firm conviction that such a +success will be achieved by him, or such a danger avoided, will be far +more likely to gain his desire, other conditions being equal, than one +of a pessimistic turn of mind. The mere conviction itself is a factor in +success, or a factor in failure, according to its nature; and it seems +likely that herein will be found a true explanation of the effects +believed to be due to the power of the talisman. + +On the other hand, however, we must beware of the exaggerations into +which certain schools of thought have fallen in their estimates of the +powers of the imagination. These exaggerations are particularly +marked in the views which are held by many nowadays with regard to +"faith-healing," although the "Christian Scientists" get out of the +difficulty--at least to their own satisfaction--by ascribing their +alleged cures to the Power of the Divine Mind, and not to the power of +the individual mind. + +Of course the real question involved in this "transcendental theory +of talismans" as I may, perhaps, call it, is that of the operation of +incarnate spirit on the plane of matter. This operation takes place only +through the medium of the nervous system, and it has been suggested,(1) +to avoid any violation of the law of the conservation of energy, that +it is effected, not by the transference, as is sometimes supposed, of +energy from the spiritual to the material plane, but merely by means +of directive control over the expenditure of energy derived by the body +from purely physical sources, _e.g_. the latent chemical energy bound up +in the food eaten and the oxygen breathed. + + +(1) _Cf_ Sir OLIVER LODGE: _Life and Matter_ (1907), especially chap. +ix.; and W. HIBBERT, F.I.C.: _Life and Energy_ (1904). + + +I am not sure that this theory really avoids the difficulty which it is +intended to obviate;(1) but it is at least an interesting one, and +at any rate there may be modes in which the body, under the directive +control of the spirit, may expend energy derived from the material +plane, of which we know little or nothing. We have the testimony of many +eminent authorities(2) to the phenomenon of the movement of physical +objects without contact at spiritistic seances. It seems to me that the +introduction of discarnate intelligences to explain this phenomenon is +somewhat gratuitous--the psychic phenomena which yield evidence of the +survival of human personality after bodily death are of a different +character. For if we suppose this particular phenomenon to be due to +discarnate spirits, we must, in view of what has been said concerning +"mediums," conclude that the movements in question are not produced by +these spirits DIRECTLY, but through and by means of the nervous +system of the medium present. Evidently, therefore, the means for the +production of the phenomenon reside in the human nervous system (or, at +any rate, in the peculiar nervous system of "mediums"), and all that +is lacking is intelligence or initiative to use these means. This +intelligence or initiative can surely be as well supplied by the +sub-consciousness as by a discarnate intelligence. Consequently, it does +not seem unreasonable to suppose that equally remarkable phenomena may +have been produced by the aid of talismans in the days when these +were believed in, and may be produced to-day, if one has sufficient +faith--that is to say, produced by man when in the peculiar condition of +mind brought about by the intense belief in the power of a talisman. And +here it should be noted that the term "talisman" may be applied to +any object (or doctrine) that is believed to possess peculiar power or +efficacy. In this fact, I think, is to be found the peculiar danger of +erroneous doctrines which promise extraordinary benefits, here and now +on the material plane, to such as believe in them. Remarkable results +may follow an intense belief in such doctrines, which, whilst having no +connection whatever with their accuracy, being proportional only to the +intensity with which they are held, cannot do otherwise than confirm the +believer in the validity of his beliefs, though these may be in every +way highly fantastic and erroneous. Both the Roman Catholic, therefore, +and the Buddhist may admit many of the marvels attributed to the relics +of each other's saints; though, in denying that these marvels prove the +accuracy of each other's religious doctrines, each should remember that +the same is true of his own. + + +(1) The subject is rather too technical to deal with here. I have +discussed it elsewhere; see "Thermo-Dynamical Objections to the +Mechanical Theory of Life," _The Chemical News_, vol. cxii. pp. 271 _et +seq_. (3rd December 1915). + +(2) For instance, the well-known physicist, Sir W. F. BARRETT, F.R.S. +(late Professor of Experimental Physics in The Royal College of Science +for Ireland). See his _On the Threshold of a New World of Thought_ +(1908), SE 10. + + +In illustration of the real power of the imagination, I may instance the +Maori superstition of the Taboo. According to the Maories, anyone who +touches a tabooed object will assuredly die, the tabooed object being +a sort of "anti-talisman". Professor FRAZER(1) says: "Cases have +been known of Maories dying of sheer fright on learning that they had +unwittingly eaten the remains of a chief's dinner or handled something +that belonged to him," since such objects were, _ipso facto_, tabooed. +He gives the following case on good authority: "A woman, having partaken +of some fine peaches from a basket, was told that they had come from +a tabooed place. Immediately the basket dropped from her hands and she +cried out in agony that the atua or godhead of the chief, whose divinity +had been thus profaned, would kill her. That happened in the afternoon, +and next day by twelve o'clock she was dead." For us the power of the +taboo does not exist; for the Maori, who implicitly believes in it, it +is a very potent reality, but this power of the taboo resides not in +external objects but in his own mind. + + +(1) Professor J. G. FRAZER, D.C.L.: _Psyche's Task_ (1909), p. 7. + + +Dr HADDON(2) quotes a similar but still more remarkable story of a young +Congo negro which very strikingly shows the power of the imagination. +The young negro, "being on a journey, lodged at a friend's house; the +latter got a wild hen for his breakfast, and the young man asked if it +were a wild hen. His host answered 'No.' Then he fell on heartily, and +afterwards proceeded on his journey. After four years these two met +together again, and his old friend asked him 'if he would eat a wild +hen,' to which he answered that it was tabooed to him. Hereat the host +began immediately to laugh, inquiring of him, 'What made him refuse it +now, when he had eaten one at his table about four years ago?' At the +hearing of this the negro immediately fell a-trembling, and suffered +himself to be so far possessed with the effects of imagination that he +died in less than twenty-four hours after." + + +(2) ALFRED C. HADDON, SC.D., F.R.S.: _Magic and Fetishism_ (1906), p. +56. + + +There are, of course, many stories about amulets, _etc_., which cannot +be thus explained. For example, ELIHU RICH gives the following:-- + +"In 1568, we are told (Transl. of Salverte, p. 196) that the Prince of +Orange condemned a Spanish prisoner to be shot at Juliers. The soldiers +tied him to a tree and fired, but he was invulnerable. They then +stripped him to see what armour he wore, but they found only an amulet +bearing the figure of a lamb (the _Agnus Dei_, we presume). This was +taken from him, and he was then killed by the first shot. De Baros +relates that the Portuguese in like manner vainly attempted to destroy +a Malay, so long as he wore a bracelet containing a bone set in gold, +which rendered him proof against their swords. A similar marvel is +related in the travels of the veracious Marco Polo. 'In an attempt of +Kublai Khan to make a conquest of the island of Zipangu, a jealousy +arose between the two commanders of the expedition, which led to an +order for putting the whole garrison to the sword. In obedience to this +order, the heads of all were cut off excepting of eight persons, who +by the efficacy of a diabolical charm, consisting of a jewel or amulet +introduced into the right arm, between the skin and the flesh, were +rendered secure from the effects of iron, either to kill or wound. Upon +this discovery being made, they were beaten with a heavy wooden club, +and presently died.'" + +(1) I think, however, that these, and many similar stories, must be +taken _cum grano salis_. + +In conclusion, mention must be made of a very interesting and suggestive +philosophical doctrine--the Law of Correspondences,--due in its explicit +form to the Swedish philosopher, who was both scientist and mystic, +EMANUEL SWEDENBORG. To deal in any way adequately with this important +topic is totally impossible within the confines of the present +discussion.(2) But, to put the matter as briefly as possible, it may be +said that SWEDENBORG maintains (and the conclusion, I think, is valid) +that all causation is from the spiritual world, physical causation being +but secondary, or apparent--that is to say, a mere reflection, as it +were, of the true process. He argues from this, thereby supplying a +philosophical basis for the unanimous belief of the nature-mystics, that +every natural object is the symbol (because the creation) of an idea or +spiritual verity in its widest sense. Thus, there are symbols which are +inherent in the nature of things, and symbols which are not. The +former are genuine, the latter merely artificial. Writing from the +transcendental point of view, ELIPHAS LEVI says: "Ceremonies, vestments, +perfumes, characters and figures being...necessary to enlist the +imagination in the education of the will, the success of magical works +depends upon the faithful observance of all the rites, which are in +no sense fantastic or arbitrary, having been transmitted to us +by antiquity, and permanently subsisting by the essential laws of +analogical realisation and of the correspondence which inevitably +connects ideas and forms."(1b) Some scepticism, perhaps, may be +permitted as to the validity of the latter part of this statement, and +the former may be qualified by the proviso that such things are only of +value in the right education of the will, if they are, indeed, genuine, +and not merely artificial, symbols. But the writer, as I think will +be admitted, has grasped the essential point, and, to conclude our +excursion, as we began it, with a definition, I will say that _the power +of the talisman is the power of the mind (or imagination) brought into +activity by means of a suitable symbol_. + + +(1) ELIHU RICH: _The Occult Sciences_, p. 346. + +(2) I may refer the reader to my _A Mathematical Theory of Spirit_ +(1912), chap. i., for a more adequate statement. + +(1b) ELIPHAS LEVI: _Transcendental Magic: its Doctrine and Ritual_ +(trans. by A. E. WAITE, 1896), p. 234. + + + + +VII. CEREMONIAL MAGIC IN THEORY AND PRACTICE + +THE word "magic," if one may be permitted to say so, is itself almost +magical--magical in its power to conjure up visions in the human mind. +For some these are of bloody rites, pacts with the powers of darkness, +and the lascivious orgies of the Saturnalia or Witches' Sabbath; in +other minds it has pleasanter associations, serving to transport them +from the world of fact to the fairyland of fancy, where the purse of +FORTUNATUS, the lamp and ring of ALADDIN, fairies, gnomes, jinn, and +innumerable other strange beings flit across the scene in a marvellous +kaleidoscope of ever-changing wonders. To the study of the magical +beliefs of the past cannot be denied the interest and fascination which +the marvellous and wonderful ever has for so many minds, many of whom, +perhaps, cannot resist the temptation of thinking that there may be some +element of truth in these wonderful stories. But the study has a +greater claim to our attention; for, as I have intimated already, magic +represents a phase in the development of human thought, and the magic +of the past was the womb from which sprang the science of the present, +unlike its parent though it be. + +What then is magic? According to the dictionary definition--and this +will serve us for the present--it is the (pretended) art of producing +marvellous results by the aid of spiritual beings or arcane spiritual +forces. Magic, therefore, is the practical complement of animism. +Wherever man has really believed in the existence of a spiritual world, +there do we find attempts to enter into communication with that world's +inhabitants and to utilise its forces.Professor LEUBA(1) and others +distinguish between propitiative behaviour towards the beings of +the spiritual world, as marking the religious attitude, and coercive +behaviour towards these beings as characteristic of the magical +attitude; but one form of behaviour merges by insensible degrees into +the other, and the distinction (though a useful one) may, for our +present purpose, be neglected. + + +(1) JAMES H. LEUBA: _The Psychological Origin and the Nature of +Religion_ (1909), chap. ii. + + +Animism, "the Conception of Spirit everywhere" as Mr EDWARD CLODD(2) +neatly calls it, and perhaps man's earliest view of natural phenomena, +persisted in a modified form, as I have pointed out in "Some +Characteristics of Mediaeval Thought," throughout the Middle Ages. +A belief in magic persisted likewise. In the writings of the Greek +philosophers of the Neo-Platonic school, in that curious body of +esoteric Jewish lore known as the Kabala, and in the works of later +occult philosophers such as AGRIPPA and PARACELSUS, we find magic, or +rather the theory upon which magic as an art was based, presented in +its most philosophical form. If there is anything of value for modern +thought in the theory of magic, here is it to be found; and it is, I +think, indeed to be found, absurd and fantastic though the practices +based upon this philosophy, or which this philosophy was thought to +substantiate, most certainly are. I shall here endeavour to give a +sketch of certain of the outstanding doctrines of magical philosophy, +some details concerning the art of magic, more especially as practiced +in the Middle Ages in Europe, and, finally, an attempt to extract from +the former what I consider to be of real worth. We have already wandered +down many of the byways of magical belief, and, indeed, the word "magic" +may be made to cover almost every superstition of the past: To what we +have already gained on previous excursions the present, I hope, will add +what we need in order to take a synthetic view of the whole subject. + + +(2) EDWARD CLODD: _Animism the Seed of Religion_ (1905), p. 26. + + +In the first place, something must be said concerning what is called the +Doctrine of Emanations, a theory of prime importance in Neo-Platonic +and Kabalistic ontology. According to this theory, everything in the +universe owes its existence and virtue to an emanation from God, which +divine emanation is supposed to descend, step by step (so to speak), +through the hierarchies of angels and the stars, down to the things of +earth, that which is nearer to the Source containing more of the divine +nature than that which is relatively distant. As CORNELIUS AGRIPPA +expresses it: "For God, in the first place is the end and beginning +of all Virtues; he gives the seal of #the _Ideas_ to his servants, the +Intelligences; who as faithful officers, sign all things intrusted +to them with an Ideal Virtue; the Heavens and Stars, as instruments, +disposing the matter in the mean while for the receiving of those forms +which reside in Divine Majesty (as saith Plato in Timeus) and to be +conveyed by Stars; and the Giver of Forms distributes them by the +ministry of his Intelligences, which he hath set as Rulers and +Controllers over his Works, to whom such a power is intrusted to things +committed to them that so all Virtues of Stones, Herbs, Metals, and all +other things may come from the Intelligences, the Governors. The Form, +therefore, and Virtue of things comes first from the _Ideas_, then from +the ruling and governing Intelligences, then from the aspects of the +Heavens disposing, and lastly from the tempers of the Elements +disposed, answering the influences of the Heavens, by which the +Elements themselves are ordered, or disposed. These kinds of operations, +therefore, are performed in these inferior things by express forms, +and in the Heavens by disposing virtues, in Intelligences by mediating +rules, in the Original Cause by _Ideas_ and exemplary forms, all which +must of necessity agree in the execution of the effect and virtue of +every thing. + +"There is, therefore, a wonderful virtue and operation in every Herb +and Stone, but greater in a Star, beyond which, even from the governing +Intelligences everything receiveth and obtains many things for itself, +especially from the Supreme Cause, with whom all things do mutually and +exactly correspond, agreeing in an harmonious consent, as it were in +hymns always praising the highest Maker of all things.... There +is, therefore, no other cause of the necessity of effects than the +connection of all things with the First Cause, and their correspondency +with those Divine patterns and eternal _Ideas_ whence every thing hath +its determinate and particular place in the exemplary world, from whence +it lives and receives its original being: And every virtue of herbs, +stones, metals, animals, words and speeches, and all things that are of +God, is placed there."(1) As compared with the _ex nihilo_ creationism +of orthodox theology, this theory is as light is to darkness. Of +course, there is much in CORNELIUS AGRIPPA'S statement of it which is +inacceptable to modern thought; but these are matters of form merely, +and do not affect the doctrine fundamentally. For instance, as a nexus +between spirit and matter AGRIPPA places the stars: modern thought +prefers the ether. The theory of emanations may be, and was, as a +matter of fact, made the justification of superstitious practices of the +grossest absurdity, but on the other hand it may be made the basis of +a lofty system of transcendental philosophy, as, for instance, that of +EMANUEL SWEDENBORG, whose ontology resembles in some respects that of +the Neo-Platonists. AGRIPPA uses the theory to explain all the marvels +which his age accredited, marvels which we know had for the most part no +existence outside of man's imagination. I suggest, on the contrary, that +the theory is really needed to explain the commonplace, since, in the +last analysis, every bit of experience, every phenomenon, be it ever +so ordinary--indeed the very fact of experience itself,--is most truly +marvellous and magical, explicable only in terms of spirit. As ELIPHAS +LEVI well says in one of his flashes of insight: "The supernatural +is only the natural in an extraordinary grade, or it is the exalted +natural; a miracle is a phenomenon which strikes the multitude because +it is unexpected; the astonishing is that which astonishes; miracles are +effects which surprise those who are ignorant of their causes, or assign +them causes w hich are not in proportion to such effects."(1b) But I am +anticipating the sequel. + + +(1) H. C. AGRIPPA: _Occult Philosophy_, bk. i., chap. xiii. (WHITEHEAD'S +edition, pp. 67-68). + +(1b) ELIPHAS LEVI: _Transcendental Magic, its Doctrine and Ritual_ +(trans. by A. E. WAITE, 1896), p. 192. + + +The doctrine of emanations makes the universe one vast harmonious whole, +between whose various parts there is an exact analogy, correspondence, +or sympathetic relation. "Nature" (the productive principle), says +IAMBLICHOS (3rd-4th century), the Neo-Platonist, "in her peculiar way, +makes a likeness of invisible principles through symbols in visible +forms."(2) The belief that seemingly similar things sympathetically +affect one another, and that a similar relation holds good between +different things which have been intimately connected with one another +as parts within a whole, is a very ancient one. Most primitive peoples +are very careful to destroy all their nail-cuttings and hair-clippings, +since they believe that a witch gaining possession of these might work +them harm. For a similar reason they refuse to reveal their REAL names, +which they regard as part of themselves, and adopt nicknames for common +use. The belief that a witch can torment an enemy by making an image of +his person in clay or wax, correctly naming it, and mutilating it with +pins, or, in the case of a waxen image, melting it by fire, is a very +ancient one, and was held throughout and beyond the Middle Ages. The +Sympathetic Powder of Sir KENELM DIGBY we have already noticed, as well +as other instances of the belief in "sympathy," and examples of +similar superstitions might be multiplied almost indefinitely. Such are +generally grouped under the term "sympathetic magic"; but inasmuch as +all magical practices assume that by acting on part of a thing, or a +symbolic representation of it, one acts magically on the whole, or on +the thing symbolised, the expression may in its broadest sense be said +to involve the whole of magic. + + +(2) IAMBLICHOS: _Theurgia, or the Egyptian Mysteries_ (trans. by Dr +ALEX. WILDER, New York, 1911), p. 239. + + +The names of the Divine Being, angels and devils, the planets of the +solar system (including sun and moon) and the days of the week, birds +and beasts, colours, herbs, and precious stones--all, according to +old-time occult philosophy, are connected by the sympathetic relation +believed to run through all creation, the knowledge of which was +essential to the magician; as well, also, the chief portions of the +human body, for man, as we have seen, was believed to be a microcosm--a +universe in miniature. I have dealt with this matter and exhibited +some of the supposed correspondences in "The Belief in Talismans". +Some further particulars are shown in the annexed table, for which I +am mainly indebted to AGRIPPA. But, as in the case of the zodiacal gems +already dealt with, the old authorities by no means agree as to the +majority of the planetary correspondences. + +TABLE OF OCCULT CORRESPONDENCES + + Arch- Part of Precious + angel. Angel. Planet. Human Animal. Bird. stone. + Body. + + Raphael Michael Sun Heart Lion Swan Carbuncle + Gabriel Gabriel Moon Left foot Cat Owl Crystal + Camael Zamael Mars Right hand Wolf Vulture Diamond + Michael Raphael Mercury Left hand Ape Stork Agate + Zadikel Sachiel Jupiter Head Hart Eagle Sapphire + (=Lapis lazuli) + Haniel Anael Venus Generative Goat Dove Emerald + organs + Zaphhiel Cassiel Saturn Right foot Mole Hoopoe Onyx + + +The names of the angels are from Mr Mather's translation of _Clavicula +Salomonis_; the other correspondences are from the second book of +Agrippa's _Occult Philosophy_, chap. x. + + +In many cases these supposed correspondences are based, as will be +obvious to the reader, upon purely trivial resemblances, and, in any +case, whatever may be said--and I think a great deal may be said--in +favour of the theory of symbology, there is little that may be adduced +to support the old occultists' application of it. + +So essential a part does the use of symbols play in all magical +operations that we may, I think, modify the definition of "magic" +adopted at the outset, and define "magic" as "an attempt to employ the +powers of the spiritual world for the production of marvellous results, +BY THE AID OF SYMBOLS." It has, on the other hand, been questioned +whether the appeal to the spirit-world is an essential element in magic. +But a close examination of magical practices always reveals at the root +a belief in spiritual powers as the operating causes. The belief in +talismans at first sight seems to have little to do with that in a +supernatural realm; but, as we have seen, the talisman was always a +silent invocation of the powers of some spiritual being with which it +was symbolically connected, and whose sign was engraved thereon. And, +as Dr T. WITTON DAVIES well remarks with regard to "sympathetic magic": +"Even this could not, at the start, be anything other than a symbolic +prayer to the spirit or spirits having authority in these matters. In so +far as no spirit is thought of, it is a mere survival, and not magic at +all...."(1) + + +(1) Dr T. WITTON DAVIES: _Magic, Divination, and Demonology among the +Hebrews and their Neighbours_ (1898), p. 17. + + +What I regard as the two essentials of magical practices, namely, +the use of symbols and the appeal to the supernatural realm, are most +obvious in what is called "ceremonial magic". Mediaeval ceremonial magic +was subdivided into three chief branches--White Magic, Black Magic, and +Necromancy. White magic was concerned with the evocations of angels, +spiritual beings supposed to be essentially superior to mankind, +concerning which I shall give some further details later--and the +spirits of the elements,--which were, as I have mentioned in "Some +Characteristics of Mediaeval Thought," personifications of the primeval +forces of Nature. As there were supposed to be four elements, fire, +air, water, and earth, so there were supposed to be four classes of +elementals or spirits of the elements, namely, Salamanders, Sylphs, +Undines, and Gnomes, inhabiting these elements respectively, and +deriving their characters therefrom. Concerning these curious beings, +the inquisitive reader may gain some information from a quaint little +book, by the Abbe de MONTFAUCON DE VILLARS, entitled _The Count of +Gabalis, or Conferences about Secret Sciences_ (1670), translated into +English and published in 1680, which has recently been reprinted. The +elementals, we learn therefrom, were, unlike other supernatural beings, +thought to be mortal. They could, however, be rendered immortal by means +of sexual intercourse with men or women, as the case might be; and it +was, we are told, to the noble end of endowing them with this great +gift, that the sages devoted themselves. + +Goety, or black magic, was concerned with the evocation of demons and +devils--spirits supposed to be superior to man in certain powers, but +utterly depraved. Sorcery may be distinguished from witchcraft, inasmuch +as the sorcerer attempted to command evil spirits by the aid of charms, +_etc_., whereas the witch or wizard was supposed to have made a pact +with the Evil One; though both terms have been rather loosely used, +"sorcery" being sometimes employed as a synonym for "necromancy". +Necromancy was concerned with the evocation of the spirits of the dead: +etymologically, the term stands for the art of foretelling events by +means of such evocations, though it is frequently employed in the wider +sense. + +It would be unnecessary and tedious to give any detailed account of the +methods employed in these magical arts beyond some general remarks. Mr +A. E. WAITE gives full particulars of the various rituals in his +_Book of Ceremonial Magic_ (1911), to which the curious reader may be +referred. The following will, in brief terms, convey a general idea of a +magical evocation:-- + +Choosing a time when there is a favourable conjunction of the planets, +the magician, armed with the implements of magical art, after much +prayer and fasting, betakes himself to a suitable spot, alone, or +perhaps accompanied by two trusty companions. All the articles he +intends to employ, the vestments, the magic sword and lamp, the +talismans, the book of spirits, _etc_., have been specially prepared and +consecrated. If he is about to invoke a martial spirit, the magician's +vestment will be of a red colour, the talismans in virtue of which +he may have power over the spirit will be of iron, the day chosen a +Tuesday, and the incense and perfumes employed of a nature analogous +to Mars. In a similar manner all the articles employed and the rites +performed must in some way be symbolical of the spirit with which +converse is desired. Having arrived at the spot, the magician first of +all traces the magic circle within which, we are told, no evil spirit +can enter; he then commences the magic rite, involving various prayers +and conjurations, a medley of meaningless words, and, in the case of the +black art, a sacrifice. The spirit summoned then appears (at least, so +we are told), and, after granting the magician's request, is licensed to +depart--a matter, we are admonished, of great importance. + +The question naturally arises, What were the results obtained by these +magical arts? How far, if at all, was the magician rewarded by the +attainment of his desires? We have asked a similar question regarding +the belief in talismans, and the reply which we there gained undoubtedly +applies in the present case as well. Modern psychical research, as I +have already pointed out, is supplying us with further evidence for +the survival of human personality after bodily death than the innate +conviction humanity in general seems to have in this belief, and the +many reasons which idealistic philosophy advances in favour of it. The +question of the reality of the phenomenon of "materialisation," that is, +the bodily appearance of a discarnate spirit, such as is vouched for by +spiritists, and which is what, it appears, was aimed at in necromancy +(though why the discarnate should be better informed as to the future +than the incarnate, I cannot suppose), must be regarded as _sub +judice_.(1) Many cases of fraud in connection with the alleged +production of this phenomenon have been detected in recent times; but, +inasmuch as the last word has not yet been said on the subject, we +must allow the possibility that necromancy in the past may have been +sometimes successful. But as to the existence of the angels and +devils of magical belief--as well, one might add, of those of orthodox +faith,--nothing can be adduced in evidence of this either from the +results of psychical research or on _a priori_ grounds. + + +(1) The late Sir WILLIAM CROOKES' _Experimental Researches in the +Phenomena of Spiritualism_ contains evidence in favour of the reality of +this phenomenon very difficult to gainsay. + + +Pseudo-DIONYSIUS classified the angels into three hierarchies, each +subdivided into three orders, as under:-- + + +_First Hierarchy_.--Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones; + +_Second Hierarchy_.--Dominions, Powers, and Authorities (or Virtues); + +_Third Hierarchy_.--Principalities, Archangels, and Angels,-- + +and this classification was adopted by AGRIPPA and others. +Pseudo-DIONYSIUS explains the names of these orders as follows: "... the +holy designation of the Seraphim denotes either that they are kindling +or burning; and that of the Cherubim, a fulness of knowledge or stream +of wisdom.... The appellation of the most exalted and pre-eminent +Thrones denotes their manifest exaltation above every grovelling +inferiority, and their super-mundane tendency towards higher things;... +and their invariable and firmly-fixed settlement around the veritable +Highest, with the whole force of their powers.... The explanatory +name of the Holy Lordships (Dominions) denotes a certain unslavish +elevation... superior to every kind of cringing slavery, indomitable +to every subserviency, and elevated above every dissimularity, ever +aspiring to the true Lordship and source of Lordship.... The appellation +of the Holy Powers denotes a certain courageous and unflinching +virility... vigorously conducted to the Divine imitation, not forsaking +the Godlike movement through its own unmanliness, but unflinchingly +looking to the super-essential and powerful-making power, and becoming +a powerlike image of this, as far as is attainable....The appellation of +the Holy Authorities... denotes the beautiful and unconfused good +order, with regard to Divine receptions, and the discipline of the +super-mundane and intellectual authority... conducted indomitably, +with good order towards Divine things.... (And the appellation) of the +Heavenly Principalities manifests their princely and leading function, +after the Divine example...."(1) There is a certain grandeur in these +views, and if we may be permitted to understand by the orders of the +hierarchy, "discrete" degrees (to use SWEDENBORG'S term) of spiritual +reality--stages in spiritual involution,--we may see in them a certain +truth as well. As I said, all virtue, power, and knowledge which man +has from God was believed to descend to him by way of these angelical +hierarchies, step by step; and thus it was thought that those of the +lowest hierarchy alone were sent from heaven to man. It was such beings +that white magic pretended to evoke. But the practical occultists, when +they did not make them altogether fatuous, attributed to these angels +characters not distinguishable from those of the devils. The description +of the angels in the _Heptemeron_, or _Magical Elements_,(2) falsely at + may be taken as fairly characteristic. Of MICHAEL and the other +spirits of Sunday he writes: "Their nature is to procure Gold, Gemmes, +Carbuncles, Riches; to cause one to obtain favour and benevolence; to +dissolve the enmities of men; to raise men to honors; to carry or take +away infirmities." Of GABRIEL and the other spirits of Monday, he says: +"Their nature is to give silver; to convey things from place to place; +to make horses swift, and to disclose the secrets of persons both +present and future." Of SAMAEL and the other spirits of Tuesday he says: +"Their nature is to cause wars, mortality, death and combustions; and +to give two thousand Souldiers at a time; to bring death, infirmities +or health," and so on for RAPHAEL, SACHIEL, ANAEL, CASSIEL, and their +colleagues.(1b) + + +(1) _On the Heavenly Hierarchy_. See the Rev. JOHN PARKER'S translation +of _The Works of_ DIONYSIUS _the Areopagite_, vol. ii. (1889), pp. 24, +25, 31, 32, and 36. + +(2) The book, which first saw the light three centuries after its +alleged author's death, was translated into English by ROBERT TURNER, +and published in 1655 in a volume containing the spurious _Fourth +Book of Occult Philosophy_, attributed to CORNELIUS AGRIPPA, and other +magical works. It is from this edition that I quote. + +(1b) _Op. cit_., pp. 90, 92, and 94. + + +Concerning the evil planetary spirits, the spurious _Fourth Book of +Occult Philosophy_, attributed to CORNELIUS AGRIPPA, informs us that +the spirits of Saturn "appear for the most part with a tall, lean, and +slender body, with an angry countenance, having four faces; one in the +hinder part of the head, one on the former part of the head, and on each +side nosed or beaked: there likewise appeareth a face on each knee, of +a black shining colour: their motion is the moving of the wince, with a +kinde of earthquake: their signe is white earth, whiter than any Snow." +The writer adds that their "particular forms are,-- + + A King having a beard, riding on a Dragon. + An Old man with a beard. + An Old woman leaning on a staffe. + A Hog. + A Dragon. + An Owl. + A black Garment. + A Hooke or Sickle. + A Juniper-tree." + +Concerning the spirits of Jupiter, he says that they "appear with a body +sanguine and cholerick, of a middle stature, with a horrible fearful +motion; but with a milde countenance, a gentle speech, and of the colour +of Iron. The motion of them is flashings of Lightning and Thunder; their +signe is, there will appear men about the circle, who shall seem to be +devoured of Lions," their particular forms being-- + + "A King with a Sword drawn, riding on a Stag. + A Man wearing a Mitre in long rayment. + A Maid with a Laurel-Crown adorned with Flowers. + A Bull. + A Stag. + A Peacock. + An azure Garment. + A Sword. + A Box-tree." + +As to the Martian spirits, we learn that "they appear in a tall body, +cholerick, a filthy countenance, of colour brown, swarthy or red, having +horns like Harts horns, and Griphins claws, bellowing like wilde Bulls. +Their Motion is like fire burning; their signe Thunder and Lightning +about the Circle. Their particular shapes are,-- + + A King armed riding upon a Wolf. + A Man armed. + A Woman holding a buckler on her thigh. + A Hee-goat. + A Horse. + A Stag. + A red Garment. + Wool. + A Cheeslip."(1) + + +(1) _Op. cit_., pp. 43-45. + +The rest are described in equally fantastic terms. + +I do not think I shall be accused of being unduly sceptical if I say +that such beings as these could not have been evoked by any magical +rites, because such beings do not and did not exist, save in the +magician's own imagination. The proviso, however, is important, for, +inasmuch as these fantastic beings did exist in the imagination of the +credulous, therein they may, indeed, have been evoked. The whole of +magic ritual was well devised to produce hallucination. A firm faith +in the ritual employed, and a strong effort of will to bring about the +desired result, were usually insisted upon as essential to the success +of the operation.(2) A period of fasting prior to the experiment was +also frequently prescribed as necessary, which, by weakening the body, +must have been conducive to hallucination. Furthermore, abstention +from the gratification of the sexual appetite was stipulated in certain +cases, and this, no doubt, had a similar effect, especially as concerns +magical evocations directed to the satisfaction of the sexual impulse. +Add to these factors the details of the ritual itself, the nocturnal +conditions under which it was carried out, and particularly the +suffumigations employed, which, most frequently, were of a narcotic +nature, and it is not difficult to believe that almost any type of +hallucination may have occurred. Such, as we have seen, was ELIPHAS +LEVI'S view of ceremonial magic; and whatever may be said as concerns +his own experiment therein (for one would have thought that the +essential element of faith was lacking in this case), it is undoubtedly +the true view as concerns the ceremonial magic of the past. As this +author well says: "Witchcraft, properly so-called, that is ceremonial +operation with intent to bewitch, acts only on the operator, and serves +to fix and confirm his will, by formulating it with persistence and +labour, the two conditions which make volition efficacious."(1b) + + +(2) "MAGICAL AXIOM. In the circle of its action, every word creates that +which it affirms. + +DIRECT CONSEQUENCE. He who affirms the devil, creates or makes the +devil. + +"_Conditions of Success in Infernal Evocations_. 1, Invincible +obstinacy; 2, a conscience at once hardened to crime and most subject +to remorse and fear; 3, affected or natural ignorance; 4, blind faith +in all that is incredible, 5, a completely false idea of God. (ELIPHAS +LEVI: _Op. cit_., pp. 297 and 298.) + +(1b) ELIPHAS LEVI: _Op. cit_., pp. 130 and 131. + + +EMANUEL SWEDENBORG in one place writes: "Magic is nothing but the +perversion of order; it is especially the abuse of correspondences."(2) +A study of the ceremonial magic of the Middle Ages and the following +century or two certainly justifies SWEDENBORG in writing of magic as +something evil. The distinction, rigid enough in theory, between white +and black, legitimate and illegitimate, magic, was, as I have indicated, +extremely indefinite in practice. As Mr A. E. WAITE justly remarks: +"Much that passed current in the west as White (_i.e_. permissible) +Magic was only a disguised goeticism, and many of the resplendent angels +invoked with divine rites reveal their cloven hoofs. It is not too much +to say that a large majority of past psychological experiments were +conducted to establish communication with demons, and that for unlawful +purposes. The popular conceptions concerning the diabolical spheres, +which have been all accredited by magic, may have been gross +exaggerations of fact concerning rudimentary and perverse intelligences, +but the wilful viciousness of the communicants is substantially +untouched thereby."(1b) + + +(2) EMANUEL SWEDENBORG: _Arcana Caelestia_, SE 6692. + +(1b) ARTHUR EDWARD WAITE: _The Occult Sciences_ (1891), p. 51. + + +These "psychological experiments" were not, save, perhaps, in rare +cases, carried out in the spirit of modern psychical research, with the +high aim of the man of science. It was, indeed, far otherwise; selfish +motives were at the root of most of them; and, apart from what may be +termed "medicinal magic," it was for the satisfaction of greed, lust, +revenge, that men and women had recourse to magical arts. The history of +goeticism and witchcraft is one of the most horrible of all histories. +The "Grimoires," witnesses to the superstitious folly of the past, are +full of disgusting, absurd, and even criminal rites for the satisfaction +of unlawful desires and passions. The Church was certainly justified in +attempting to put down the practice of magic, but the means adopted in +this design and the results to which they led were even more abominable +than witchcraft itself. The methods of detecting witches and the +tortures to which suspected persons were subjected to force them to +confess to imaginary crimes, employed in so-called civilised England and +Scotland and also in America, to say nothing of countries in which the +"Holy" Inquisition held undisputed sway, are almost too horrible to +describe. For details the reader may be referred to Sir WALTER SCOTT'S +_Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft_ (1830), and (as concerns America) +COTTON MATHER'S The _Wonders of the Invisible World_ (1692). The +credulous Church and the credulous people were terribly afraid of the +power of witchcraft, and, as always, fear destroyed their mental balance +and made them totally disregard the demands of justice. The result may +be well illustrated by what almost inevitably happens when a country +goes to war; for war, as the Hon. BERTRAND RUSSELL has well shown, +is fear's offspring. Fear of the enemy causes the military party to +persecute in an insensate manner, without the least regard to justice, +all those of their fellow-men whom they consider are not heart and soul +with them in their cause; similarly the Church relentlessly persecuted +its supposed enemies, of whom it was so afraid. No doubt some of the +poor wretches that were tortured and killed on the charge of witchcraft +really believed themselves to have made a pact with the devil, and were +thus morally depraved, though, generally speaking, they were no more +responsible for their actions than any other madmen. But the majority +of the persons persecuted as witches and wizards were innocent even of +this. + +However, it would, I think, be unwise to disregard the existence of +another side to the question of the validity and ethical value of +magic, and to use the word only to stand for something essentially evil. +SWEDENBORG, we may note, in the course of a long passage from the work +from which I have already quoted, says that by "magic" is signified "the +science of spiritual things"(1) His position appears to be that there is +a genuine magic, or science of spiritual things, and a false magic, that +science perverted: a view of the matter which I propose here to adopt. +The word "magic" itself is derived from the Greek "magos," the wise man +of the East, and hence the strict etymological meaning of the term is +"the wisdom or science of the magi"; and it is, I think, significant +that we are told (and I see no reason to doubt the truth of it) that the +magi were among the first to worship the new-born CHRIST.(2) + + +(1) _Op. cit_., SE 5223. + +(2) See The Gospel according to MATTHEW, chap. ii., verses 1 to 12. + + +If there be an abuse of correspondences, or symbols, there surely must +also be a use, to which the word "magic" is not inapplicable. As such, +religious ritual, and especially the sacraments of the Christian Church, +will, no doubt, occur to the minds of those who regard these symbols +as efficacious, though they would probably hesitate to apply the term +"magical" to them. But in using this term as applying thereto, I do +not wish to suggest that any such rites or ceremonies possess, or can +possess, any CAUSAL efficacy in the moral evolution of the soul. The +will alone, in virtue of the power vouchsafed to it by the Source of all +power, can achieve this; but I do think that the soul may be assisted by +ritual, harmoniously related to the states of mind which it is desired +to induce. No doubt there is a danger of religious ritual, especially +when its meaning is lost, being engaged in for its own sake. It is then +mere superstition;(1) and, in view of the danger of this degeneracy, +many robust minds, such as the members of the Society of Friends, prefer +to dispense with its aid altogether. When ritual is associated with +erroneous doctrines, the results are even more disastrous, as I have +indicated in "The Belief in Talismans". But when ritual is allied with, +and based upon, as adequately symbolising, the high teaching of genuine +religion, it may be, and, in fact, is, found very helpful by many +people. As such its efficacy seems to me to be altogether magical, in +the best sense of that word. + + +(1) As "ELIPHAS LEVI" well says: "Superstition... is the sign surviving +the thought; it is the dead body of a religious rite." (_Op cit_., p. +150.) + + +But, indeed, I think a still wider application of the word "magic" is +possible. "All experience is magic," says NOVALIS (1772-1801), "and +only magically explicable";(2a) and again: "It is only because of the +feebleness of our perceptions and activity that we do not perceive +ourselves to be in a fairy world." No doubt it will be objected that the +common experiences of daily life are "natural," whereas magic postulates +the "supernatural". If, as is frequently done, we use the term +"natural," as relating exclusively to the physical realm, then, indeed, +we may well speak of magic as "supernatural," because its aims are +psychical. On the other hand, the term "natural" is sometimes employed +as referring to the whole realm of order, and in this sense one can use +the word "magic" as descriptive of Nature herself when viewed in the +light of an idealistic philosophy, such as that of SWEDENBORG, in which +all causation is seen to be essentially spiritual, the things of this +world being envisaged as symbols of ideas or spiritual verities, and +thus physical causation regarded as an appearance produced in virtue of +the magical, non-causal efficacy of symbols.(1) Says CORNELIUS AGRIPPA: +"... every day some natural thing is drawn by art and some divine +thing is drawn by Nature which, the Egyptians, seeing, called Nature a +Magicianess (_i.e_.) the very Magical power itself, in the attracting of +like by like, and of suitable things by suitable."(2) + + +(2a) NOVALIS: _Schriften_ (ed. by LUDWIG TIECK and FR. SCHLEGEL, 1805), +vol. ii. p. 195 + +(1) For a discussion of the essentially magical character of inductive +reasoning, see my _The Magic of Experience_ (1915) + +(2) _Op. cit_., bk. i. chap. xxxvii. p. 119. + + +I would suggest, in conclusion, that there is nothing really opposed +to the spirit of modern science in the thesis that "all experience +is magic, and only magically explicable." Science does not pretend +to reveal the fundamental or underlying cause of phenomena, does +not pretend to answer the final Why? This is rather the business +of philosophy, though, in thus distinguishing between science and +philosophy, I am far from insinuating that philosophy should be +otherwise than scientific. We often hear religious but non-scientific +men complain because scientific and perhaps equally as religious men do +not in their books ascribe the production of natural phenomena to the +Divine Power. But if they were so to do they would be transcending +their business as scientists. In every science certain simple facts of +experience are taken for granted: it is the business of the scientist +to reduce other and more complex facts of experience to terms of these +data, not to explain these data themselves. Thus the physicist attempts +to reduce other related phenomena of greater complexity to terms of +simple force and motion; but, What are force and motion? Why does force +produce or result in motion? are questions which lie beyond the scope +of physics. In order to answer these questions, if, indeed, this be +possible, we must first inquire, How and why do these ideas of force and +motion arise in our minds? These problems land us in the psychical or +spiritual world, and the term "magic" at once becomes significant. + +"If, says THOMAS CARLYLE,... we... have led thee into the true Land of +Dreams; and... thou lookest, even for moments, into the region of +the Wonderful, and seest and feelest that thy daily life is girt with +Wonder, and based on Wonder, and thy very blankets and breeches are +Miracles,--then art thou profited beyond money's worth...."(1) + + +(1) THOMAS CARLYLE: _Sartor Resartus_, bk. iii. chap. ix. + + + + +VIII. ARCHITECTURAL SYMBOLISM + +I WAS once rash enough to suggest in an essay "On Symbolism in Art"(1) +that "a true work of art is at once realistic, imaginative, and +symbolical," and that its aim is to make manifest the spiritual +significance of the natural objects dealt with. I trust that those +artists (no doubt many) who disagree with me will forgive me--a man +of science--for having ventured to express any opinion whatever on the +subject. But, at any rate, if the suggestions in question are accepted, +then a criterion for distinguishing between art and craft is at once +available; for we may say that, whilst craft aims at producing works +which are physically useful, art aims at producing works which are +spiritually useful. Architecture, from this point of view, is a +combination of craft and art. It may, indeed, be said that the modern +architecture which creates our dwelling-houses, factories, and even to +a large extent our places of worship, is pure craft unmixed with art On +the other hand, it might be argued that such works of architecture are +not always devoid of decoration, and that "decorative art," even though +the "decorative artist" is unconscious of this fact, is based upon rules +and employs symbols which have a deep significance. The truly artistic +element in architecture, however, is more clearly manifest if we turn +our gaze to the past. One thinks at once, of course, of the pyramids +and sphinx of Egypt, and the rich and varied symbolism of design and +decoration of antique structures to be found in Persia and elsewhere in +the East. It is highly probable that the Egyptian pyramids were employed +for astronomical purposes, and thus subserved physical utility, but it +seems no less likely that their shape was suggested by a belief in some +system of geometrical symbolism, and was intended to embody certain of +their philosophical or religious doctrines. + + +(1) Published in _The Occult Review_ for August 1912, vol. xvi. pp. 98 +to 102. + + +The mediaeval cathedrals and churches of Europe admirably exhibit this +combination of art with craft. Craft was needed to design and construct +permanent buildings to protect worshippers from the inclemency of the +weather; art was employed not only to decorate such buildings, but +it dictated to craft many points in connection with their design. The +builders of the mediaeval churches endeavoured so to construct their +works that these might, as a whole and in their various parts, embody +the truths, as they believed them, of the Christian religion: thus the +cruciform shape of churches, their orientation, etc. The practical +value of symbolism in church architecture is obvious. As Mr F. E. HULME +remarks, "The sculptured fonts or stained-glass windows in the churches +of the Middle Ages were full of teaching to a congregation of whom +the greater part could not read, to whom therefore one great avenue of +knowledge was closed. The ignorant are especially impressed by pictorial +teaching, and grasp its meaning far more readily than they can follow a +written description or a spoken discourse."(1) + + +(1) F. EDWARD HULME, F.L.S., F.S.A.: _The History, Principles, and +Practice of Symbolism in Christian Art_ (1909), p. 2. + + +The subject of symbolism in church architecture is an extensive one, +involving many side issues. In these excursions we shall consider only +one aspect of it, namely, the symbolic use of animal forms in English +church architecture. + +As Mr COLLINS, who has written, in recent years, an interesting work on +this topic of much use to archaeologists as a book of data,(2a) points +out, the great sources of animal symbolism were the famous _Physiologus_ +and other natural history books of the Middle Ages (generally called +"Bestiaries"), and the Bible, mystically understood. The modern tendency +is somewhat unsympathetic towards any attempt to interpret the Bible +symbolically, and certainly some of the interpretations that have been +forced upon it in the name of symbolism are crude and fantastic enough. +But in the belief of the mystics, culminating in the elaborate system of +correspondences of SWEDENBORG, that every natural object, every event +in the history of the human race, and every word of the Bible, has a +symbolic and spiritual significance, there is, I think, a fundamental +truth. We must, however, as I have suggested already, distinguish +between true and forced symbolism. The early Christians employed the +fish as a symbol of Christ, because the Greek word for fish, icqus, +is obtained by _notariqon_(1) from the phrase <gr 'Ihsous Cristos Qeou +Uios, Swthr>--"JESUS CHRIST, the Son of God, the Saviour." Of course, +the obvious use of such a symbol was its entire unintelligibility to +those who had not yet been instructed in the mysteries of the Christian +faith, since in the days of persecution some degree of secrecy was +necessary. But the symbol has significance only in the Greek language, +and that of an entirely arbitrary nature. There is nothing in the nature +of the fish, apart from its name in Greek, which renders it suitable +to be used as a symbol of CHRIST. Contrast this pseudo-symbol, however, +with that of the Good Shepherd, the Lamb of God (fig. 34), or the Lion +of Judah. Here we have what may be regarded as true symbols, something +of whose meanings are clear to the smallest degree of spiritual sight, +even though the second of them has frequently been badly misinterpreted. + + +(2a) ARTHUR H. COLLINS, M.A.: _Symbolism of Animals and Birds +represented in English Church Architecture_ (1913). + +(1) A Kabalistic process by which a word is formed by taking the initial +letters of a sentence or phrase. + + +It was a belief in the spiritual or moral significance of nature similar +to that of the mystical expositors of the Bible, that inspired the +mediaeval naturalists. The Bestiaries almost invariably conclude the +account of each animal with the moral that might be drawn from its +behaviour. The interpretations are frequently very far-fetched, and +as the writers were more interested in the morals than in the facts +of natural history themselves, the supposed facts from which they drew +their morals were frequently very far from being of the nature of facts. +Sometimes the product of this inaccuracy is grotesque, as shown by the +following quotation: "The elephants are in an absurd way typical of Adam +and Eve, who ate of the forbidden fruit, and also have the dragon for +their enemy. It was supposed that the elephant... used to sleep by +leaning against a tree. The hunters would come by night, and cut the +trunk through. Down he would come, roaring helplessly. None of his +friends would be able to help him, until a small elephant should come +and lever him up with his trunk. This small elephant was symbolic of +Jesus Christ, Who came in great humility to rescue the human race which +had fallen 'through a tree.' "(1) + + +(1) A. H. COLLINS: _Symbolism of Animals, etc_., pp. 41 and 42. + + +In some cases, though the symbolism is based upon quite erroneous +notions concerning natural history, and is so far fantastic, it is not +devoid of charm. The use of the pelican to symbolise the Saviour is a +case in point. Legend tells us that when other food is unobtainable, the +pelican thrusts its bill into its breast (whence the red colour of the +bill) and feeds its young with its life-blood. Were this only a fact, +the symbol would be most appropriate. There is another and far less +charming form of the legend, though more in accord with current +perversions of Christian doctrine, according to which the pelican uses +its blood to revive its young, after having slain them through anger +aroused by the great provocation which they are supposed to give it. For +an example of the use of the pelican in church architecture see fig. 36. + +Mention must also be made of the purely fabulous animals of the +Bestiaries, such as the basilisk, centaur, dragon, griffin, hydra, +mantichora, unicorn, phoenix, _etc_. The centaur (fig. 39) was a beast, +half man, half horse. It typified the flesh or carnal mind of man, and +the legend of the perpetual war between the centaur and a certain tribe +of simple savages who were said to live in trees in India, symbolised +the combat between the flesh and the spirit.(1) + + +(1) A H. COLLINS: _Symbolism of Animals, etc_., pp. 150 and 153. + + +With bow and arrow in its hands the centaur forms the astrological +sign Sagittarius (or the Archer). An interesting example of this sign +occurring in church architecture is to be found on the western doorway +of Portchester Church--a most beautiful piece of Norman architecture. +"This sign of the Zodiac," writes the Rev. Canon VAUGHAN, M.A., a former +Vicar of Portchester, "was the badge of King Stephen, and its presence +on the west front (of Portchester Church) seems to indicate, what was +often the case elsewhere, that the elaborate Norman carving was not +carried out until after the completion of the building."(2) The facts, +however, that this Sagittarius is accompanied on the other side of the +doorway by a couple of fishes, which form the astrological sign Pisces +(or the Fishes), and that these two signs are what are termed, in +astrological phraseology, the "houses" of the planet Jupiter, the +"Major Fortune," suggest that the architect responsible for the design, +influenced by the astrological notions of his day, may have put the +signs there in order to attract Jupiter's beneficent influence. Or +he may have had the Sagittarius carved for the reason Canon VAUGHAN +suggests, and then, remembering how good a sign it was astrologically, +had the Pisces added to complete the effect.(1b) + + +(2) Rev. Canon VAUGHAN, M.A.: A Short History of Portchester Castle, p. +14. + +(1b) Two other possible explanations of the Pisces have been suggested +by the Rev. A. HEADLEY. In his MS. book written in 1888, when he was +Vicar of Portchester, he writes: "I have discovered an interesting proof +that it (the Church) was finished in Stephen's reign, namely, the figure +of Sagittarius in the Western Doorway. + +"Stephen adopted this as his badge for the double reason that it +formed part of the arms of the city of Blois, and that the sun was +in Sagittarius in December when he came to the throne. I, therefore, +conclude that this badge was placed where it is to mark the completion +of the church. + +"There is another sign of the Zodiac in the archway, apparently Pisces. +This may have been chosen to mark the month in which the church was +finished, or simply on account of its nearness to the sea. At one time +I fancied it might refer to March, the month in which Lady Day occurred, +thus referring to the Patron Saint, St Mary. As the sun leaves Pisces +just before Lady Day this does not explain it. Possibly in the old +calendar it might do so. This is a matter for further research." (I have +to thank the Rev. H. LAWRENCE FRY, present Vicar of Portchester, for +this quotation, and the Rev. A. HEADLEY for permission to utilise it.) + + +The phoenix and griffin we have encountered already in our excursions. +The latter, we are told, inhabits desert places in India, where it can +find nothing for its young to eat. It flies away to other regions +to seek food, and is sufficiently strong to carry off an ox. Thus it +symbolises the devil, who is ever anxious to carry away our souls to +the deserts of hell. Fig. 37 illustrates an example of the use of this +symbolic beast in church architecture. + +The mantichora is described by PLINY (whose statements were +unquestioningly accepted by the mediaeval naturalists), on the authority +of CTESIAS (_fl_. 400 B.C.), as having "A triple row of teeth, which fit +into each other like those of a comb, the face and ears of a man, and +azure eyes, is the colour of blood, has the body of the lion, and a tail +ending in a sting, like that of the scorpion. Its voice resembles the +union of the sound of the flute and the trumpet; it is of excessive +swiftness, and is particularly fond of human flesh."(1) + + +(1) PLINY: _Natural History_, bk. viii. chap. xxx. (BOSTOCK and RILEY'S +trans., vol. ii., 1855, p. 280.) + + +Concerning the unicorn, in an eighteenth-century work on natural history +we read that this is "a Beast, which though doubted of by many Writers, +yet is by others thus described: He has but one Horn, and that an +exceedingly rich one, growing out of the middle of his Forehead. His +Head resembles an Hart's, his Feet an Elephant's, his tail a Boar's, and +the rest of his Body an Horse's. The Horn is about a Foot and half in +length. His Voice is like the Lowing of an Ox. His Mane and Hair are +of a yellowish Colour. His Horn is as hard as Iron, and as rough as any +File, twisted or curled, like a flaming Sword; very straight, sharp, and +every where black, excepting the Point. Great Virtues are attributed to +it, in expelling of Poison and curing of several Diseases. He is not +a Beast of prey."(2) The method of capturing the animal believed in +by mediaeval writers was a curious one. The following is a literal +translation from the _Bestiary_ of PHILIPPE DE THAUN (12th century):-- + +(2) (THOMAS BOREMAN): _A Description of Three Hundred Animals_ (1730), +p. 6. + + "Monosceros is an animal which has one horn on its head, + Therefore it is so named; it has the form of a goat, + It is caught by means of a virgin, now hear in what manner. + When a man intends to hunt it and to take and ensnare it + He goes to the forest where is its repair; + There he places a virgin, with her breast uncovered, + And by its smell the monosceros perceives it; + Then it comes to the virgin, and kisses her breast, + Falls asleep on her lap, and so comes to its death; + The man arrives immediately, and kills it in its sleep, + Or takes it alive and does as he likes with it. + It signifies much, I will not omit to tell it you. + + "Monosceros is Greek, it means _one horn_ in French: + A beast of such a description signifies Jesus Christ; + One God he is and shall be, and was and will continue so; + He placed himself in the virgin, and took flesh for man's sake, + And for virginity to show chastity; + To a virgin he APPEARED and a virgin conceived him, + A virgin she is, and will be, and will remain always. + Now hear briefly the signification. + + "This animal in truth signifies God; + Know that the virgin signifies St Mary; + By her breast we understand similarly Holy Church; + And then by the kiss it ought to signify, + That a man when he sleeps is in semblance of death; + God slept as man, who suffered death on the cross, + And his destruction was our redemption, + And his labour our repose, + Thus God deceived the Devil by a proper semblance; + Soul and body were one, so was God and man, + And this is the signification of an animal of that description."(1) + + +(1) _Popular Treatises on Science written during the Middle Ages +in Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman, and English_, ed. by THOMAS WRIGHT +(Historical Society of Science, 1841), pp. 81-82. + +This being the current belief concerning the symbolism of the unicorn +in the Middle Ages, it is not surprising to find this animal utilised in +church architecture; for an example see fig. 35. + +The belief in the existence of these fabulous beasts may very probably +have been due to the materialising of what were originally nothing +more than mere arbitrary symbols, as I have already suggested of the +phoenix.(1) Thus the account of the mantichora may, as BOSTOCK has +suggested, very well be a description of certain hieroglyphic figures, +examples of which are still to be found in the ruins of Assyrian and +Persian cities. This explanation seems, on the whole, more likely +than the alternative hypothesis that such beliefs were due to +mal-observation; though that, no doubt, helped in their formation. + + +(1) "Superstitions concerning Birds." + + +It may be questioned, however, whether the architects and preachers +of the Middle Ages altogether believed in the strange fables of the +Bestiaries. As Mr COLLINS says in reply to this question: "Probably they +were credulous enough. But, on the whole, we may say that the truth of +the story was just what they did not trouble about, any more than some +clergymen are particular about the absolute truth of the stories they +tell children from the pulpit. The application, the lesson, is the +thing!" With their desire to interpret Nature spiritually, we ought, +I think, to sympathise. But there was one truth they had yet to learn, +namely, that in order to interpret Nature spiritually, it is necessary +first to understand her aright in her literal sense. + + + + +IX. THE QUEST OF THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE + +THE need of unity is a primary need of human thought. Behind the +varied multiplicity of the world of phenomena, primitive man, as I +have indicated on a preceding excursion, begins to seek, more or less +consciously, for that Unity which alone is Real. And this statement not +only applies to the first dim gropings of the primitive human mind, +but sums up almost the whole of science and philosophy; for almost all +science and philosophy is explicitly or implicitly a search for unity, +for one law or one love, one matter or one spirit. That which is the aim +of the search may, indeed, be expressed under widely different terms, +but it is always conceived to be the unity in which all multiplicity is +resolved, whether it be thought of as one final law of necessity, which +all things obey, and of which all the various other "laws of nature" are +so many special and limited applications; or as one final love for which +all things are created, and to which all things aspire; as one matter of +which all bodies are but varying forms; or as one spirit, which is the +life of all things, and of which all things are so many manifestations. +Every scientist and philosopher is a merchant seeking for goodly pearls, +willing to sell every pearl that he has, if he may secure the One Pearl +beyond price, because he knows that in that One Pearl all others are +included. + +This search for unity in multiplicity, however, is not confined to +the acknowledged scientist and philosopher. More or less unconsciously +everyone is engaged in this quest. Harmony and unity are the very +fundamental laws of the human mind itself, and, in a sense, all mental +activity is the endeavour to bring about a state of harmony and unity +in the mind. No two ideas that are contradictory of one another, and are +perceived to be of this nature, can permanently exist in any sane man's +mind. It is true that many people try to keep certain portions of their +mental life in water-tight compartments; thus some try to keep their +religious convictions and their business ideas, or their religious +faith and their scientific knowledge, separate from another one--and, it +seems, often succeed remarkably well in so doing. But, ultimately, the +arbitrary mental walls they have erected will break down by the force +of their own ideas. Contradictory ideas from different compartments will +then present themselves to consciousness at the same moment of time, +and the result of the perception of their contradictory nature will +be mental anguish and turmoil, persisting until one set of ideas is +conquered and overcome by the other, and harmony and unity are restored. + +It is true of all of us, then, that we seek for Unity--unity in mind and +life. Some seek it in science and a life of knowledge; some seek it in +religion and a life of faith; some seek it in human love and find it in +the life of service to their fellows; some seek it in pleasure and the +gratification of the senses' demands; some seek it in the harmonious +development of all the facets of their being. Many the methods, right +and wrong; many the terms under which the One is conceived, true +and false--in a sense, to use the phraseology of a bygone system of +philosophy, we are all, consciously or unconsciously, following paths +that lead thither or paths that lead away, seekers in the quest of the +Philosopher's Stone. + +Let us, in these excursions in the byways of thought, consider for a +while the form that the quest of fundamental unity took in the hands +of those curious mediaeval philosophers, half mystics, half +experimentalists in natural things--that are known by the name of +"alchemists." + +The common opinion concerning alchemy is that it was a pseudo-science or +pseudo-art flourishing during the Dark Ages, and having for its aim +the conversion of common metals into silver and gold by means of a most +marvellous and wholly fabulous agent called the Philosopher's Stone, +that its devotees were half knaves, half fools, whose views concerning +Nature were entirely erroneous, and whose objects were entirely +mercenary. This opinion is not absolutely destitute of truth; as a +science alchemy involved many fantastic errors; and in the course of its +history it certainly proved attractive to both knaves and fools. But if +this opinion involves some element of truth, it involves a far greater +proportion of error. Amongst the alchemists are numbered some of the +greatest intellects of the Middle Ages--ROGER BACON (_c_. 1214-1294), +for example, who might almost be called the father of experimental +science. And whether or not the desire for material wealth was a +secondary object, the true aim of the genuine alchemist was a much +nobler one than this as one of them exclaims with true scientific +fervour: "Would to God... all men might become adepts in our Art--for +then gold, the great idol of mankind, would lose its value, and we +should prize it only for its scientific teaching."(1) Moreover, recent +developments in physical and chemical science seem to indicate that the +alchemists were not so utterly wrong in their concept of Nature as has +formerly been supposed--that, whilst they certainly erred in both their +methods and their interpretations of individual phenomena, they did +intuitively grasp certain fundamental facts concerning the universe +ofthe very greatest importance. + + +(1) EIRENAEUS PHILALETHES: _An Open Entrance to the Closed Palace of the +King_. (See _The Hermetic Museum, Restored and Enlarged_, ed. by A. E. +WAITE, 1893, vol. ii. p. 178.) + + +Suppose, however, that the theories of the alchemists are entirely +erroneous from beginning to end, and are nowhere relieved by the merest +glimmer of truth. Still they were believed to be true, and this belief +had an important influence upon human thought. Many men of science +have, I am afraid, been too prone to regard the mystical views of the +alchemists as unintelligible; but, whatever their theories may be to us, +these theories were certainly very real to them: it is preposterous to +maintain that the writings of the alchemists are without meaning, even +though their views are altogether false. And the more false their views +are believed to be, the more necessary does it become to explain why +they should have gained such universal credit. Here we have problems +into which scientific inquiry is not only legitimate, but, I think, very +desirable,--apart altogether from the question of the truth or falsity +of alchemy as a science, or its utility as an art. What exactly was the +system of beliefs grouped under the term "alchemy," and what was its +aim? Why were the beliefs held? What was their precise influence upon +human thought and culture? + +It was in order to elucidate problems of this sort, as well as to +determine what elements of truth, if any, there are in the theories of +the alchemists, that The Alchemical Society was founded in 1912, mainly +through my own efforts and those of my confreres, and for the first time +something like justice was being done to the memory of the alchemists +when the Society's activities were stayed by that greatest calamity of +history, the European War. + +Some students of the writings of the alchemists have advanced a very +curious and interesting theory as to the aims of the alchemists, which +may be termed "the transcendental theory". According to this theory, the +alchemists were concerned only with the mystical processes affecting +the soul of man, and their chemical references are only to be understood +symbolically. In my opinion, however, this view of the subject is +rendered untenable by the lives of the alchemists themselves; for, as +Mr WAITE has very fully pointed out in his _Lives of Alchemystical +Philosophers_ (1888), the lives of the alchemists show them to have been +mainly concerned with chemical and physical processes; and, indeed, to +their labours we owe many valuable discoveries of a chemical nature. But +the fact that such a theory should ever have been formulated, and +should not be altogether lacking in consistency, may serve to direct our +attention to the close connection between alchemy and mysticism. + +If we wish to understand the origin and aims of alchemy we must +endeavour to recreate the atmosphere of the Middle Ages, and to look at +the subject from the point of view of the alchemists themselves. Now, +this atmosphere was, as I have indicated in a previous essay, surcharged +with mystical theology and mystical philosophy. Alchemy, so to speak, +was generated and throve in a dim religious light. We cannot open a book +by any one of the better sort of alchemists without noticing how closely +their theology and their chemistry are interwoven, and what a remarkably +religious view they take of their subject. Thus one alchemist writes: +"In the first place, let every devout and God-fearing chemist and +student of this Art consider that this arcanum should be regarded, not +only as a truly great, but as a most holy Art (seeing that it typifies +and shadows out the highest heavenly good). Therefore, if any man desire +to reach this great and unspeakable Mystery, he must remember that it is +obtained not by the might of man, but by the grace of God, and that not +our will or desire, but only the mercy of the Most High, can bestow it +upon us. For this reason you must first of all cleanse your heart, +lift it up to Him alone, and ask of Him this gift in true, earnest and +undoubting prayer. He alone can give and bestow it."(1) Whilst another +alchemist declares: "I am firmly persuaded that any unbeliever who +got truly to know this Art, would straightway confess the truth of +our Blessed Religion, and believe in the Trinity and in our Lord JESUS +CHRIST."(2) + + +(1) _The Sophic Hydrolith; or, Water Stone of the Wise_. (See _The +Hermetic Museum_, vol. i. pp. 74 and 75.) + +(2) PETER BONUS: _The New Pearl of Great Price_ (trans. by A. E. WAITE, +1894), p. 275. + + +Now, what I suggest is that the alchemists constructed their chemical +theories for the main part by means of _a priori_ reasoning, and that +the premises from which they started were (i.) the truth of mystical +theology, especially the doctrine of the soul's regeneration, and (ii.) +the truth of mystical philosophy, which asserts that the objects of +Nature are symbols of spiritual verities. There is, I think, abundant +evidence to show that alchemy was a more or less deliberate attempt +to apply, according to the principles of analogy, the doctrines of +religious mysticism to chemical and physical phenomena. Some of this +evidence I shall attempt to put forward in this essay. + +In the first place, however, I propose to say a few words more in +description of the theological and philosophical doctrines which so +greatly influenced the alchemists, and which, I believe, they borrowed +for their attempted explanations of chemical and physical phenomena. +This system of doctrine I have termed "mysticism"--a word which is +unfortunately equivocal, and has been used to denote various systems +of religious and philosophical thought, from the noblest to the most +degraded. I have, therefore, further to define my usage of the term. + +By mystical theology I mean that system of religious thought which +emphasises the unity between Creator and creature, though not +necessarily to the extent of becoming pantheistic. Man, mystical +theology asserts, has sprung from God, but has fallen away from Him +through self-love. Within man, however, is the seed of divine grace, +whereby, if he will follow the narrow road of self-renunciation, he may +be regenerated, born anew, becoming transformed into the likeness of God +and ultimately indissolubly united to God in love. God is at once the +Creator and the Restorer of man's soul, He is the Origin as well as the +End of all existence; and He is also the Way to that End. In Christian +mysticism, CHRIST is the Pattern, towards which the mystic strives; +CHRIST also is the means towards the attainment of this end. + +By mystical philosophy I mean that system of philosophical thought which +emphasises the unity of the Cosmos, asserting that God and the spiritual +may be perceived immanent in the things of this world, because all +things natural are symbols and emblems of spiritual verities. As one of +the _Golden Verses_ attributed to PYTHAGORAS, which I have quoted in a +previous essay, puts it: "The Nature of this Universe is in all things +alike"; commenting upon which, HIEROCLES, writing in the fifth or sixth +century, remarks that "Nature, in forming this Universe after the Divine +Measure and Proportion, made it in all things conformable and like to +itself, analogically in different manners. Of all the different species, +diffused throughout the whole, it made, as it were, an Image of the +Divine Beauty, imparting variously to the copy the perfections of the +Original."(1) We have, however, already encountered so many instances of +this belief, that no more need be said here concerning it. + + +(1) _Commentary of_ HIEROCLES _on the Golden Verses of_ PYTHAGORAS +(trans. by N. ROWE, 1906), pp. 101 and 102. + + +In fine, as Dean INGE well says: "Religious Mysticism may be defined as +the attempt to realise the presence of the living God in the soul and in +nature, or, more generally, as _the attempt to realise, in thought +and feeling, the immanence of the temporal in the eternal, and of the +eternal in the temporal_."(2) + + +(2) WILLIAM RALPH INGE, M.A.: _Christian Mysticism_ (the Bampton +Lectures, 1899), p. 5. + + +Now, doctrines such as these were not only very prevalent during the +Middle Ages, when alchemy so greatly flourished, but are of great +antiquity, and were undoubtedly believed in by the learned class in +Egypt and elsewhere in the East in those remote days when, as some +think, alchemy originated, though the evidence, as will, I hope, become +plain as we proceed, points to a later and post-Christian origin for the +central theorem of alchemy. So far as we can judge from their writings, +the more important alchemists were convinced of the truth of these +doctrines, and it was with such beliefs in mind that they commenced +their investigations of physical and chemical phenomena. Indeed, if we +may judge by the esteem in which the Hermetic maxim, "What is above +is as that which is below, what is below is as that which is above, to +accomplish the miracles of the One Thing," was held by every alchemist, +we are justified in asserting that the mystical theory of the spiritual +significance of Nature--a theory with which, as we have seen, is closely +connected the Neoplatonic and Kabalistic doctrine that all things +emanate in series from the Divine Source of all Being--was at the very +heart of alchemy. As writes one alchemist: "... the Sages have been +taught of God that this natural world is only an image and material copy +of a heavenly and spiritual pattern; that the very existence of this +world is based upon the reality of its celestial archetype; and that God +has created it in imitation of the spiritual and invisible universe, in +order that men might be the better enabled to comprehend His heavenly +teaching, and the wonders of His absolute and ineffable power and +wisdom. Thus the sage sees heaven reflected in Nature as in a mirror; +and he pursues this Art, not for the sake of gold or silver, but for the +love of the knowledge which it reveals; he jealously conceals it from +the sinner and the scornful, lest the mysteries of heaven should be laid +bare to the vulgar gaze."(1) + + +(1) MICHAEL SENDIVOGIUS (?): _The New Chemical Light, Pt. II., +Concerning Sulphur_. (See _The Hermetic Museum_, vol. ii. p. 138.) + + +The alchemists, I hold, convinced of the truth of this view of Nature, +_i.e_. that principles true of one plane of being are true also of all +other planes, adopted analogy as their guide in dealing with the facts +of chemistry and physics known to them. They endeavoured to explain +these facts by an application to them of the principles of mystical +theology, their chief aim being to prove the truth of these principles +as applied to the facts of the natural realm, and by studying natural +phenomena to become instructed in spiritual truth. They did not proceed +by the sure, but slow, method of modern science, _i.e_. the method of +induction, which questions experience at every step in the construction +of a theory; but they boldly allowed their imaginations to leap ahead +and to formulate a complete theory of the Cosmos on the strength of but +few facts. This led them into many fantastic errors, but I would not +venture to deny them an intuitive perception of certain fundamental +truths concerning the constitution of the Cosmos, even if they distorted +these truths and dressed them in a fantastic garb. + +Now, as I hope to make plain in the course of this excursion, the +alchemists regarded the discovery of the Philosopher's Stone and the +transmutation of "base" metals into gold as the consummation of the +proof of the doctrines of mystical theology as applied to chemical +phenomena, and it was as such that they so ardently sought to achieve +the _magnum opus_, as this transmutation was called. Of course, it +would be useless to deny that many, accepting the truth of the great +alchemical theorem, sought for the Philosopher's Stone because of what +was claimed for it in the way of material benefits. But, as I have +already indicated, with the nobler alchemists this was not the case, and +the desire for wealth, if present at all, was merely a secondary object. + +The idea expressed in DALTON'S atomic hypothesis (1802), and universally +held during the nineteenth century, that the material world is made up +of a certain limited number of elements unalterable in quantity, subject +in themselves to no change or development, and inconvertible one into +another, is quite alien to the views of the alchemists. The alchemists +conceived the universe to be a unity; they believed that all material +bodies had been developed from one seed; their elements are merely +different forms of one matter and, therefore, convertible one into +another. They were thoroughgoing evolutionists with regard to the things +of the material world, and their theory concerning the evolution of the +metals was, I believe, the direct outcome of a metallurgical application +of the mystical doctrine of the soul's development and regeneration. The +metals, they taught, all spring from the same seed in Nature's womb, +but are not all equally matured and perfect; for, as they say, although +Nature always intends to produce only gold, various impurities impede +the process. In the metals the alchemists saw symbols of man in the +various stages of his spiritual development. Gold, the most beautiful +as well as the most untarnishable metal, keeping its beauty permanently, +unaffected by sulphur, most acids, and fire--indeed, purified by such +treatment,--gold, to the alchemist, was the symbol of regenerate man, +and therefore he called it "a noble metal". Silver was also termed +"noble"; but it was regarded as less mature than gold, for, although +it is undoubtedly beautiful and withstands the action of fire, it is +corroded by nitric acid and is blackened by sulphur; it was, therefore, +considered to be analogous to the regenerate man at a lower stage of his +development. Possibly we shall not be far wrong in using SWEDENBORG'S +terms, "celestial" to describe the man of gold, "spiritual" to designate +him of silver. Lead, on the other hand, the alchemists regarded as a +very immature and impure metal: heavy and dull, corroded by sulphur and +nitric acid, and converted into a calx by the action of fire,--lead, +to the alchemists, was a symbol of man in a sinful and unregenerate +condition. + +The alchemists assumed the existence of three principles in the metals, +their obvious reason for so doing being the mystical threefold division +of man into body, soul (_i.e_. affections and will), and spirit +(_i.e_. intelligence), though the principle corresponding to body was +a comparatively late introduction in alchemical philosophy. This latter +fact, however, is no argument against my thesis; because, of course, +I do not maintain that the alchemists started out with their chemical +philosophy ready made, but gradually worked it out, by incorporating in +it further doctrines drawn from mystical theology. The three principles +just referred to were called "mercury," "sulphur," and "salt"; and they +must be distinguished from the common bodies so designated (though the +alchemists themselves seem often guilty of confusing them). "Mercury" +is the metallic principle _par excellence_, conferring on metals +their brightness and fusibility, and corresponding to the spirit or +intelligence in man.(1) "Sulphur," the principle of combustion and +colour, is the analogue of the soul. Many alchemists postulated two +sulphurs in the metals, an inward and an outward.(1b) The outward +sulphur was thought to be the chief cause of metallic impurity, and the +reason why all (known) metals, save gold and silver, were acted on by +fire. The inward sulphur, on the other hand, was regarded as essential +to the development of the metals: pure mercury, we are told, matured by +a pure inward sulphur yields pure gold. Here again it is evident that +the alchemists borrowed their theories from mystical theology; for, +clearly, inward sulphur is nothing else than the equivalent to love of +God; outward sulphur to love of self. Intelligence (mercury) matured by +love to God (inward sulphur) exactly expresses the spiritual state of +the regenerate man according to mystical theology. There is no reason, +other than their belief in analogy, why the alchemists should have held +such views concerning the metals. "Salt," the principle of solidity +and resistance to fire, corresponding to the body in man, plays a +comparatively unimportant part in alchemical theory, as does its +prototype in mystical theology. + + +(1) The identification of the god MERCURY with THOTH, the Egyptian god +of learning, is worth noticing in this connection. + +(1b) Pseudo-GEBER, whose writings were highly esteemed, for instance. +See R. RUSSEL'S translation of his works (1678), p. 160. + + +Now, as I have pointed out already, the central theorem of mystical +theology is, in Christian terminology, that of the regeneration of the +soul by the Spirit of CHRIST. The corresponding process in alchemy is +that of the transmutation of the "base" metals into silver and gold by +the agency of the Philosopher's Stone. Merely to remove the evil sulphur +of the "base" metals, thought the alchemists, though necessary, is not +sufficient to transmute them into "noble" metals; a maturing process is +essential, similar to that which they supposed was effected in Nature's +womb. Mystical theology teaches that the powers and life of the soul +are not inherent in it, but are given by the free grace of God. Neither, +according to the alchemists, are the powers and life of nature in +herself, but in that immanent spirit, the Soul of the World, that +animates her. As writes the famous alchemist who adopted the pleasing +pseudonym of "BASIL VALENTINE" (_c_. 1600), "the power of growth... is +imparted not by the earth, but by the life-giving spirit that is in +it. If the earth were deserted by this spirit, it would be dead, and +no longer able to afford nourishment to anything. For its sulphur or +richness would lack the quickening spirit without which there can be +neither life nor growth."(1a) To perfect the metals, therefore, the +alchemists argued, from analogy with mystical theology, which teaches +that men can be regenerated only by the power of CHRIST within the soul, +that it is necessary to subject them to the action of this world-spirit, +this one essence underlying all the varied powers of nature, this One +Thing from which "all things were produced... by adaption, and which +is the cause of all perfection throughout the whole world."(2a) "This," +writes one alchemist, "is the Spirit of Truth, which the world cannot +comprehend without the interposition of the Holy Ghost, or without the +instruction of those who know it. The same is of a mysterious nature, +wondrous strength, boundless power.... By Avicenna this Spirit is named +the Soul of the World. For, as the Soul moves all the limbs of the Body, +so also does this Spirit move all bodies. And as the Soul is in all +the limbs of the Body, so also is this Spirit in all elementary created +things. It is sought by many and found by few. It is beheld from afar +and found near; for it exists in every thing, in every place, and at all +times. It has the powers of all creatures; its action is found in all +elements, and the qualities of all things are therein, even in the +highest perfection... it heals all dead and living bodies without other +medicine... converts all metallic bodies into gold, and there is nothing +like unto it under Heaven."(1b) It was this Spirit, concentrated in all +its potency in a suitable material form, which the alchemists sought +under the name of "the Philosopher's Stone". Now, mystical theology +teaches that the Spirit of CHRIST, by which alone the soul of man can be +tinctured and transmuted into the likeness of God, is Goodness itself; +consequently, the alchemists argued that the Philosopher's Stone must +be, so to speak, Gold itself, or the very essence of Gold: it was to +them, as CHRIST is of the soul's perfection, at once the pattern and +the means of metallic perfection. "The Philosopher's Stone," declares +"EIRENAEUS PHILALETHES" (_nat. c_. 1623), "is a certain heavenly, +spiritual, penetrative, and fixed substance, which brings all metals +to the perfection of gold or silver (according to the quality of the +Medicine), and that by natural methods, which yet in their effects +transcend Nature.... Know, then, that it is called a stone, not because +it is like a stone, but only because, by virtue of its fixed nature, it +resists the action of fire as successfully as any stone. In species it +is gold, more pure than the purest; it is fixed and incombustible like +a stone (_i.e_. it contains no outward sulphur, but only inward, fixed +sulphur), but its appearance is that of a very fine powder, impalpable +to the touch, sweet to the taste, fragrant to the smell, in potency a +most penetrative spirit, apparently dry and yet unctuous, and easily +capable of tingeing a plate of metal.... If we say that its nature is +spiritual, it would be no more than the truth; if we described it as +corporeal the expression would be equally correct; for it is subtle, +penetrative, glorified, spiritual gold. It is the noblest of all created +things after the rational soul, and has virtue to repair all defects +both in animal and metallic bodies, by restoring them to the most exact +and perfect temper; wherefore is it a spirit or 'quintessence.'"(1c) + + +(1a) BASIL VALENTINE: _The Twelve Keys_. (See _The Hermetic Museum_, +vol. i. pp. 333 and 334.) + +(2a) From the "Smaragdine Table," attributed to HERMES TRISMEGISTOS +(_ie_. MERCURY or THOTH). + +(1b) _The Book of the Revelation of_ HERMES, _interpreted by_ +THEOPHRASTUS PARACELSUS, _concerning the Supreme Secret of the World_. +(See BENEDICTUS FIGULUS, _A Golden and Blessed Casket of Nature's +Marvels_, trans. by A. E. WAITE, 1893, pp. 36, 37, and 41.) + +(1c) EIRENAEUS PHILALETHES: _A Brief Guide to the Celestial Ruby_. (See +_The Hermetic Museum_, vol. ii. pp. 246 and 249.) + + +In other accounts the Philosopher's Stone, or at least the _materia +prima_ of which it is compounded, is spoken of as a despised substance, +reckoned to be of no value. Thus, according to one curious alchemistic +work, "This matter, so precious by the excellent Gifts, wherewith Nature +has enriched it, is truly mean, with regard to the Substances from +whence it derives its Original. Their price is not above the Ability of +the Poor. Ten Pence is more than sufficient to purchase the Matter of +the Stone.... The matter therefore is mean, considering the Foundation +of the Art because it costs very little; it is no less mean, if one +considers exteriourly that which gives it Perfection, since in that +regard it costs nothing at all, in as much as _all the World has it in +its Power_... so that... it is a constant Truth, that the Stone is a +Thing mean in one Sense, but that in another it is most precious, and +that there are none but Fools that despise it, by a just Judgment of +God."(1) And JACOB BOEHME (1575--1624) writes: "The _philosopher's +stone_ is a very dark, disesteemed stone, of a grey colour, but therein +lieth the highest tincture."(2) In these passages there is probably some +reference to the ubiquity of the Spirit of the World, already referred +to in a former quotation. But this fact is not, in itself, sufficient +to account for them. I suggest that their origin is to be found in the +religious doctrine that God's Grace, the Spirit of CHRIST that is the +means of the transmutation of man's soul into spiritual gold, is free to +all; that it is, at once, the meanest and the most precious thing in the +whole Universe. Indeed, I think it quite probable that the alchemists +who penned the above-quoted passages had in mind the words of ISAIAH, +"He was despised and we esteemed him not." And if further evidence +is required that the alchemists believed in a correspondence between +CHRIST--"the Stone which the builders rejected"--and the Philosopher's +Stone, reference may be made to the alchemical work called _The Sophic +Hydrolith: or Water Stone of the Wise_, a tract included in _The +Hermetic Museum_, in which this supposed correspondence is explicitly +asserted and dealt with in some detail. + + +(1) _A Discourse between Eudoxus and Pyrophilus, upon the Ancient War +of the Knights_. See _The Hermetical Triumph: or, the Victorious +Philosophical Stone_ (1723), pp. 101 and 102. + +(2) JACOB BOEHME: _Epistles_ (trans. by J. E., 1649, reprinted 1886), +Ep. iv., SE III. + + +Apart from the alchemists' belief in the analogy between natural and +spiritual things, it is, I think, incredible that any such theories of +the metals and the possibility of their transmutation or "regeneration" +by such an extraordinary agent as the Philosopher's Stone would have +occurred to the ancient investigators of Nature's secrets. When they +had started to formulate these theories, facts(1) were discovered which +appeared to support them; but it is, I suggest, practically impossible +to suppose that any or all of these facts would, in themselves, have +been sufficient to give rise to such wonderfully fantastic theories as +these: it is only from the standpoint of the theory that alchemy was +a direct offspring of mysticism that its origin seems to be capable of +explanation. + + + +(1) One of those facts, amongst many others, that appeared to confirm +the alchemical doctrines, was the ease with which iron could apparently +be transmuted into copper. It was early observed that iron vessels +placed in contact with a solution of blue vitriol became converted (at +least, so far as their surfaces were concerned) into copper. This we now +know to be due to the fact that the copper originally contained in the +vitriol is thrown out of solution, whilst the iron takes its place. And +we know, also, that no more copper can be obtained in this way from the +blue vitriol than is actually used up in preparing it; and, further, +that all the iron which is apparently converted into copper can be got +out of the residual solution by appropriate methods, if such be desired; +so that the facts really support DALTON'S theory rather than the +alchemical doctrines. But to the alchemist it looked like a real +transmutation of iron into copper, confirmation of his fond belief that +iron and other base metals could be transmuted into silver and gold by +the aid of the Great Arcanum of Nature. + + +In all the alchemical doctrines mystical connections are evident, and +mystical origins can generally be traced. I shall content myself here +with giving a couple of further examples. Consider, in the first place, +the alchemical doctrine of purification by putrefaction, that the metals +must die before they can be resurrected and truly live, that through +death alone are they purified--in the more prosaic language of modern +chemistry, death becomes oxidation, and rebirth becomes reduction. In +many alchemical books there are to be found pictorial symbols of the +putrefaction and death of metals and their new birth in the state of +silver or gold, or as the Stone itself, together with descriptions of +these processes. The alchemists sought to kill or destroy the body +or outward form of the metals, in the hope that they might get at and +utilise the living essence they believed to be immanent within. As +PARACELSUS put it: "Nothing of true value is located in the body of a +substance, but in the virtue... the less there is of body, the more in +proportion is the virtue." It seems to me quite obvious that in such +ideas as these we have the application to metallurgy of the mystic +doctrine of self-renunciation--that the soul must die to self before it +can live to God; that the body must be sacrificed to the spirit, and the +individual will bowed down utterly to the One Divine Will, before it can +become one therewith. + +In the second place, consider the directions as to the colours that +must be obtained in the preparation of the Philosopher's Stone, if +a successful issue to the Great Work is desired. Such directions are +frequently given in considerable detail in alchemical works; and, +without asserting any exact uniformity, I think that I may state that +practically all the alchemists agree that three great colour-stages are +necessary--(i.) an inky blackness, which is termed the "Crow's Head" and +is indicative of putrefaction; (ii.) a white colour indicating that +the Stone is now capable of converting "base" metals into silver; this +passes through orange into (iii.) a red colour, which shows that the +Stone is now perfect, and will transmute "base" metals into gold. Now, +what was the reason for the belief in these three colour-stages, and +for their occurrence in the above order? I suggest that no alchemist +actually obtained these colours in this order in his chemical +experiments, and that we must look for a speculative origin for the +belief in them. We have, I think, only to turn to religious mysticism +for this origin. For the exponents of religious mysticism unanimously +agree to a threefold division of the life of the mystic. The first stage +is called "the dark night of the soul," wherein it seems as if the soul +were deserted by God, although He is very near. It is the time of trial, +when self is sacrificed as a duty and not as a delight. Afterwards, +however, comes the morning light of a new intelligence, which marks the +commencement of that stage of the soul's upward progress that is called +the "illuminative life". All the mental powers are now concentrated on +God, and the struggle is transferred from without to the inner man, good +works being now done, as it were, spontaneously. The disciple, in this +stage, not only does unselfish deeds, but does them from unselfish +motives, being guided by the light of Divine Truth. The third stage, +which is the consummation of the process, is termed "the contemplative +life". It is barely describable. The disciple is wrapped about with the +Divine Love, and is united thereby with his Divine Source. It is the +life of love, as the illuminative life is that of wisdom. I suggest that +the alchemists, believing in this threefold division of the regenerative +process, argued that there must be three similar stages in the +preparation of the Stone, which was the pattern of all metallic +perfection; and that they derived their beliefs concerning the +colours, and other peculiarities of each stage in the supposed chemical +process, from the characteristics of each stage in the psychological +process according to mystical theology. + +Moreover, in the course of the latter process many flitting thoughts and +affections arise and deeds are half-wittingly done which are not of the +soul's true character; and in entire agreement with this, we read of +the alchemical process, in the highly esteemed "Canons" of D'ESPAGNET: +"Besides these decretory signs (_i.e_. the black, white, orange, and +red colours) which firmly inhere in the matter, and shew its essential +mutations, almost infinite colours appear, and shew themselves in +vapours, as the Rainbow in the clouds, which quickly pass away and are +expelled by those that succeed, more affecting the air than the earth: +the operator must have a gentle care of them, because they are not +permanent, and proceed not from the intrinsic disposition of the matter, +but from the fire painting and fashioning everything after its pleasure, +or casually by heat in slight moisture."(1) That D'ESPAGNET is arguing, +not so much from actual chemical experiments, as from analogy with +psychological processes in man, is, I think, evident. + + +(1) JEAN D'ESPAGNET: _Hermetic Arcanum_, canon 65. (See _Collectanea +Hermetica_, ed. by W. WYNN WESTCOTT, vol. i., 1893, pp. 28 and 29.) + + +As well as a metallic, the alchemists believed in a physiological, +application of the fundamental doctrines of mysticism: their physiology +was analogically connected with their metallurgy, the same principles +holding good in each case. PARACELSUS, as we have seen, taught that +man is a microcosm, a world in miniature; his spirit, the Divine Spark +within, is from God; his soul is from the Stars, extracted from the +Spirit of the World; and his body is from the earth, extracted from the +elements of which all things material are made. This view of man was +shared by many other alchemists. The Philosopher's Stone, therefore (or, +rather, a solution of it in alcohol) was also regarded as the Elixir of +Life; which, thought the alchemists, would not endow man with physical +immortality, as is sometimes supposed, but restore him again to the +flower of youth, "regenerating" him physiologically. Failing this, of +course, they regarded gold in a potable form as the next most powerful +medicine--a belief which probably led to injurious effects in some +cases. + +Such are the facts from which I think we are justified in concluding, +as I have said, "that the alchemists constructed their chemical theories +for the main part by means of _a priori_ reasoning, and that the +premises from which they started were (i.) the truth of mystical +theology, especially the doctrine of the soul's regeneration, and (ii.) +the truth of mystical philosophy, which asserts that the objects of +nature are symbols of spiritual verities."(1) + + +(1) In the following excursion we will wander again in the alchemical +bypaths of thought, and certain objections to this view of the origin +and nature of alchemy will be dealt with and, I hope, satisfactorily +answered. + + +It seems to follow, _ex hypothesi_, that every alchemical work ought to +permit of two interpretations, one physical, the other transcendental. +But I would not venture to assert this, because, as I think, many of +the lesser alchemists knew little of the origin of their theories, +nor realised their significance. They were concerned merely with +these theories in their strictly metallurgical applications, and any +transcendental meaning we can extract from their works was not intended +by the writers themselves. However, many alchemists, I conceive, +especially the better sort, realised more or less clearly the dual +nature of their subject, and their books are to some extent intended to +permit of a double interpretation, although the emphasis is laid upon +the physical and chemical application of mystical doctrine. And there +are a few writers who adopted alchemical terminology on the principle +that, if the language of theology is competent to describe chemical +processes, then, conversely, the language of alchemy must be competent +to describe psychological processes: this is certainly and entirely true +of JACOB BOEHME, and, to some extent also, I think, of HENRY KHUNRATH +(1560-1605) and THOMAS VAUGHAN (1622-1666). + +As may be easily understood, many of the alchemists led most romantic +lives, often running the risk of torture and death at the hands +of avaricious princes who believed them to be in possession of the +Philosopher's Stone, and adopted such pleasant methods of extorting (or, +at least, of trying to extort) their secrets. A brief sketch, which I +quote from my _Alchemy: Ancient and Modern_ (1911), SE 54, of the lives +of ALEXANDER SETHON and MICHAEL SENDIVOGIUS, will serve as an example:-- + +"The date and birthplace of ALEXANDER SETHON, a Scottish alchemist, do +not appear to have been recorded, but MICHAEL SENDIVOGIUS was probably +born in Moravia about 1566. Sethon, we are told, was in possession of +the arch-secrets of Alchemy. He visited Holland in 1602, proceeded after +a time to Italy, and passed through Basle to Germany; meanwhile he +is said to have performed many transmutations. Ultimately arriving +at Dresden, however, he fell into the clutches of the young Elector, +Christian II., who, in order to extort his secret, cast him into prison +and put him to the torture, but without avail. Now it so happened that +Sendivogius, who was in quest of the Philosopher's Stone, was staying +at Dresden, and hearing of Sethon's imprisonment obtained permission to +visit him. Sendivogius offered to effect Sethon's escape in return +for assistance in his alchemistic pursuits, to which arrangement the +Scottish alchemist willingly agreed. After some considerable outlay of +money in bribery, Sendivogius's plan of escape was successfully carried +out, and Sethon found himself a free man; but he refused to betray the +high secrets of Hermetic philosophy to his rescuer. However, before his +death, which occurred shortly afterwards, he presented him with an ounce +of the transmutative powder. Sendivogius soon used up this powder, we +are told, in effecting transmutations and cures, and, being fond of +expensive living, he married Sethon's widow, in the hope that she was +in the possession of the transmutative secret. In this, however, he was +disappointed; she knew nothing of the matter, but she had the manuscript +of an alchemistic work written by her late husband. Shortly afterwards +Sendivogius printed at Prague a book entitled _The New Chemical Light_ +under the name of 'Cosmopolita,' which is said to have been this work of +Sethon's, but which Sendivogius claimed for his own by the insertion +of his name on the title page, in the form of an anagram. The tract _On +Sulphur_ which was printed at the end of the book in later editions, +however, is said to have been the genuine work of the Moravian. Whilst +his powder lasted, Sendivogius travelled about, performing, we are told, +many transmutations. He was twice imprisoned in order to extort the +secrets of alchemy from him, on one occasion escaping, and on the other +occasion obtaining his release from the Emperor Rudolph. Afterwards, he +appears to have degenerated into an impostor, but this is said to have +been a _finesse_ to hide his true character as an alchemistic adept. He +died in 1646." + +However, all the alchemists were not of the apparent character of +SENDIVOGIUS--many of them leading holy and serviceable lives. The +alchemist-physician J. B. VAN HELMONT (1577-1644), who was a man of +extraordinary benevolence, going about treating the sick poor freely, +may be particularly mentioned. He, too, claimed to have performed the +transmutation of "base" metal into gold, as did also HELVETIUS (whom we +have already met), physician to the Prince of Orange, with a wonderful +preparation given to him by a stranger. The testimony of these two +latter men is very difficult either to explain or to explain away, but +I cannot deal with this question here, but must refer the reader to a +paper on the subject by Mr GASTON DE MENGEL, and the discussion thereon, +published in vol. i. of _The Journal of the Alchemical Society_. + +In conclusion, I will venture one remark dealing with a matter outside +of the present inquiry. Alchemy ended its days in failure and fraud; +charlatans and fools were attracted to it by purely mercenary objects, +who knew nothing of the high aims of the genuine alchemists, and +scientific men looked elsewhere for solutions of Nature's problems. +Why did alchemy fail? Was it because its fundamental theorems were +erroneous? I think not. I consider the failure of the alchemical theory +of Nature to be due rather to the misapplication of these fundamental +concepts, to the erroneous use of _a priori_ methods of reasoning, to a +lack of a sufficiently wide knowledge of natural phenomena to which +to apply these concepts, to a lack of adequate apparatus with which to +investigate such phenomena experimentally, and to a lack of mathematical +organons of thought with which to interpret such experimental results +had they been obtained. As for the basic concepts of alchemy themselves, +such as the fundamental unity of the Cosmos and the evolution of the +elements, in a word, the applicability of the principles of mysticism to +natural phenomena: these seem to me to contain a very valuable element +of truth--a statement which, I think, modern scientific research +justifies me in making,--though the alchemists distorted this truth and +expressed it in a fantastic form. I think, indeed, that in the modern +theories of energy and the all-pervading ether, the etheric and +electrical origin and nature of matter and the evolution of the +elements, we may witness the triumphs of mysticism as applied to the +interpretation of Nature. Whether or not we shall ever transmute lead +into gold, I believe there is a very true sense in which we may say +that alchemy, purified by its death, has been proved true, whilst the +materialistic view of Nature has been proved false. + + + + +X. THE PHALLIC ELEMENT IN ALCHEMICAL DOCTRINE + +THE problem of alchemy presents many aspects to our view, but, to my +mind, the most fundamental of these is psychological, or, perhaps I +should say, epistemological. It has been said that the proper study of +mankind is man; and to study man we must study the beliefs of man. Now +so long as we neglect great tracts of such beliefs, because they have +been, or appear to have been, superseded, so long will our study be +incomplete and ineffectual. And this, let me add, is no mere excuse for +the study of alchemy, no mere afterthought put forward in justification +of a predilection, but a plain statement of fact that renders this study +an imperative need. There are other questions of interest--of very great +interest--concerning alchemy: questions, for instance, as to the +scope and validity of its doctrines; but we ought not to allow their +fascination and promise to distract our attention from the fundamental +problem, whose solution is essential to their elucidation. + +In the preceding essay on "The Quest of the Philosopher's Stone," which +was written from the standpoint I have sketched in the foregoing words, +my thesis was "that the alchemists constructed their chemical theories +for the main part by means of _a priori_ reasoning, and that the +premises from which they started were (i.) the truth of mystical +theology, especially the doctrine of the soul's regeneration, and (ii.) +the truth of mystical philosophy, which asserts that the objects of +nature are symbols of spiritual verities." Now, I wish to treat my +present thesis, which is concerned with a further source from which the +alchemists derived certain of their views and modes of expression by +means of _a priori_ reasoning, in connection with, and, in a sense, +as complementary to, my former thesis. I propose in the first place, +therefore, briefly to deal with certain possible objections to this view +of alchemy. + +It has, for instance, been maintained(1) that the assimilation of +alchemical doctrines concerning the metals to those of mysticism +concerning the soul was an event late in the history of alchemy, and was +undertaken in the interests of the latter doctrines. Now we know that +certain mystics of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries did borrow +from the alchemists much of their terminology with which to discourse +of spiritual mysteries--JACOB BOEHME, HENRY KHUNRATH, and perhaps THOMAS +VAUGHAN, may be mentioned as the most prominent cases in point. But how +was this possible if it were not, as I have suggested, the repayment, in +a sense, of a sort of philological debt? Transmutation was an admirable +vehicle of language for describing the soul's regeneration, just because +the doctrine of transmutation was the result of an attempt to apply +the doctrine of regeneration in the sphere of metallurgy; and similar +remarks hold of the other prominent doctrines of alchemy. + + +(1) See, for example, Mr A. E. WAITE'S paper, "The Canon of Criticism +in respect of Alchemical Literature," _The Journal of the Alchemical +Society_, vol. i. (1913), pp. 17-30. + + +The wonderful fabric of alchemical doctrine was not woven in a day, and +as it passed from loom to loom, from Byzantium to Syria, from Syria to +Arabia, from Arabia to Spain and Latin Europe, so its pattern changed; +but it was always woven _a priori_, in the belief that that which is +below is as that which is above. In its final form, I think, it is +distinctly Christian. + +In the _Turba Philosophorum_, the oldest known work of Latin alchemy--a +work which, claiming to be of Greek origin, whilst not that, is +certainly Greek in spirit,--we frequently come across statements of a +decidedly mystical character. "The regimen," we read, "is greater than +is perceived by reason, except through divine inspiration."(1) Copper, +it is insisted upon again and again, has a soul as well as a body; and +the Art, we are told, is to be defined as "the liquefaction of the body +and the separation of the soul from the body, seeing that copper, like +a man, has a soul and a body."(2) Moreover, other doctrines are here +propounded which, although not so obviously of a mystical character, +have been traced to mystical sources in the preceding excursion. There +is, for instance, the doctrine of purification by means of putrefaction, +this process being likened to that of the resurrection of man. "These +things being done," we read, "God will restore unto it (the matter +operated on) both the soul and the spirit thereof, and the weakness +being taken away, that matter will be made strong, and after corruption +will be improved, even as a man becomes stronger after resurrection +and younger than he was in this world."(1b) The three stages in the +alchemical work--black, white, and red--corresponding to, and, as I +maintain, based on the three stages in the life of the mystic, are also +more than once mentioned. "Cook them (the king and his wife), therefore, +until they become black, then white, afterwards red, and finally until a +tingeing venom is produced."(2b) + + +(1) _The Turba Philosophorum, or Assembly of the Sages_ (trans. by A. E. +WAITE, 1896), p. 128. + +(2) _Ibid_., p. 193, _cf_. pp. 102 and 152. + +(1b) _The Turba Philosophorum, or Assembly of the Sages_ (trans. by A. +E. WAITE), p. 101, _cf_. pp. 27 and 197. + +(2b) _Ibid_., p. 98, _cf_. p. 29. + + +In view of these quotations, the alliance (shall I say?) between alchemy +and mysticism cannot be asserted to be of late origin. And we shall +find similar statements if we go further back in time. To give but one +example: "Among the earliest authorities," writes Mr WAITE, "the _Book +of Crates_ says that copper, like man, has a spirit, soul, and body," +the term "copper" being symbolical and applying to a stage in the +alchemical work. But nowhere in the _Turba_ do we meet with the concept +of the Philosopher's Stone as the medicine of the metals, a concept +characteristic of Latin alchemy, and, to quote Mr WAITE again, "it does +not appear that the conception of the Philosopher's Stone as a medicine +of metals and of men was familiar to Greek alchemy;"(3) + +(3) _Ibid_., p. 71. + +All this seems to me very strongly to support my view of the origin of +alchemy, which requires a specifically Christian mysticism only for this +specific concept of the Philosopher's Stone in its fully-fledged form. +At any rate, the development of alchemical doctrine can be seen to have +proceeded concomitantly with the development of mystical philosophy and +theology. Those who are not prepared here to see effect and cause may be +asked not only to formulate some other hypothesis in explanation of +the origin of alchemy, but also to explain this fact of concomitant +development. + +From the standpoint of the transcendental theory of alchemy it has been +urged "that the language of mystical theology seemed to be hardly so +suitable to the exposition (as I maintain) or concealment of chemical +theories, as the language of a definite and generally credited branch of +science was suited to the expression of a veiled and symbolical process +such as the regeneration of man."(1) But such a statement is only +possible with respect to the latest days of alchemy, when there WAS a +science of chemistry, definite and generally credited. The science of +chemistry, it must be remembered, had no growth separate from alchemy, +but evolved therefrom. Of the days before this evolution had been +accomplished, it would be in closer accord with the facts to say that +theology, including the doctrine of man's regeneration, was in the +position of "a definite and generally credited branch of science," +whereas chemical phenomena were veiled in deepest mystery and tinged +with the dangers appertaining to magic. As concerns the origin of +alchemy, therefore, the argument as to suitability of language +appears to support my own theory; it being open to assume that after +formulation--that is, in alchemy's latter days--chemical nomenclature +and theories were employed by certain writers to veil heterodox +religious doctrine. + + +(1) PHILIP S. WELLBY, M.A., in _The Journal of the Alchemical Society_, +vol. ii. (1914), p. 104. + + +Another recent writer on the subject, my friend the late Mr ABDUL-ALI, +has remarked that "he thought that, in the mind of the alchemist at +least, there was something more than analogy between metallic and +psychic transformations, and that the whole subject might well be +assigned to the doctrinal category of ineffable and transcendent +Oneness. This Oneness comprehended all--soul and body, spirit and +matter, mystic visions and waking life--and the sharp metaphysical +distinction between the mental and the non-mental realms, so prominent +during the history of philosophy, was not regarded by these early +investigators in the sphere of nature. There was the sentiment, perhaps +only dimly experienced, that not only the law, but the substance of +the Universe, was one; that mind was everywhere in contact with its own +kindred; and that metallic transmutation would, somehow, so to speak, +signalise and seal a hidden transmutation of the soul."(1) + + +(1) SIJIL ABDUL-ALI, in _The Journal of the Alchemical Society_, vol. +ii. (1914), p. 102. + + +I am to a large extent in agreement with this view. Mr ABDUL-ALI +quarrels with the term "analogy," and, if it is held to imply any merely +superficial resemblance, it certainly is not adequate to my own +needs, though I know not what other word to use. SWEDENBORG'S term +"correspondence" would be better for my purpose, as standing for an +essential connection between spirit and matter, arising out of the +causal relationship of the one to the other. But if SWEDENBORG believed +that matter and spirit were most intimately related, he nevertheless had +a very precise idea of their distinctness, which he formulated in his +Doctrine of Degrees--a very exact metaphysical doctrine indeed. The +alchemists, on the other hand, had no such clear ideas on the subject. +It would be even more absurd to attribute to them a Cartesian dualism. +To their ways of thinking, it was by no means impossible to grasp +the spiritual essences of things by what we should now call chemical +manipulations. For them a gas was still a ghost and air a spirit. One +could quote pages in support of this, but I will content myself with a +few words from the _Turba_--the antiquity of the book makes it of value, +and anyway it is near at hand. "Permanent water," whatever that may be, +being pounded with the body, we are told, "by the will of God it +turns that body into spirit." And in another place we read that "the +Philosophers have said: Except ye turn bodies into not-bodies, and +incorporeal things into bodies, ye have not yet discovered the rule of +operation."(1a) No one who could write like this, and believe it, could +hold matter and spirit as altogether distinct. But it is equally obvious +that the injunction to convert body into spirit is meaningless if spirit +and body are held to be identical. I have been criticised for crediting +the alchemists "with the philosophic acumen of Hegel,"(1b) but that is +just what I think one ought to avoid doing. At the same time, however, +it is extremely difficult to give a precise account of views which are +very far from being precise themselves. But I think it may be said, +without fear of error, that the alchemist who could say, "As above, so +below," _ipso facto_ recognised both a very close connection between +spirit and matter, and a distinction between them. Moreover, the +division thus implied corresponded, on the whole, to that between the +realms of the known (or what was thought to be known) and the unknown. +The Church, whether Christian or pre-Christian, had very precise +(comparatively speaking) doctrine concerning the soul's origin, +duties, and destiny, backed up by tremendous authority, and speculative +philosophy had advanced very far by the time PLATO began to concern +himself with its problems. Nature, on the other hand, was a mysterious +world of magical happenings, and there was nothing deserving of the +name of natural science until alchemy was becoming decadent. It is not +surprising, therefore, that the alchemists--these men who wished to +probe Nature's hidden mysteries--should reason from above to +below; indeed, unless they had started _de novo_--as babes knowing +nothing,--there was no other course open to them. And that they did +adopt the obvious course is all that my former thesis amounts to. In +passing, it is interesting to note that a sixteenth-century alchemist, +who had exceptional opportunities and leisure to study the works of the +old masters of alchemy, seems to have come to a similar conclusion as +to the nature of their reasoning. He writes: "The Sages... after having +conceived in their minds a Divine idea of the relations of the whole +universe... selected from among the rest a certain substance, from which +they sought to elicit the elements, to separate and purify them, +and then again put them together in a manner suggested by a keen and +profound observation of Nature."(1c) + + +(1a) _op cit_., pp,. 65 and 110, _cf_. p. 154. + +(1b) _Vide_ a rather frivolous review of my _Alchemy: Ancient and +Modern_ in _The Outlook_ for 14th January 1911. + +(1c) EDWARD KELLY: _The Humid Path_. (See _The Alchemical Writings_ of +EDWARD KELLY, edited by A. E. WAITE, 1893, pp. 59-60.) + + +In describing the realm of spirit as _ex hypothesi_ known, that of +Nature unknown, to the alchemists, I have made one important omission, +and that, if I may use the name of a science to denominate a complex of +crude facts, is the realm of physiology, which, falling within that of +Nature, must yet be classed as _ex hypothesi_ known. But to elucidate +this point some further considerations are necessary touching the +general nature of knowledge. Now, facts may be roughly classed, +according to their obviousness and frequency of occurrence, into four +groups. There are, first of all, facts which are so obvious, to put +it paradoxically, that they escape notice; and these facts are the +commonest and most frequent in their occurrence. I think it is Mr +CHESTERTON who has said that, looking at a forest one cannot see the +trees because of the forest; and, in _The Innocence of Father Brown_, he +has a good story ("The Invisible Man") illustrating the point, in which +a man renders himself invisible by dressing up in a postman's uniform. +At any rate, we know that when a phenomenon becomes persistent it tends +to escape observation; thus, continuous motion can only be appreciated +with reference to a stationary body, and a noise, continually repeated, +becomes at last inaudible. The tendency of often-repeated actions to +become habitual, and at last automatic, that is to say, carried +out without consciousness, is a closely related phenomenon. We +can understand, therefore, why a knowledge of the existence of the +atmosphere, as distinct from the wind, came late in the history of +primitive man, as, also, many other curious gaps in his knowledge. In +the second group we may put those facts which are common, that is, of +frequent occurrence, and are classed as obvious. Such facts are accepted +at face-value by the primitive mind, and are used as the basis of +explanation of facts in the two remaining groups, namely, those facts +which, though common, are apt to escape the attention owing to their +inconspicuousness, and those which are of infrequent occurrence. When +the mind takes the trouble to observe a fact of the third group, or +is confronted by one of the fourth, it feels a sense of surprise. Such +facts wear an air of strangeness, and the mind can only rest satisfied +when it has shown them to itself as in some way cases of the second +group of facts, or, at least, brought them into relation therewith. That +is what the mind--at least the primitive mind--means by "explanation". +"It is obvious," we say, commencing an argument, thereby proclaiming +our intention to bring that which is at first in the category of the +not-obvious, into the category of the obvious. It remains for a more +sceptical type of mind--a later product of human evolution--to question +obvious facts, to explain them, either, as in science, by establishing +deeper and more far-reaching correlations between phenomena, or in +philosophy, by seeking for the source and purpose of such facts, or, +better still, by both methods. + +Of the second class of facts--those common and obvious facts which +the primitive mind accepts at face-value and uses as the basis of +its explanations of such things as seem to it to stand in need of +explanation--one could hardly find a better instance than sex. The +universality of sex, and the intermittent character of its phenomena, +are both responsible for this. Indeed, the attitude of mind I have +referred to is not restricted to primitive man; how many people +to-day, for instance, just accept sex as a fact, pleasant or unpleasant +according to their predilections, never querying, or feeling the need +to query, its why and wherefore? It is by no means surprising, that when +man first felt the need of satisfying himself as to the origin of the +universe, he should have done so by a theory founded on what he knew +of his own generation. Indeed, as I queried on a former occasion, what +other source of explanation was open to him? Of what other form of +origin was he aware? Seeing Nature springing to life at the kiss of the +sun, what more natural than that she should be regarded as the divine +Mother, who bears fruits because impregnated by the Sun-God? It is +not difficult to understand, therefore, why primitive man paid divine +honours to the organs of sex in man and woman, or to such things as +he considered symbolical of them--that is to say, to understand the +extensiveness of those religions which are grouped under the term +"phallicism". Nor, to my mind, is the symbol of sex a wholly inadequate +one under which to conceive of the origin of things. And, as I have +said before, that phallicism usually appears to have degenerated into +immorality of a very pronounced type is to be deplored, but an immoral +view of human relations is by no means a necessary corollary to a sexual +theory of the universe.(1) + + +(1) "The reverence as well as the worship paid to the phallus, in early +and primitive days, had nothing in it which partook of indecency; all +ideas connected with it were of a reverential and religious kind.... + +"The indecent ideas attached to the representation of the phallus were, +though it seems a paradox to say so, the results of a more advanced +civilization verging towards its decline, as we have evidence at Rome +and Pompeii.... + +"To the primitive man (the reproductive force which pervades all nature) +was the most mysterious of all manifestations. The visible physical +powers of nature--the sun, the sky, the storm--naturally claimed his +reverence, but to him the generative power was the most mysterious of +all powers. In the vegetable world, the live seed placed in the ground, +and hence germinating, sprouting up, and becoming a beautiful and +umbrageous tree, was a mystery. In the animal world, as the cause of all +life, by which all beings came into existence, this power was a mystery. +In the view of primitive man generation was the action of the Deity +itself. It was the mode in which He brought all things into existence, +the sun, the moon, the stars, the world, man were generated by Him. +To the productive power man was deeply indebted, for to it he owed the +harvests and the flocks which supported his life; hence it naturally +became an object of reverence and worship. + +"Primitive man wants some object to worship, for an abstract idea +is beyond his comprehension, hence a visible representation of the +generative Deity was made, with the organs contributing to generation +most prominent, and hence the organ itself became a symbol of the +power."--H, M. WESTROPP: _Primitive Symbolism as Illustrated in Phallic +Worship, or the Reproductive Principle_ (1885), pp. 47, 48, and 57. {End +of long footnote} + + +The Aruntas of Australia, I believe, when discovered by Europeans, had +not yet observed the connection between sexual intercourse and birth. +They believed that conception was occasioned by the woman passing near +a _churinga_--a peculiarly shaped piece of wood or stone, in which a +spirit-child was concealed, which entered into her. But archaeological +research having established the fact that phallicism has, at one time +or another, been common to nearly all races, it seems probable that +the Arunta tribe represents a deviation from the normal line of mental +evolution. At any rate, an isolated phenomenon, such as this, cannot be +held to controvert the view that regards phallicism as in this normal +line. Nor was the attitude of mind that not only accepts sex at +face-value as an obvious fact, but uses the concept of it to explain +other facts, a merely transitory one. We may, indeed, not difficultly +trace it throughout the history of alchemy, giving rise to what I may +term "The Phallic Element in Alchemical Doctrine". + +In aiming to establish this, I may be thought to be endeavouring to +establish a counter-thesis to that of the preceding essay on alchemy, +but, in virtue of the alchemists' belief in the mystical unity of all +things, in the analogical or correspondential relationship of all parts +of the universe to each other, the mystical and the phallic views of +the origin of alchemy are complementary, not antagonistic. Indeed, the +assumption that the metals are the symbols of man almost necessitates +the working out of physiological as well as mystical analogies, and +these two series of analogies are themselves connected, because the +principle "As above, so below" was held to be true of man himself. We +might, therefore, expect to find a more or less complete harmony between +the two series of symbols, though, as a matter of fact, contradictions +will be encountered when we come to consider points of detail. The +undoubtable antiquity of the phallic element in alchemical doctrine +precludes the idea that this element was an adventitious one, that +it was in any sense an afterthought; notwithstanding, however, the +evidence, as will, I hope, become apparent as we proceed, indicates that +mystical ideas played a much more fundamental part in the genesis of +alchemical doctrine than purely phallic ones--mystical interpretations +fit alchemical processes and theories far better than do sexual +interpretations; in fact, sex has to be interpreted somewhat mystically +in order to work out the analogies fully and satisfactorily. + +As concerns Greek alchemy, I shall content myself with a passage from +a work _On the Sacred Art_, attributed to OLYMPIODORUS (sixth century +A.D.), followed by some quotations from and references to the _Turba_. +In the former work it is stated on the authority of HORUS that "The +proper end of the whole art is to obtain the semen of the male secretly, +seeing that all things are male and female. Hence (we read further) +Horus says in a certain place: Join the male and the female, and you +will find that which is sought; as a fact, without this process of +re-union, nothing can succeed, for Nature charms Nature," _etc_. The +_Turba_ insistently commands those who would succeed in the Art, to +conjoin the male with the female,(1) and, in one place, the male is said +to be lead and the female orpiment.(2) We also find the alchemical work +symbolised by the growth of the embryo in the womb. "Know," we are +told, "... that out of the elect things nothing becomes useful without +conjunction and regimen, because sperma is generated out of blood and +desire. For the man mingling with the woman, the sperm is nourished by +the humour of the womb, and by the moistening blood, and by heat, +and when forty nights have elapsed the sperm is formed.... God has +constituted that heat and blood for the nourishment of the sperm until +the foetus is brought forth. So long as it is little, it is nourished +with milk, and in proportion as the vital heat is maintained, the bones +are strengthened. Thus it behoves you also to act in this Art."(3) + + +(1) _Vide_ pp. 60 92, 96 97, 134, 135 and elsewhere in Mr WAITE'S +translation. + +(2) _Ibid_., p. 57 + +(3) _Ibid_., pp. 179-181 (second recension); _cf_. pp. 103-104. + + +The use of the mystical symbols of death (putrefaction) and resurrection +or rebirth to represent the consummation of the alchemical work, and +that of the phallic symbols of the conjunction of the sexes and the +development of the foetus, both of which we have found in the _Turba_, +are current throughout the course of Latin alchemy. In _The Chymical +Marriage of Christian Rosencreutz_, that extraordinary document of what +is called "Rosicrucianism"--a symbolic romance of considerable ability, +whoever its author was,(1)--an attempt is made to weld the two sets of +symbols--the one of marriage, the other of death and resurrection unto +glory--into one allegorical narrative; and it is to this fusion of +seemingly disparate concepts that much of its fantasticality is due. Yet +the concepts are not really disparate; for not only is the second +birth like unto the first, and not only is the resurrection unto glory +described as the Bridal Feast of the Lamb, but marriage is, in a manner, +a form of death and rebirth. To justify this in a crude sense, I might +say that, from the male standpoint at least, it is a giving of the +life-substance to the beloved that life may be born anew and increase. +But in a deeper sense it is, or rather should be, as an ideal, a mutual +sacrifice of self for each other's good--a death of the self that it may +arise with an enriched personality. + + +(1) See Mr WAITE'S _The Real History of the Rosicrucians_ (1887) for +translation and discussion as to origin and significance. The work was +first published (in German) at Strassburg in 1616. + + +It is when we come to an examination of the ideas at the root of, and +associated with, the alchemical concept of "principles," that we find +some difficulty in harmonising the two series of symbols--the mystical +and the phallic. In one place in the _Turba_ we are directed "to take +quicksilver, in which is the male potency or strength";(2a) and this +concept of mercury as male is quite in accord with the mystical origin +I have assigned in the preceding excursion to the doctrine of the +alchemical principles. I have shown, I think, that salt, sulphur, and +mercury are the analogues _ex hypothesi_ of the body, soul (affection +and volition), and spirit (intelligence or understanding) in man; and +the affections are invariably regarded as especially feminine, the +understanding as especially masculine. But it seems that the more common +opinion, amongst Latin alchemists at any rate, was that sulphur was +male and mercury female. Writes BERNARD of TREVISAN: "For the Matter +suffereth, and the Form acteth assimulating the Matter to itself, and +according to this manner the Matter naturally thirsteth after a Form, +as a Woman desireth an Husband, and a Vile thing a precious one, and +an impure a pure one, so also _Argent-vive_ coveteth a Sulphur, as that +which should make perfect which is imperfect: So also a Body +freely desireth a Spirit, whereby it may at length arrive at its +perfection."(1b) At the same time, however, Mercury was regarded as +containing in itself both male and female potencies--it was the product +of male and female, and, thus, the seed of all the metals. "Nothing in +the World can be generated," to repeat a quotation from BERNARD, +without these two Substances, to wit a Male and Female: From whence it +appeareth, that although these two substances are not of one and the +same species, yet one Stone doth thence arise, and although they appear +and are said to be two Substances, yet in truth it is but one, to wit, +_Argent-vive_. But of this _Argent-vive_ a certain part is fixed and +digested, Masculine, hot, dry and secretly informing. But the other, +which is the Female, is volatile, crude, cold, and moyst."(2b) EDWARD +KELLY (1555-1595), who is valuable because he summarises authoritative +opinion, says somewhat the same thing, though in clearer words: "The +active elements... these are water and fire... may be called male, +while the passive elements... earth and air... represent the female +principle.... Only two elements, water and earth, are visible, and earth +is called the hiding-place of fire, water the abode of air. In these two +elements we have the broad law of limitation which divides the male from +the female. ... The first matter of minerals is a kind of viscous water, +mingled with pure and impure earth... Of this viscous water and fusible +earth, or sulphur, is composed that which is called quicksilver, the +first matter of the metals. Metals are nothing but Mercury digested +by different degrees of heat."(1c) There is one difference, however, +between these two writers, inasmuch as BERNARD says that "the Male and +Female abide together in closed Natures; the Female truly as it were +Earth and Water, the Male as Air and Fire." Mercury for him arises +from the two former elements, sulphur from the two latter.(2c) And the +difference is important as showing beyond question the _a priori_ nature +of alchemical reasoning. The idea at the back of the alchemists' minds +was undoubtedly that of the ardour of the male in the act of coition and +the alleged, or perhaps I should say apparent, passivity of the female. +Consequently, sulphur, the fiery principle of combustion, and such +elements as were reckoned to be active, were denominated "male," whilst +mercury, the principle acted on by sulphur, and such elements as were +reckoned to be passive, were denominated "female". As to the question +of origin, I do not think that the palm can be denied to the mystical +as distinguished from the phallic theory. And in its final form +the doctrine of principles is incapable of a sexual interpretation. +Mystically understood, man is capable of analysis into two +principles--since "body" may be neglected as unimportant (a false view, +I think, by the way) or "soul" and "spirit" may be united under one +head--OR into three; whereas the postulation of THREE principles on +a sexual basis is impossible. JOANNES ISAACUS HOLLANDUS (fifteenth +century) is the earliest author in whose works I have observed explicit +mention of THREE principles, though he refers to them in a manner +seeming to indicate that the doctrine was no new one in his day. I have +only read one little tract of his; there is nothing sexual in it, and +the author's mental character may be judged from his remarks concerning +"the three flying spirits"--taste, smell, and colour. These, he writes, +"are the life, soule, and quintessence of every thing, neither can these +three spirits be one without the other, as the Father, the Son, and +the Holy Ghost are one, yet three Persons, and one is not without the +other."(1d) + + +(2a) Mr WAITE's translation, p. 79. + +(1b) BERNARD, Earl of TREVISAN: _A Treatise of the Philosopher's Stone_, +1683. (See _Collectanea Chymica: A Collection of Ten Several Treatises +in Chymistry_, 1684, p. 92.) + +(2b) _Ibid_., p. 91. + +(1c) EDWARD KELLY: _The Stone of the Philosophers_. (See _The Alchemical +Writings of_ EDWARD KELLY, edited by A. E. WAITE, 1893, pp. 9 and 11 to +13.) + +(2c) _The Answer of_ BERNARDUS TREVISANUS, _to the Epistle of Thomas +of Bononira, Physician to K. Charles the 8th_. (See JOHN FREDERICK +HOUPREGHT: _Aurifontina Chymica_, 1680, p. 208.) + +(1d) _One Hundred and Fourteen Experiments and Cures of the Famous +Physitian_ THEOPHRASTUS PARACELSUS. _Whereunto is added... certain +Secrets of_ ISAAC HOLLANDUS, _concerning the Vegetall and Animall Work_ +(1652), pp. 29 and 30. + +When the alchemists described an element or principle as male or female, +they meant what they said, as I have already intimated, to the extent, +at least, of firmly believing that seed was produced by the two metallic +sexes. By their union metals were thought to be produced in the womb of +the earth; and mines were shut in order that by the birth and growth of +new metal the impoverished veins might be replenished. In this way, too, +was the _magnum opus_, the generation of the Philosopher's Stone--in +species gold, but purer than the purest--to be accomplished. To conjoin +that which Nature supplied, to foster the growth and development of that +which was thereby produced; such was the task of the alchemist. "For +there are Vegetables," says BERNARD of TREVISAN in his _Answer to Thomas +of Bononia_, "but Sensitives more especially, which for the most part +beget their like, by the Seeds of the Male and Female for the most +part concurring and conmixt by copulation; which work of Nature the +Philosophick Art imitates in the generation of gold."(1) + + +(1) _Op. cit_., p. 216. + + +Mercury, as I have said, was commonly regarded as the seed of the +metals, or as especially the female seed, there being two seeds, one the +male, according to BERNARD, more ripe, perfect and active, the other the +female. "more immature and in a sort passive(2) "... our Philosophick +Art," he says in another place, following a description of the +generation of man, "... is like this procreation of Man; for as in +_Mercury_ (of which Gold is by Nature generated in Mineral Vessels) a +natural conjunction + + +(2) _Ibid_., p. 217; _cf_. p. 236 + +is made of both the Seeds, Male and Female, so by our artifice, an +artificial and like conjunction is made of Agents and Patients."(1) "All +teaching," says KELLY, "that changes Mercury is false and vain, for this +is the original sperm of metals, and its moisture must not be dried +up, for otherwise it will not dissolve,"(2) and quotes ARNOLD (_ob. c_. +1310) to a similar effect.(3) One wonders how far the fact that human +and animal seed is fluid influenced the alchemists in their choice of +mercury, the only metal liquid at ordinary temperatures, as the seed of +the metals. There are, indeed, other good reasons for this choice, but +that this idea played some part in it, and, at least, was present at the +back of the alchemists' minds, I have little doubt. + +The most philosophic account of metallic seed is that, perhaps, of the +mysterious adept "EIRENAEUS PHILALETHES," who distinguishes between +it and mercury in a rather interesting manner. He writes: "Seed is the +means of generic propagation given to all perfect things here below; +it is the perfection of each body; and anybody that has no seed must be +regarded as imperfect. Hence there can be no doubt that there is such +a thing as metallic seed.... All metallic seed is the seed of gold; for +gold is the intention of Nature in regard to all metals. If the base +metals are not gold, it is only through some accidental hindrance; they +are-all potentially gold. But, of course, this seed of gold is most +easily obtainable from well-matured gold itself.... Remember that I am +now speaking of metallic seed, and not of Mercury.... The seed of metals +is hidden out of sight still more completely than that of animals; +nevertheless, it is within the compass of our Art to extract it. The +seed of animals and vegetables is something separate, and may be cut +out, or otherwise separately exhibited; but metallic seed is diffused +throughout the metal, and contained in all its smallest parts; neither +can it be discerned from its body: its extraction is therefore a task +which may well tax the ingenuity of the most experienced philosopher; +the virtues of the whole metal have to be intensified, so as to convert +it into the sperm of our seed, which, by circulation, receives the +virtues of superiors and inferiors, then next becomes wholly form, or +heavenly virtue, which can communicate this to others related to it +by homogeneity of matter. ... The place in which the seed resides +is--approximately speaking--water; for, to speak properly and exactly, +the seed is the smallest part of the metal, and is invisible; but as +this invisible presence is diffused throughout the water of its kind, +and exerts its virtue therein, nothing being visible to the eye but +water, we are left to conclude from rational induction that this inward +agent (which is, properly speaking, the seed) is really there. Hence we +call the whole of the water seed, just as we call the whole of the +grain seed, though the germ of life is only a smallest particle of the +grain."(1b) + + +(1) _The Answer of_ BERNARDUS TREVISANUS, _etc_. _Op. cit_. p. 218. + +(2) _op. cit_., p. 22. + +(3) _Ibid_., p. 16. + +(1b) EIRENAEUS PHILALETHES: _The Metamorphosis of Metals_. (See _The +Hermetic Museum_, vol. ii. pp. 238-240.) + + +To say that "PHILALETHES'" seed resembles the modern electron is, +perhaps, to draw a rather fanciful analogy, since the electron is a +very precise idea, the result of the mathematical interpretation of the +results of exact experimentation. But though it would be absurd to speak +of this concept of the one seed of all metals as an anticipation of the +electron, to apply the expression "metallic seed" to the electron, now +that the concept of it has been reached, does not seem so absurd. + +According to "PHILALETHES," the extraction of the seed is a very +difficult process, accomplishable, however, by the aid of mercury--the +water homogeneous therewith. Mercury, again, is the form of the seed +thereby obtained. He writes: "When the sperm hidden in the body of +gold is brought out by means of our Art, it appears under the form +of Mercury, whence it is exalted into the quintessence which is first +white, and then, by means of continuous coction, becomes red." And +again: "There is a womb into which the gold (if placed therein) will, of +its own accord, emit its seed, until it is debilitated and dies, and +by its death is renewed into a most glorious King, who thenceforward +receives power to deliver all his brethren from the fear of death."(1) + + +(1) EIRENAEUS PHILALETHES: _The Metamorphosis of Metals_. (See _The +Hermetic Museum_, vol. ii. pp. 241 and 244.) + + +The fifteenth-century alchemist THOMAS NORTON was peculiar in his views, +inasmuch as he denied that metals have seed. He writes: "Nature never +multiplies anything, except in either one or the other of these two +ways: either by decay, which we call putrefaction, or, in the case of +animate creatures, by propagation. In the case of metals there can be no +propagation, though our Stone exhibits something like it.... Nothing +can be multiplied by inward action unless it belong to the vegetable +kingdom, or the family of sensitive creatures. But the metals are +elementary objects, and possess neither seed nor sensation."(1) + + +(1) THOMAS NORTON: _The Ordinal of Alchemy_. (See _The Hermetic Museum_, +vol. ii. pp. 15 and 16.) + + +His theory of the origin of the metals is astral rather than phallic. +"The only efficient cause of metals," he says, "is the mineral virtue, +which is not found in every kind of earth, but only in certain places +and chosen mines, into which the celestial sphere pours its rays in a +straight direction year by year, and according to the arrangement of +the metallic substance in these places, this or that metal is gradually +formed."(2) + + +(2) _Ibid_., pp. 15 and 16. + + +In view of the astrological symbolism of these metals, that gold should +be masculine, silver feminine, does not surprise us, because the idea +of the masculinity of the sun and the femininity of the moon is a bit +of phallicism that still remains with us. It was by the marriage of gold +and silver that very many alchemists considered that the _magnum opus_ +was to be achieved. Writes BERNARD of TREVISAN: "The subject of this +admired Science (alchemy) is _Sol_ and _Luna_, or rather Male and +Female, the Male is hot and dry, the Female cold and moyst." The aim of +the work, he tells us, is the extraction of the spirit of gold, which +alone can enter into bodies and tinge them. Both _Sol_ and _Luna_ are +absolutely necessary, and "whoever...shall think that a Tincture can be +made without these two Bodyes,... he proceedeth to the Practice like one +that is blind."(1) + + +(1) BERNARD, Earl of TREVISAN: _A Treatise, etc., Op. cit_. pp. 83 and +87. + + +KELLY has teaching to the same effect, the Mercury of the Philosophers +being for him the menstruum or medium wherein the copulation of Gold +with Silver is to be accomplished. Mercury, in fact, seems to have been +everything and to have been capable of effecting everything in the eyes +of the alchemists. Concerning gold and silver, KELLY writes: "Only one +metal, viz. gold, is absolutely perfect and mature. Hence it is called +the perfect male body... Silver is less bounded by aqueous immaturity +than the rest of the metals, though it may indeed be regarded as to +a certain extent impure, still its water is already covered with the +congealing vesture of its earth, and it thus tends to perfection. This +condition is the reason why silver is everywhere called by the Sages +the perfect female body." And later he writes: "In short, our whole +Magistery consists in the union of the male and female, or active and +passive, elements through the mediation of our metallic water and a +proper degree of heat. Now, the male and female are two metallic bodies, +and this I will again prove by irrefragable quotations from the Sages." +Some of the quotations will be given: "Avicenna: 'Purify husband and +wife separately, in order that they may unite more intimately; for if +you do not purify them, they cannot love each other. By conjunction +of the two natures you get a clear and lucid nature, which, when it +ascends, becomes bright and serviceable.'... Senior: 'I, the Sun, am +hot and dry, and thou, the Moon, are cold and moist; when we are wedded +together in a closed chamber, I will gently steal away thy soul.'... +Rosinus: 'When the Sun, my brother, for the love of me (silver) pours +his sperm (_i.e_. his solar fatness) into the chamber (_i.e_. my Lunar +body), namely, when we become one in a strong and complete complexion +and union, the child of our wedded love will be born.... 'Rosary': 'The +ferment of the Sun is the sperm of the man, the ferment of the Moon, +the sperm of the woman. Of both we get a chaste union and a true +generation.'... Aristotle: 'Take your beloved son, and wed him to his +sister, his white sister, in equal marriage, and give them the cup of +love, for it is a food which prompts to union.' "(1a) KELLY, of course, +accepts the traditional authorship of the works from which he quotes, +though in many cases such authorship is doubtful, to say the least. The +alchemical works ascribed to ARISTOTLE (384-322 B.C.), for instance, are +beyond question forgeries. Indeed, the symbol of a union between brother +and sister, here quoted, could hardly be held as acceptable to Greek +thought, to which incest was the most abominable and unforgiveable sin. +It seems likelier that it originated with the Egyptians, to whom such +unions were tolerable in fact. The symbol is often met with in Latin +alchemy. MICHAEL MAIER (1568-1622) also says: "_conjunge fratrem cum +sorore et propina illis poculum amoris_," the words forming a motto to +a picture of a man and woman clasped in each other's arms, to whom an +older man offers a goblet. This symbolic picture occurs in his _Atalanta +Fugiens, hoc est, Emblemata nova de Secretis Naturae Chymica, etc_. +(Oppenheim, 1617). This work is an exceedingly curious one. It consists +of a number of carefully executed pictures, each accompanied by a motto, +a verse of poetry set to music, with a prose text. Many of the +pictures are phallic in conception, and practically all of them are +anthropomorphic. Not only the primary function of sex, but especially +its secondary one of lactation, is made use of. The most curious of +these emblematic pictures, perhaps, is one symbolising the conjunction +of gold and silver. It shows on the right a man and woman, representing +the sun and moon, in the act of coition, standing up to the thighs in a +lake. On the left, on a hill above the lake, a woman (with the moon as +halo) gives birth to a child. A boy is coming out of the water towards +her. The verse informs us that: "The bath glows red at the conception +of the boy, the air at his birth." We learn also that "there is a stone, +and yet there is not, which is the noble gift of God. If God grants it, +fortunate will be he who shall receive it."(1) + + +(1a) EDWARD KELLY: _The Stone of the Philosophers, Op. cit_., pp 13, 14, +33, 35, 36, 38-40, and 47. + +(1) _Op. Cit_., p. 145 + + +Concerning the nature of gold, there is a discussion in _The Answer of_ +BERNARDUS TREVISANUS _to the Epistle of Thomas of Bononia_, with which +I shall close my consideration of the present aspect of the subject. +Its interest for us lies in the arguments which are used and held to be +valid. "Besides, you say that Gold, as most think, is nothing else than +_Quick-silver_ coagulated naturally by the force of _Sulphur_; yet so, +that nothing of the _Sulphur_ which generated the Gold, doth remain +in the substance of the Gold: as in an humane _Embryo_, when it is +conceived in the Womb, there remains nothing of the Father's Seed, +according to _Aristotle's_ opinion, but the Seed of the Man doth only +coagulate the _menstrual_ blood of the Woman: in the same manner you +say, that after _Quick-silver_ is so coagulated, the form of Gold is +perfected in it, by virtue of the Heavenly Bodies, and especially of the +Sun."(1) BERNARD, however, decides against this view, holding that gold +contains both mercury and sulphur, for "we must not imagine, according +to their mistake who say, that the Male Agent himself approaches the +Female in the coagulation, and departs afterwards; because, as is known +in every generation, the conception is active and passive: Both the +active and the passive, that is, all the four Elements, must always +abide together, otherwise there would be no mixture, and the hope of +generating an off-spring would be extinguished."(2) + + +(1) _Op. cit_., pp. 206 and 207. + +(2) _Ibid_., pp. 212 and 213. + + +In conclusion, I wish to say something of the role of sex in spiritual +alchemy. But in doing this I am venturing outside the original field of +inquiry of this essay and making a by no means necessary addition to my +thesis; and I am anxious that what follows should be understood as such, +so that no confusion as to the issues may arise. + +In the great alchemical collection of J. J. MANGET, there is a curious +work (originally published in 1677), entitled _Mutus Liber_, which +consists entirely of plates, without letterpress. Its interest for us in +our present concern is that the alchemist, from the commencement of +the work until its achievement, is shown working in conjunction with a +woman. We are reminded of NICOLAS FLAMEL (1330-1418), who is reputed to +have achieved the _magnum opus_ together with his wife PERNELLE, as well +as of the many other women workers in the Art of whom we read. It would +be of interest in this connection to know exactly what association of +ideas was present in the mind of MICHAEL MAIER when he commanded the +alchemist: "Perform a work of women on the molten white lead, that is, +cook,"(1a) and illustrated his behest with a picture of a pregnant woman +watching a fire over which is suspended a cauldron and on which are +three jars. There is a cat in the background, and a tub containing two +fish in the foreground, the whole forming a very curious collection of +emblems. Mr WAITE, who has dealt with some of these matters, luminously, +though briefly, says: "The evidences with which we have been dealing +concern solely the physical work of alchemy and there is nothing of its +mystical aspects. The _Mutus Liber_ is undoubtedly on the literal side +of metallic transmutation; the memorials of Nicholas Flamel are also +on that side," _etc_. He adds, however, that "It is on record that an +unknown master testified to his possession of the mystery, but he added +that he had not proceeded to the work because he had failed to meet +with an elect woman who was necessary thereto"; and proceeds to say: "I +suppose that the statement will awaken in most minds only a vague sense +of wonder, and I can merely indicate in a few general words that which +I see behind it. Those Hermetic texts which bear a spiritual +interpretation and are as if a record of spiritual experience present, +like the literature of physical alchemy, the following aspects of +symbolism: (_a_) the marriage of sun and moon; (_b_) of a mystical king +and queen; (_c_) an union between natures which are one at the root but +diverse in manifestation; (_d_) a transmutation which follows this union +and an abiding glory therein. It is ever a conjunction between male and +female in a mystical sense; it is ever the bringing together by art +of things separated by an imperfect order of things; it is ever the +perfection of natures by means of this conjunction. But if the mystical +work of alchemy is an inward work in consciousness, then the union +between male and female is an union in consciousness; and if we remember +the traditions of a state when male and female had not as yet been +divided, it may dawn upon us that the higher alchemy was a practice for +the return into this ineffable mode of being. The traditional doctrine +is set forth in the _Zohar_ and it is found in writers like Jacob +Boehme; it is intimated in the early chapters of Genesis and, according +to an apocryphal saying of Christ, the kingdom of heaven will be +manifested when two shall be as one, or when that state has been once +again attained. In the light of this construction we can understand why +the mystical adept went in search of a wise woman with whom the work +could be performed; but few there be that find her, and he confessed to +his own failure. The part of woman in the physical practice of alchemy +is like a reflection at a distance of this more exalted process, and +there is evidence that those who worked in metals and sought for a +material elixir knew that there were other and greater aspects of the +Hermetic mystery."(1b) + + +(1a) MICHAEL MATER: _Atalanta Fugiens_ (1617), p. 97. + +(1b) A E. WAITE: "Woman and the Hermetic Mystery," _The Occult Review_ +(June 1912), vol. xv. pp. 325 and 326. + + +So far Mr WAITE, whose impressive words I have quoted at some length; +and he has given us a fuller account of the theory as found in the +_Zohar_ in his valuable work on _The Secret Doctrine in Israel_ (1913). +The _Zohar_ regards marriage and the performance of the sexual function +in marriage as of supreme importance, and this not merely because +marriage symbolises a divine union, unless that expression is held to +include all that logically follows from the fact, but because, as it +seems, the sexual act in marriage may, in fact, become a ritual of +transcendental magic. + +At least three varieties of opinion can be traced from the view of sex +we have under consideration, as to the nature of the perfect man, and +hence of the most adequate symbol for transmutation. According to one, +and this appears to have been JACOB BOEHME'S view, the perfect man is +conceived of as non-sexual, the male and female elements united in him +having, as it were, neutralised each other. According to another, he is +pictured as a hermaphroditic being, a concept we frequently come across +in alchemical literature. It plays a prominent part in MAIER'S book +_Atalanta Fugiens_, to which reference has already been made. MAIER'S +hermaphrodite has two heads, one male, one female, but only one body, +one pair of arms, and one pair of legs. The two sexual organs, which +are placed side by side, are delineated in the illustrations with +considerable care, showing the importance MAIER attached to the idea. +This concept seems to me not only crude, but unnatural and repellent. +But it may be said of both the opinions I have mentioned, that they +confuse between union and identity. It is the old mistake, with respect +to a lesser goal, of those who hope for absorption in the Divine Nature +and consequent loss of personality. It seems to be forgotten that +a certain degree of distinction is necessary to the joy of union. +"Distinction" and "separation," it should be remembered, have different +connotations. If the supreme joy is that of self-sacrifice, then the +self must be such that it can be continually sacrificed, else the joy +is a purely transitory one, or rather, is destroyed at the moment of +its consummation. Hence, though sacrificed, the self must still remain +itself. + +The third view of perfection, to which these remarks naturally lead, +is that which sees it typified in marriage. The mystic-philosopher +SWEDENBORG has some exceedingly suggestive things to say on the matter +in his extraordinary work on _Conjugial Love_, which, curiously enough, +seem largely to have escaped the notice of students of these high +mysteries. + +SWEDENBORG'S heaven is a sexual heaven, because for him sex is primarily +a spiritual fact, and only secondarily, and because of what it is +primarily, a physical fact; and salvation is hardly possible, according +to him, apart from a genuine marriage (whether achieved here or +hereafter). Man and woman are considered as complementary beings, and +it is only through the union of one man with one woman that the perfect +angel results. The altruistic tendency of such a theory as contrasted +with the egotism of one in which perfection is regarded as obtainable +by each personality of itself alone, is a point worth emphasising. As +to the nature of this union, it is, to use SWEDENBORG'S own terms, a +conjunction of the will of the wife with the understanding of the man, +and reciprocally of the understanding of the man with the will of the +wife. It is thus a manifestation of that fundamental marriage between +the good and the true which is at the root of all existence; and it is +because of this fundamental marriage that all men and women are born +into the desire to complete themselves by conjunction. The symbol +of sexual intercourse is a legitimate one to use in speaking of this +heavenly union; indeed, we may describe the highest bliss attainable +by the soul, or conceivable by the mind, as a spiritual orgasm. Into +conjugal love "are collected," says SWEDENBORG, "all the blessednesses, +blissfulnesses, delightsomenesses, pleasantnesses, and pleasures, which +could possibly be conferred upon man by the Lord the Creator."(1) In +another place he writes: "Married partners (in heaven) enjoy similar +intercourse with each other as in the world, but more delightful and +blessed; yet without prolification, for which, or in place of which, +they have spiritual prolification, which is that of love and wisdom." +"The reason," he adds, "why the intercourse then is more delightful and +blessed is, that when conjugial love becomes of the spirit, it becomes +more interior and pure, and consequently more perceptible; and every +delightsomeness grows according to the perception, and grows even until +its blessedness is discernible in its delightsomeness."(1b) Such love, +however, he says, is rarely to be found on earth. + + +(1) EMANUEL SWEDENBORG: _The Delights of Wisdom relating to Conjugial +Love_ (trans. by A. H. SEARLE, 1891), SE 68. + +(1b) EMANUEL SWEDENBORG: _Op. cit_., SE 51. + + +A learned Japanese speaks with approval of Idealism as a "dream where +sensuousness and spirituality find themselves to be blood brothers or +sisters."(2) It is a statement which involves either the grossest +and most dangerous error, or the profoundest truth, according to the +understanding of it. Woman is a road whereby man travels either to God +or the devil. The problem of sex is a far deeper problem than appears at +first sight, involving mysteries both the direst and most holy. It is +by no means a fantastic hypothesis that the inmost mystery of what a +certain school of mystics calls "the Secret Tradition" was a sexual +one. At any rate, the fact that some of those, at least, to whom alchemy +connoted a mystical process, were alive to the profound spiritual +significance of sex, renders of double interest what they have to +intimate of the achievement of the _Magnum Opus_ in man. + + +(2) YONE NOGUCHI: _The Spirit of Japanese Art_ (1915), p. 37. + + + + +XI. ROGER BACON: AN APPRECIATION + +IT has been said that "a prophet is not without honour, save in his own +country." Thereto might be added, "and in his own time"; for, whilst +there is continuity in time, there is also evolution, and England of +to-day, for instance, is not the same country as England of the Middle +Ages. In his own day ROGER BACON was accounted a magician, whose +heretical views called for suppression by the Church. And for many a +long day afterwards was he mainly remembered as a co-worker in the black +art with Friar BUNGAY, who together with him constructed, by the aid of +the devil and diabolical rites, a brazen head which should possess the +power of speech--the experiment only failing through the negligence of +an assistant.(1) Such was ROGER BACON in the memory of the later Middle +Ages and many succeeding years; he was the typical alchemist, where that +term carries with it the depth of disrepute, though indeed alchemy was +for him but one, and that not the greatest, of many interests. + + +(1) The story, of course, is entirely fictitious. For further +particulars see Sir J. E. SANDYS' essay on "Roger Bacon in English +Literature," in _Roger Bacon Essays_ (1914), referred to below. + + +Ilchester, in Somerset, claims the honour of being the place of ROGER +BACON'S birth, which interesting and important event occurred, probably, +in 1214. Young BACON studied theology, philosophy, and what then passed +under the name of "science," first at Oxford, then the centre of liberal +thought, and afterwards at Paris, in the rigid orthodoxy of whose +professors he found more to criticise than to admire. Whilst at Oxford +he joined the Franciscan Order, and at Paris he is said, though this +is probably an error, to have graduated as Doctor of Theology. During +1250-1256 we find him back in England, no doubt engaged in study and +teaching. About the latter year, however, he is said to have been +banished--on a charge of holding heterodox views and indulging in +magical practices--to Paris, where he was kept in close confinement and +forbidden to write. Mr LITTLE,(1) however, believes this to be an error, +based on a misreading of a passage in one of BACON'S works, and that +ROGER was not imprisoned, but stricken with sickness. At any rate it is +not improbable that some restrictions as to his writing were placed on +him by his superiors of the Franciscan Order. In 1266 BACON received a +letter from Pope CLEMENT asking him to send His Holiness his works in +writing without delay. This letter came as a most pleasant surprise to +BACON; but he had nothing of importance written, and in great haste +and excitement, therefore, he composed three works explicating his +philosophy, the _Opus Majus_, the _Opus Minus_, and the _Opus Tertium_, +which were completed and dispatched to the Pope by the end of the +following year. This, as Mr ROWBOTTOM remarks, is "surely one of the +literary feats of history, perhaps only surpassed by Swedenborg when he +wrote six theological and philosophical treatises in one year."(1b) + + +(1) See his contribution, "On Roger Bacon's Life and Works," to _Roger +Bacon Essays_. + +(1b) B. R. ROWBOTTOM: "Roger Bacon," _The Journal of the Alchemical +Society_, vol. ii. (1914), p. 77. + + + +The works appear to have been well received. We next find BACON at +Oxford writing his _Compendium Studii Philosophiae_, in which work he +indulged in some by no means unjust criticisms of the clergy, for which +he fell under the condemnation of his order, and was imprisoned in +1277 on a charge of teaching "suspected novelties". In those days any +knowledge of natural phenomena beyond that of the quasi-science of +the times was regarded as magic, and no doubt some of ROGER BACON'S +"suspected novelties" were of this nature; his recognition of the +value of the writings of non-Christian moralists was, no doubt, another +"suspected novelty". Appeals for his release directed to the Pope +proved fruitless, being frustrated by JEROME D'ASCOLI, General of the +Franciscan Order, who shortly afterwards succeeded to the Holy See under +the title of NICHOLAS IV. The latter died in 1292, whereupon RAYMOND +GAUFREDI, who had been elected General of the Franciscan Order, and +who, it is thought, was well disposed towards BACON, because of certain +alchemical secrets the latter had revealed to him, ordered his release. +BACON returned to Oxford, where he wrote his last work, the _Compendium +Studii Theologiae_. He died either in this year or in 1294.(1) + + +(1) For further details concerning BACON'S life, EMILE CHARLES: _Roger +Bacon, sa Vie, ses Ouvrages, ses Doctrines_ (1861); J. H. BRIDGES: _The +Life & Work of Roger Bacon, an Introduction to the Opus Majus_ (edited +by H. G. JONES, 1914); and Mr A. G. LITTLE'S essay in _Roger Bacon +Essays_, may be consulted. + + +It was not until the publication by Dr SAMUEL JEBB, in 1733, of the +greater part of BACON'S _Opus Majus_, nearly four and a half centuries +after his death, that anything like his rightful position in the history +of philosophy began to be assigned to him. But let his spirit be no +longer troubled, if it were ever troubled by neglect or slander, for the +world, and first and foremost his own country, has paid him due honour. +His septcentenary was duly celebrated in 1914 at his _alma mater_, +Oxford, his statue has there been raised as a memorial to his greatness, +and savants have meted out praise to him in no grudging tones.(2) +Indeed, a voice has here and there been heard depreciating his +better-known namesake FRANCIS,(3) so that the later luminary should not, +standing in the way, obscure the light of the earlier; though, for my +part, I would suggest that one need not be so one-eyed as to fail to see +both lights at once. + +(2) See _Roger Bacon, Essays contributed by various Writers on the +Occasion of the Commemoration of the Seventh Centenary of his Birth_. +Collected and edited by A. G. LITTLE (1914); also Sir J. E. SANDYS' +_Roger Bacon_ (from _The Proceedings of the British Association_, vol. +vi., 1914). + +(3) For example, that of ERNST DUHRING. See an article entitled "The Two +Bacons," translated from his _Kritische Geschichte der Philosophie_ in +_The Open Court_ for August 1914. + + +To those who like to observe coincidences, it may be of interest that +the septcentenary of the discoverer of gunpowder should have coincided +with the outbreak of the greatest war under which the world has yet +groaned, even though gunpowder is no longer employed as a military +propellant. + +BACON'S reference to gunpowder occurs in his _Epistola de Secretis +Operibus Artis et Naturae, et de Nullitate Magiae_ (Hamburg, 1618) a +little tract written against magic, in which he endeavours to show, and +succeeds very well in the first eight chapters, that Nature and art can +perform far more extraordinary feats than are claimed by the workers +in the black art. The last three chapters are written in an alchemical +jargon of which even one versed in the symbolic language of alchemy can +make no sense. They are evidently cryptogramic, and probably deal with +the preparation and purification of saltpetre, which had only recently +been discovered as a distinct body.(1) In chapter xi. there is reference +to an explosive body, which can only be gunpowder; by means of it, says +BACON, you may, "if you know the trick, produce a bright flash and a +thundering noise." He mentions two of the ingredients, saltpetre and +sulphur, but conceals the third (_i.e_. charcoal) under an anagram. +Claims have, indeed, been put forth for the Greek, Arab, Hindu, and +Chinese origins of gunpowder, but a close examination of the original +ancient accounts purporting to contain references to gunpowder, shows +that only incendiary and not explosive bodies are really dealt with. But +whilst ROGER BACON knew of the explosive property of a mixture in right +proportions of sulphur, charcoal, and pure saltpetre (which he no doubt +accidentally hit upon whilst experimenting with the last-named body), he +was unaware of its projective power. That discovery, so detrimental +to the happiness of man ever since, was, in all probability, due to +BERTHOLD SCHWARZ about 1330. + + +(1) For an attempted explanation of this cryptogram, and evidence that +BACON was the discoverer of gunpowder, see Lieut.-Col. H. W. L. HIME'S +_Gunpowder and Ammunition: their Origin and Progress_ (1904). + + +ROGER BACON has been credited(1) with many other discoveries. In the +work already referred to he allows his imagination freely to speculate +as to the wonders that might be accomplished by a scientific utilisation +of Nature's forces--marvellous things with lenses, in bringing distant +objects near and so forth, carriages propelled by mechanical means, +flying machines...--but in no case is the word "discovery" in any +sense applicable, for not even in the case of the telescope does BACON +describe means by which his speculations might be realised. + +(1) For instance by Mr M. M. P. MUIR. See his contribution, on "Roger +Bacon: His Relations to Alchemy and Chemistry," to _Roger Bacon Essays_. + + +On the other hand, ROGER BACON has often been maligned for his beliefs +in astrology and alchemy, but, as the late Dr BRIDGES (who was quite +sceptical of the claims of both) pointed out, not to have believed +in them in BACON'S day would have been rather an evidence of mental +weakness than otherwise. What relevant facts were known supported +alchemical and astrological hypotheses. Astrology, Dr BRIDGES writes, +"conformed to the first law of Comte's _philosophia prima_, as being the +best hypothesis of which ascertained phenomena admitted."(1) And in his +alchemical speculations BACON was much in advance of his contemporaries, +and stated problems which are amongst those of modern chemistry. + + +(1) _Op. cit_., p.84. + + +ROGER BACON'S greatness does not lie in the fact that he discovered +gunpowder, nor in the further fact that his speculations have been +validated by other men. His greatness lies in his secure grip of +scientific method as a combination of mathematical reasoning and +experiment. Men before him had experimented, but none seemed to have +realised the importance of the experimental method. Nor was he, of +course, by any means the first mathematician--there was a long line of +Greek and Arabian mathematicians behind him, men whose knowledge of the +science was in many cases much greater than his--or the most learned +mathematician of his day; but none realised the importance of +mathematics as an organon of scientific research as he did; and he was +assuredly the priest who joined mathematics to experiment in the bonds +of sacred matrimony. We must not, indeed, look for precise rules of +inductive reasoning in the works of this pioneer writer on scientific +method. Nor do we find really satisfactory rules of induction even in +the works of FRANCIS BACON. Moreover, the latter despised mathematics, +and it was not until in quite recent years that the scientific world +came to realise that ROGER'S method is the more fruitful--witness the +modern revolution in chemistry produced by the adoption of mathematical +methods. + +ROGER BACON, it may be said, was many centuries in advance of his time; +but it is equally true that he was the child of his time; this may +account for his defects judged by modern standards. He owed not a little +to his contemporaries: for his knowledge and high estimate of philosophy +he was largely indebted to his Oxford master GROSSETESTE (_c_. +1175-1253), whilst PETER PEREGRINUS, his friend at Paris, fostered his +love of experiment, and the Arab mathematicians, whose works he knew, +inclined his mind to mathematical studies. He was violently opposed to +the scholastic views current in Paris at his time, and attacked great +thinkers like THOMAS AQUINAS (_c_. 1225-1274) and ALBERTUS MAGNUS +(1193-1280), as well as obscurantists, such as ALEXANDER of HALES (_ob_. +1245). But he himself was a scholastic philosopher, though of no servile +type, taking part in scholastic arguments. If he declared that he would +have all the works of ARISTOTLE burned, it was not because he hated +the Peripatetic's philosophy--though he could criticise as well as +appreciate at times,--but because of the rottenness of the translations +that were then used. It seems commonplace now, but it was a truly +wonderful thing then: ROGER BACON believed in accuracy, and was by no +means destitute of literary ethics. He believed in correct translation, +correct quotation, and the acknowledgment of the sources of one's +quotations--unheard-of things, almost, in those days. But even he was +not free from all the vices of his age: in spite of his insistence upon +experimental verification of the conclusions of deductive reasoning, +in one place, at least, he adopts a view concerning lenses from another +writer, of which the simplest attempt at such verification would have +revealed the falsity. For such lapses, however, we can make allowances. + +Another and undeniable claim to greatness rests on ROGER BACON'S +broad-mindedness. He could actually value at their true worth the moral +philosophies of non-Christian writers--SENECA (_c_. 5 B.C.-A.D. 65) and +AL GHAZZALI (1058-1111), for instance. But if he was catholic in the +original meaning of that term, he was also catholic in its restricted +sense. He was no heretic: the Pope for him was the Vicar of CHRIST, whom +he wished to see reign over the whole world, not by force of arms, +but by the assimilation of all that was worthy in that world. To his +mind--and here he was certainly a child of his age, in its best sense, +perhaps--all other sciences were handmaidens to theology, queen of +them all. All were to be subservient to her aims: the Church he called +"Catholic" was to embrace in her arms all that was worthy in the works +of "profane" writers--true prophets of God, he held, in so far as +writing worthily they unconsciously bore testimony to the truth of +Christianity,--and all that Nature might yield by patient experiment and +speculation guided by mathematics. Some minds see in this a defect in +his system, which limited his aims and outlook; others see it as the +unifying principle giving coherence to the whole. At any rate, the +Church, as we have seen, regarded his views as dangerous, and restrained +his pen for at least a considerable portion of his life. + +ROGER BACON may seem egotistic in argument, but his mind was humble to +learn. He was not superstitious, but he would listen to common folk who +worked with their hands, to astrologers, and even magicians, denying +nothing which seemed to him to have some evidence in experience: if he +denied much of magical belief, it was because he found it lacking in +such evidence. He often went astray in his views; he sometimes failed +to apply his own method, and that method was, in any case, primitive and +crude. But it was the RIGHT method, in embryo at least, and ROGER BACON, +in spite of tremendous opposition, greater than that under which any man +of science may now suffer, persisted in that method to the end, calling +upon his contemporaries to adopt it as the only one which results in +right knowledge. Across the centuries--or, rather, across the gulf that +divides this world from the next--let us salute this great and noble +spirit. + + + + +XII. THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS + +THERE is an opinion, unfortunately very common, that religious mysticism +is a product of the emotional temperament, and is diametrically opposed +to the spirit of rationalism. No doubt this opinion is not without some +element of justification, and one could quote the works of not a few +religious mystics to the effect that self-surrender to God implies, not +merely a giving up of will, but also of reason. But that this teaching +is not an essential element in mysticism, that it is, indeed, rather its +perversion, there is adequate evidence to demonstrate. SWEDENBORG is, +I suppose, the outstanding instance of an intellectual mystic; but the +essential unity of mysticism and rationalism is almost as forcibly made +evident in the case of the Cambridge Platonists. That little band of +"Latitude men," as their contemporaries called them, constitutes one of +the finest schools of philosophy that England has produced; yet their +works are rarely read, I am afraid, save by specialists. Possibly, +however, if it were more commonly known what a wealth of sound +philosophy and true spiritual teaching they contain, the case would be +otherwise. + +The Cambridge Platonists--BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE, JOHN SMITH, NATHANAEL +CULVERWEL, RALPH CUDWORTH, and HENRY MORE are the more outstanding +names--were educated as Puritans; but they clearly realised the +fundamental error of Puritanism, which tended to make a man's eternal +salvation depend upon the accuracy and extent of his beliefs; nor could +they approve of the exaggerated import given by the High Church party to +matters of Church polity. The term "Cambridge Platonists" is, perhaps, +less appropriate than that of "Latitudinarians," which latter name +emphasises their broad-mindedness (even if it carries with it something +of disapproval). For although they owed much to PTATO, and, perhaps, +more to PLOTINUS (_c_. A.D. 203-262), they were Christians first and +Platonists afterwards, and, with the exception, perhaps, of MORE, they +took nothing from these philosophers which was not conformable to the +Scriptures. + +BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE was born in 1609, at Whichcote Hall, in the parish of +Stoke, Shropshire. In 1626 he entered Emmanuel College, Cambridge, +then regarded as the chief Puritan college of the University. Here his +college tutor was ANTHONY TUCKNEY (1599-1670), a man of rare character, +combining learning, wit, and piety. Between WHICHCOTE and TUCKNEY there +grew up a firm friendship, founded on mutual affection and esteem. But +TUCKNEY was unable to agree with all WHICHCOTE'S broad-minded views +concerning reason and authority; and in later years this gave rise to +a controversy between them, in which TUCKNEY sought to controvert +WHICHCOTE'S opinions: it was, however, carried on without acrimony, and +did not destroy their friendship. + +WHICHCOTE became M.A., and was elected a fellow of his college, in 1633, +having obtained his B.A. four years previously. He was ordained by +JOHN WILLIAMS in 1636, and received the important appointment of Sunday +afternoon lecturer at Trinity Church. His lectures, which he gave with +the object of turning men's minds from polemics to the great moral and +spiritual realities at the basis of the Christian religion, from mere +formal discussions to a true searching into the reason of things, were +well attended and highly appreciated; and he held the appointment for +twenty years. In 1634 he became college tutor at Emmanuel. He possessed +all the characteristics that go to make up an efficient and well-beloved +tutor, and his personal influence was such as to inspire all his +pupils, amongst whom were both JOHN SMITH and NATHANAEL CULVERWEL, who +considerably amplified his philosophical and religious doctrines. In +1640 he became B.D., and nine years after was created D.D. The college +living of North Cadbury, in Somerset, was presented to him in 1643, +and shortly afterwards he married. In the next year, however, he was +recalled to Cambridge, and installed as Provost of King's College in +place of the ejected Dr SAMUEL COLLINS. But it was greatly against his +wish that he received the appointment, and he only consented to do so on +the condition that part of his stipend should be paid to COLLINS--an act +which gives us a good insight into the character of the man. In 1650 he +resigned North Cadbury, and the living was presented to CUDWORTH (see +below), and towards the end of this year he was elected Vice-Chancellor +of the University in succession to TUCKNEY. It was during his +Vice-Chancellorship that he preached the sermon that gave rise to the +controversy with the latter. About this time also he was presented +with the living of Milton, in Cambridgeshire. At the Restoration he +was ejected from the Provostship, but, having complied with the Act +of Uniformity, he was, in 1662, appointed to the cure of St Anne's, +Blackfriars. This church being destroyed in the Great Fire, WHICHCOTE +retired to Milton, where he showed great kindness to the poor. But some +years later he returned to London, having received the vicarage of St +Lawrence, Jewry. His friends at Cambridge, however, still saw him on +occasional visits, and it was on one such visit to CUDWORTH, in 1683, +that he caught the cold which caused his death. + +JOHN SMITH was born at Achurch, near Oundle, in 1618. He entered +Emmanuel College in 1636, became B.A. in 1640, and proceeded to M.A. in +1644, in which year he was appointed a fellow of Queen's College. Here +he lectured on arithmetic with considerable success. He was noted for +his great learning, especially in theology and Oriental languages, +as well as for his justness, uprightness, and humility. He died of +consumption in 1652. + +NATHANAEL CULVERWEL was probably born about the same year as SMITH. He +entered Emmanuel College in 1633, gained his B.A. in 1636, and became +M.A. in 1640. Soon afterwards he was elected a fellow of his college. +He died about 1651. Beyond these scant details, nothing is known of his +life. He was a man of very great erudition, as his posthumous treatise +on _The Light of Nature_ makes evident. + +HENRY MORE was born at Grantham in 1614. From his earliest days he +was interested in theological problems, and his precociousness in this +respect appears to have brought down on him the wrath of an uncle. +His early education was conducted at Eton. In 1631 he entered Christ's +College, Cambridge, graduated B.A. in 1635, and received his M.A. +in 1639. In the latter year he was elected a fellow of Christ's and +received Holy Orders. He lived a very retired life, refusing all +preferment, though many valuable and honourable appointments were +offered to him. Indeed, he rarely left Christ's, except to visit +his "heroine pupil," Lady CONWAY, whose country seat, Ragley, was in +Warwickshire. Lady CONWAY (_ob_. 1679) appears to be remembered only for +the fact that, dying whilst her husband was away, her physician, F. M. +VAN HELMONT (1618-1699) (son of the famous alchemist, J. B. VAN HELMONT, +whom we have met already on these excursions), preserved her body in +spirits of wine, so that he could have the pleasure of beholding it on +his return. She seems to have been a woman of considerable learning, +though not free from fantastic ideas. Her ultimate conversion to +Quakerism was a severe blow to MORE, who, whilst admiring the holy lives +of the Friends, regarded them as enthusiasts. MORE died in 1687. + +MORE'S earliest works were in verse, and exhibit fine feeling. The +following lines, quoted from a poem on "Charitie and Humilitie," are +full of charm, and well exhibit MORE'S character:-- + + "Farre have I clambred in my mind + But nought so great as love I find: + Deep-searching wit, mount-moving might, + Are nought compar'd to that great spright. + Life of Delight and soul of blisse! + Sure source of lasting happinesse! + Higher than Heaven! lower than hell! + What is thy tent? Where maist thou dwell? + My mansion highs humilitie, + Heaven's vastest capabilitie + The further it doth downward tend + The higher up it doth ascend; + If it go down to utmost nought + It shall return with that it sought."(1) + + +(1) See _The Life of the Learned and Pious Dr Henry More... by_ RICHARD +WARD, A.M., _to which are annexed Divers Philosophical Poems and Hymns_. +Edited by M. F. HOWARD (1911), pp. 250 and 251. + + + +Later he took to prose, and it must be confessed that he wrote too much +and frequently descended to polemics (for example, his controversy +with the alchemist THOMAS VAUGHAN, in which both combatants freely used +abuse). + +Although in his main views MORE is thoroughly characteristic of the +school to which he belonged, many of his less important opinions are +more or less peculiar to himself. + +The relation between MORE's and DESCARTES' (1596-1650) theories as to +the nature of spirit is interesting. When MORE first read DESCARTES' +works he was favourably impressed with his views, though without +entirely agreeing with him on all points; but later the difference +became accentuated. DESCARTES regarded extension as the chief +characteristic of matter, and asserted that spirit was extra-spatial. To +MORE this seemed like denying the existence of spirit, which he regarded +as extended, and he postulated divisibility and impenetrability as the +chief characteristics of matter. In order, however, to get over some of +the inherent difficulties of this view, he put forward the suggestion +that spirit is extended in four dimensions: thus, its apparent (_i.e_. +three-dimensional) extension can change, whilst its true (_i.e_. +four-dimensional) extension remains constant; just as the surface of a +piece of metal can be increased by hammering it out, without increasing +the volume of the metal. Here, I think, we have a not wholly inadequate +symbol of the truth; but it remained for BERKELEY (1685-1753) to show + position, by demonstrating that, since space and extension are +perceptions of the mind, and thus exist only in the mind as ideas, space +exists in spirit: not spirit in space. + +MORE was a keen believer in witchcraft, and eagerly investigated all +cases of these and like marvels that came under his notice. In this +he was largely influenced by JOSEPH GLANVIL (1636-1680), whose book +on witchcraft, the well-known _Saducismus Triumphatus_, MORE largely +contributed to, and probably edited. MORE was wholly unsuited for +psychical research; free from guile himself, he was too inclined +to judge others to be of this nature also. But his common sense and +critical attitude towards enthusiasm saved him, no doubt, from many +falls into the mire of fantasy. + +As Principal TULLOCH has pointed out, whilst MORE is the most +interesting personality amongst the Cambridge Platonists, his works +are the least interesting of those of his school. They are dull and +scholastic, and MORE'S retired existence prevented him from grasping in +their fulness some of the more acute problems of life. His attempt to +harmonise catastrophes with Providence, on the ground that the evil of +certain parts may be necessary for the good of the whole, just as dark +colours, as well as bright, are essential to the beauty of a +picture--a theory which is practically the same as that of modern +Absolutism,(1)--is a case in point. No doubt this harmony may be +accomplished, but in another key. + + +(1) Cf. BERNARD BOSANQUET, LL.D., D.C.L.: _The Principle of +Individuality and Value_ (1912). + + +RALPH CUDWORTH was born at Aller, in Somersetshire, in 1617. He entered +Emmanuel College in 1632, three years afterwards gained his B.A., and +became M.A. in 1639. In the latter year he was elected a fellow of his +college. Later he obtained the B.D. degree. In 1645 he was appointed +Master of Clare Hall, in place of the ejected Dr PASHE, and was elected +Regius Professor of Hebrew. On 31st March 1647 he preached a sermon +of remarkable eloquence and power before the House of Commons, which +admirably expresses the attitude of his school as concerns the nature +of true religion. I shall refer to it again later. In 1650 CUDWORTH was +presented with the college living of North Cadbury, which WHICHCOTE +had resigned, and was made D.D. in the following year. In 1654 he was +elected Master of Christ's College, with an improvement in his financial +position, there having been some difficulty in obtaining his stipend at +Clare Hall. In this year he married. In 1662 Bishop SHELDON presented +him with the rectory of Ashwell, in Hertfordshire. He died in 1688. He +was a pious man of fine intellect; but his character was marred by a +certain suspiciousness which caused him wrongfully to accuse MORE, in +1665, of attempting to forestall him in writing a work on ethics, which +should demonstrate that the principles of Christian morality are not +based on any arbitrary decrees of God, but are inherent in the nature +and reason of things. CUDWORTH'S great work--or, at least, the first +part, which alone was completed,--_The Intellectual System of the +World_, appeared in 1678. In it CUDWORTH deals with atheism on +the ground of reason, demonstrating its irrationality. The book is +remarkable for the fairness and fulness with which CUDWORTH states the +arguments in favour of atheism. + +So much for the lives and individual characteristics of the Cambridge +Platonists: what were the great principles that animated both their +lives and their philosophy? These, I think, were two: first, the +essential unity of religion and morality; second, the essential unity of +revelation and reason. + +With clearer perception of ethical truth than either Puritan or High +Churchman, the Cambridge Platonists saw that true Christianity is +neither a matter of mere belief, nor consists in the mere performance +of good works; but is rather a matter of character. To them Christianity +connoted regeneration. "Religion," says WHICHCOTE, "is the Frame and +TEMPER of our Minds, and the RULE of our Lives"; and again, "Heaven is +FIRST a Temper, and THEN a Place."(1) To the man of heavenly temper, +they taught, the performance of good works would be no irksome matter +imposed merely by a sense of duty, but would be done spontaneously as a +delight. To drudge in religion may very well be necessary as an initial +stage, but it is not its perfection. + + +(1) My quotations from WHICHCOTE and SMITH are taken from the selection +of their discourses edited by E. T. CAMPAGNAC, M.A. (1901). + + +In his sermon before the House of Commons, CUDWORTH well exposes +the error of those who made the mere holding of certain beliefs the +essential element in Christianity. There are many passages I should like +to quote from this eloquent discourse, but the following must suffice: +"We must not judge of our knowing of Christ, by our skill in Books +and Papers, but by our keeping of his Commandments... He is the best +Christian, whose heart beats with the truest pulse towards heaven; not +he whose head spinneth out the finest cobwebs. He that endeavours really +to mortifie his lusts, and to comply with that truth in his life, which +his Conscience is convinced of; is neerer a Christian, though he never +heard of Christ; then he that believes all the vulgar Articles of the +Christian faith, and plainly denyeth Christ in his life.... The great +Mysterie of the Gospel, it doth not lie only in CHRIST WITHOUT US, +(though we must know also what he hath done for us) but the very Pith +and Kernel of it, consists in _*Christ inwardly formed_ in our hearts. +Nothing is truly Ours, but what lives in our Spirits. SALVATION it self +cannot SAVE us, as long as it is onely without us; no more then HEALTH +can cure us, and make us sound, when it is not within us, but somewhere +at distance from us; no more than _Arts and Sciences_, whilst they lie +onely in Books and Papers without us; can make us learned."(1) + + +(1) RALPH CUDWORTH, B.D.: _A Sermon Preached before the Honourable House +of Commons at Westminster, Mar_. 31, 1647 (1st edn.), pp. 3, 14, 42, and +43. + + +The Cambridge Platonists were not ascetics; their moral doctrine was one +of temperance. Their sound wisdom on this point is well evident in +the following passage from WHICHCOTE: "What can be alledged for +Intemperance; since Nature is content with very few things? Why should +any one over-do in this kind? A Man is better in Health and Strength, if +he be temperate. We enjoy ourselves more in a sober and temperate Use of +ourselves."(2) + + +(2) BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE: _The Venerable Nature and Transcendant Benefit +of Christian Religion. Op. cit_., p. 40. + + +The other great principle animating their philosophy was, as I have +said, the essential unity of reason and revelation. To those who argued +that self-surrender implied a giving up of reason, they replied that "To +go against REASON, is to go against GOD: it is the self same thing, to +do that which the Reason of the Case doth require; and that which God +Himself doth appoint: Reason is the DIVINE Governor of Man's Life; it +is the very Voice of God."(3) Reason, Conscience, and the Scriptures, +these, taught the Cambridge Platonists, testify of one another and are +the true guides which alone a man should follow. All other authority +they repudiated. But true reason is not merely sensuous, and the only +way whereby it may be gained is by the purification of the self from the +desires that draw it away from the Source of all Reason. "God," writes +MORE, "reserves His choicest secrets for the purest Minds," adding his +conviction that "true Holiness (is) the only safe Entrance into Divine +Knowledge." Or as SMITH, who speaks of "a GOOD LIFE as the PROLEPSIS and +Fundamental principle of DIVINE SCIENCE," puts it, "... if... KNOWLEDGE +be not attended with HUMILITY and a deep sense of SELF-PENURY and +_*Self-emptiness_, we may easily fall short of that True Knowledge of +God which we seem to aspire after."(1b) Right Reason, however, they +taught, is the product of the sight of the soul, the true mystic vision. + + +(3) BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE: _Moral and Religious Aphorisms OP. cit_., p. 67. + +(1b) JOHN SMITH: _A Discourse concerning the true Way or Method of +attaining to Divine Knowledge. Op. cit_., pp. 80 and 96. + + +In what respects, it may be asked in conclusion, is the philosophy of +the Cambridge Platonists open to criticism? They lacked, perhaps, a +sufficiently clear concept of the Church as a unity, and although they +clearly realised that Nature is a symbol which it is the function of +reason to interpret spiritually, they failed, I think, to appreciate +the value of symbols. Thus they have little to teach with respect to the +Sacraments of the Church, though, indeed, the highest view, perhaps, +is that which regards every act as potentially a sacrament; and, whilst +admiring his morality, they criticised BOEHME as an enthusiast. But, +although he spoke in a very different language, spiritually he had much +in common with them. Compared with what is of positive value in their +philosophy, however, the defects of the Cambridge Platonists are but +comparatively slight. I commend their works to lovers of spiritual +wisdom. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Bygone Beliefs, by H. Stanley Redgrove + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BYGONE BELIEFS *** + +***** This file should be named 1271.txt or 1271.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/7/1271/ + +Produced by Charles Keller + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +<.> = coordinate covalent bond. +<#s> = subscripted #. +<#S> = superscripted #. +{} mark non-ascii characters. +"Emphasis" _italics_ have a * mark. +@@@ marks a reference to internal page numbers. +Comments and guessed at characters in {braces} need stripped/fixed. +Footnotes have not been re-numbered, however, [#] are moved to EOParagraph. +The footnotes that have duplicate numbers across 2 pages are "a" and "b". +"Protected" indentations have a space before the [Tab]. +EOL- have been converted to ([Soft Hyphen]). +Greek letters are encoded in <gr > brackets, and the letters are +based on Adobe's Symbol font. +Hebrew letters are encoded in <hb > brackets. + + + + + +Scanned by Charles Keller with OmniPage Professional OCR software + + + + + +BYGONE BELIEFS +BEING A SERIES OF +EXCURSIONS IN THE BYWAYS +OF THOUGHT + +BY +H. STANLEY REDGROVE + + +_Alle Erfahrung ist Magic, und nur magisch erklarbar_. + NOVALIS (Friedrich von Hardenberg). + +Everything possible to be believ'd is an image of truth. + WILLIAM BLAKE. + + + +TO +MY WIFE + + + +PREFACE + +THESE Excursions in the Byways of Thought were undertaken at +different times and on different occasions; consequently, the reader +may be able to detect in them inequalities of treatment. +He may feel that I have lingered too long in some byways and hurried +too rapidly through others, taking, as it were, but a general +view of the road in the latter case, whilst examining everything +that could be seen in the former with, perhaps, undue care. +As a matter of fact, how ever, all these excursions have been +undertaken with one and the same object in view, that, namely, +of understanding aright and appreciating at their true worth some +of the more curious byways along which human thought has travelled. +It is easy for the superficial thinker to dismiss much of the thought +of the past (and, indeed, of the present) as _mere_ superstition, +not worth the trouble of investigation: but it is not scientific. +There is a reason for every belief, even the most fantastic, +and it should be our object to discover this reason. How far, +if at all, the reason in any case justifies us in holding a similar +belief is, of course, another question. Some of the beliefs I +have dealt with I have treated at greater length than others, +because it seems to me that the truths of which they are the images-- +vague and distorted in many cases though they be--are truths which we +have either forgotten nowadays, or are in danger of forgetting. +We moderns may, indeed, learn something from the thought of the past, +even in its most fantastic aspects. In one excursion at least, +namely, the essay on "The Cambridge Platonists," I have ventured +to deal with a higher phase--perhaps I should say the highest phase-- +of the thought of a bygone age, to which the modern world may +be completely debtor. + +"Some Characteristics of Mediaeval Thought," and the two essays on Alchemy, +have appeared in _The Journal of the Alchemical Society_. In others +I have utilised material I have contributed to _The Occult Review_, +to the editor of which journal my thanks are due for permission so to do. +I have also to express my gratitude to the Rev. A. H. COLLINS, +and others to be referred to in due course, for permission here +to reproduce illustrations of which they are the copyright holders. +I have further to offer my hearty thanks to Mr B. R. ROWBOTTOM +and my wife for valuable assistance in reading the proofs. +H. S. R. + +BLETCHLEY, BUCKS, _December_ 1919. + + + +CONTENTS PAGE +PREFACE . . . . . . . .ix +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS . . . . . .xiii +1. SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF MEDIAEVAL THOUGHT . . . 1 +2. PYTHAGORAS AND HIS PHILOSOPHY . . . . . . . . . 8 +3. MEDICINE AND MAGIC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 +4. SUPERSTITIONS CONCERNING BIRDS . . . . . . . . 34 +5. THE POWDER OF SYMPATHY: A CURIOUS MEDICAL +SUPERSTITION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 6. +THE BELIEF IN TALISMANS . . . . 57 7. CEREMONIAL MAGIC IN +THEORY AND PRACTICE .. 87 +8. ARCHITECTURAL SYMBOLISM . . . . . . . . 111 +9. THE QUEST OF THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE.. . . . . 121 +10. THE PHALLIC ELEMENT IN ALCHEMICAL DOCTRINE 149 11. +ROGER BACON: AN APPRECIATION . . .183 12. +THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS . . . . 193 + + +{the LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS are incomplete and raw OCR output!} + + +PAGE 46. Symbolic Alchemical Design from Mutus Liber (1677) . PLATE: +25, to face p. 176 47. Symbolic Alchemical Design + +illustrating the Work of + +Woman, from MAIER s Alalanta Fugiens . . . ,, 26, ,, 178 48. +Symbolic Alchemica Design, Hermaphrodite,fromMAIER's Atalanta Fugiens +. . ,, 27, ,, 180 49. ROGER BACON presenting a Book to a King, +from a Fifteenth~entury Miniature in the Bodleian Library, Oxford . . . . +,, 28, ,, I84 50. ROGER BACON, from a Portrait in Knole Castle . . . +,, 29, ,, 188 5I. BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE, from an engraved Portrait +by ROBERT WHITE . . ,, 30, ,, I94 52. HENRY MoRE, from a Portrait +by DAVID LOGGAN, engraved ad vivum, 1679 . . . ,, 3I, ,, I98 53. +RALPH CUDWORTH, from an engraved Portrait by VERTUE, after LOGGAN, +forming the Frontispiece to CUDWORTH s Treatise Concerning Morality (I73I) ù +ù ù ù ,, 32, ,, 3~ + + + +BYGONE BELIEFS + +I + +SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF MEDAEVAL THOUGHT + +IN the earliest days of his upward evolution man was satisfied +with a very crude explanation of natural phenomena--that to which +the name "animism" has been given. In this stage of mental +development all the various forces of Nature are personified: +the rushing torrent, the devastating fire, the wind rustling +the forest leaves--in the mind of the animistic savage all +these are personalities, spirits, like himself, but animated +by motives more or less antagonistic to him. + +I suppose that no possible exception could be taken to the +statement that modern science renders animism impossible. +But let us inquire in exactly what sense this is true. +It is not true that science robs natural phenomena of their +spiritual significance. The mistake is often made of supposing +that science explains, or endeavours to explain, phenomena. +But that is the business of philosophy. The task science attempts +is the simpler one of the correlation of natural phenomena, and in +this effort leaves the ultimate problems of metaphysics untouched. +A universe, however, whose phenomena are not only capable of some +degree of correlation, but present the extraordinary degree of +harmony and unity which science makes manifest in Nature, cannot be, +as in animism, the product of a vast number of inco-ordinated +and antagonistic wills, but must either be the product of one Will, +or not the product of will at all. + +The latter alternative means that the Cosmos is inexplicable, +which not only man's growing experience, but the fact that man +and the universe form essentially a unity, forbid us to believe. +The term "anthropomorphic" is too easily applied to philosophical +systems, as if it constituted a criticism of their validity. +For if it be true, as all must admit, that the unknown can only +be explained in terms of the known, then the universe must either +be explained in terms of man--_i.e_. in terms of will or desire-- +or remain incomprehensible. That is to say, a philosophy must +either be anthropomorphic, or no philosophy at all. + +Thus a metaphysical scrutiny of the results of modern science +leads us to a belief in God. But man felt the need of unity, +and crude animism, though a step in the right direction, failed to +satisfy his thought, long before the days of modern science. +The spirits of animism, however, were not discarded, +but were modified, co-ordinated, and worked into a system +as servants of the Most High. Polytheism may mark a stage in +this process; or, perhaps, it was a result of mental degeneracy. + +What I may term systematised as distinguished from crude animism +persisted throughout the Middle Ages. The work of systematisation +had already been accomplished, to a large extent, by the Neo-Platonists +and whoever were responsible for the Kabala. It is true that +these main sources of magical or animistic philosophy remained +hidden during the greater part of the Middle Ages; but at about +their close the youthful and enthusiastic CORNELIUS AGRIPPA +(1486-1535)[1] slaked his thirst thereat and produced his own attempt +at the systematisation of magical belief in the famous _Three Books +of Occult Philosophy_. But the waters of magical philosophy +reached the mediaeval mind through various devious channels, +traditional on the one hand and literary on the other. +And of the latter, the works of pseudo-DIONYSIUS,[2] whose immense +influence upon mediaeval thought has sometimes been neglected, +must certainly be noted. + + +[1] The story of his life has been admirably told by HENRY MORLEY +(2 vols., 1856). + +[2] These writings were first heard of in the early part of +the sixth century, and were probably the work of a Syrian monk +of that date, who fathered them on to DIONYSIUS the Areopagite +as a pious fraud. See Dean INGE'S _Christian Mysticism_ +(1899), pp. 104--122, and VAUGHAN'S _Hours with the Mystics_ +(7th ed., 1895), vol. i. pp. 111-124. The books have been +translated into English by the Rev. JOHN PARKER (2 vols. +1897-1899), who believes in the genuineness of their alleged authorship. + + +The most obvious example of a mediaeval animistic belief is +that in "elementals"--the spirits which personify the primordial +forces of Nature, and are symbolised by the four elements, +immanent in which they were supposed to exist, and through +which they were held to manifest their powers. And astrology, +it must be remembered, is essentially a systematised animism. +The stars, to the ancients, were not material bodies like the earth, +but spiritual beings. PLATO (427-347 B.C.) speaks of them as +"gods". Mediaeval thought did not regard them in quite this way. +But for those who believed in astrology, and few, I think, did not, +the stars were still symbols of spiritual forces operative on man. +Evidences of the wide extent of astrological belief in those days +are abundant, many instances of which we shall doubtless encounter +in our excursions. + +It has been said that the theological and philosophical +atmosphere of the Middle Ages was "scholastic," not mystical. +No doubt "mysticism," as a mode of life aiming at the realisation +of the presence of God, is as distinct from scholasticism +as empiricism is from rationalism, or "tough-minded" philosophy +(to use JAMES' happy phrase) is from "tender-minded". But +no philosophy can be absolutely and purely deductive. +It must start from certain empirically determined facts. +A man might be an extreme empiricist in religion (_i.e_. a mystic), +and yet might attempt to deduce all other forms of knowledge +from the results of his religious experiences, never caring +to gather experience in any other realm. Hence the breach between +mysticism and scholasticism is not really so wide as may appear +at first sight. Indeed, scholasticism officially recognised +three branches of theology, of which the MYSTICAL was one. +I think that mysticism and scholasticism both had a profound +influence on the mediaeval mind, sometimes acting as opposing +forces, sometimes operating harmoniously with one another. +As Professor WINDELBAND puts it: "We no longer onesidedly +characterise the philosophy of the middle ages as scholasticism, +but rather place mysticism beside it as of equal rank, +and even as being the more fruitful and promising movement."[1] + + +[1] Professor WILHELM WINDELBAND, Ph.D.: "Present-Day Mysticism," +_The Quest_, vol. iv. (1913), P. 205. + + +Alchemy, with its four Aristotelian or scholastic elements +and its three mystical principles--sulphur, mercury, salt,-- +must be cited as the outstanding product of the combined influence +of mysticism and scholasticism: of mysticism, which postulated +the unity of the Cosmos, and hence taught that everything natural +is the expressive image and type of some supernatural reality; +of scholasticism, which taught men to rely upon deduction and to +restrict experimentation to the smallest possible limits. + +The mind naturally proceeds from the known, or from what is supposed +to be known, to the unknown. Indeed, as I have already indicated, +it must so proceed if truth is to be gained. Now what did the men +of the Middle Ages regard as falling into the category of the known? +Why, surely, the truths of revealed religion, whether accepted +upon authority or upon the evidence of their own experience. +The realm of spiritual and moral reality: there, they felt, +they were on firm ground. Nature was a realm unknown; +but they had analogy to guide, or, rather, misguide them. +Nevertheless if, as we know, it misguided, this was not, +I think, because the mystical doctrine of the correspondence +between the spiritual and the natural is unsound, +but because these ancient seekers into Nature's secrets knew +so little, and so frequently misapplied what they did know. +So alchemical philosophy arose and became systematised, +with its wonderful endeavour to perfect the base metals by +the Philosopher's Stone--the concentrated Essence of Nature,-- +as man's soul is perfected through the life-giving power +of JESUS CHRIST. + +I want, in conclusion to these brief introductory remarks, to say +a few words concerning phallicism in connection with my topic. +For some "tender-minded"[1] and, to my thought, obscure, +reason the subject is tabooed. Even the British Museum +does not include works on phallicism in its catalogue, +and special permission has to be obtained to consult them. +Yet the subject is of vast importance as concerns the origin +and development of religion and philosophy, and the extent +of phallic worship may be gathered from the widespread occurrence +of obelisks and similar objects amongst ancient relics. +Our own maypole dances may be instanced as one survival +of the ancient worship of the male generative principle. + + +[1] I here use the term with the extended meaning Mr H. G. WELLS +has given to it. See _The New Machiavelli_. + + +What could be more easy to understand than that, when man first +questioned as to the creation of the earth, he should suppose it +to have been generated by some process analogous to that which he saw +held in the case of man? How else could he account for its origin, +if knowledge must proceed from the known to the unknown? +No one questions at all that the worship of the human generative +organs as symbols of the dual generative principle of Nature +degenerated into orgies of the most frightful character, +but the view of Nature which thus degenerated is not, I think, +an altogether unsound one, and very interesting remnants of it +are to be found in mediaeval philosophy. + +These remnants are very marked in alchemy. The metals, +as I have suggested, are there regarded as types of man; +hence they are produced from seed, through the combination +of male and female principles--mercury and sulphur, +which on the spiritual plane are intelligence and love. +The same is true of that Stone which is perfect Man. As BERNARD +of TREVISAN (1406-1490) wrote in the fifteenth century: +"This Stone then is compounded of a Body and Spirit, or of a volatile +and fixed Substance, and that is therefore done, because nothing +in the World can be generated and brought to light without +these two Substances, to wit, a Male and Female: From whence +it appeareth, that although these two Substances are not of +one and the same species, yet one Stone cloth thence arise, +and although they appear and are said to be two Substances, +yet in truth it is but one, to wit, _Argent-vive_."[1] No +doubt this sounds fantastic; but with all their seeming +intellectual follies these old thinkers were no fools. +The fact of sex is the most fundamental fact of the universe, +and is a spiritual and physical as well as a physiological fact. +I shall deal with the subject as concerns the speculations +of the alchemists in some detail in a later excursion. + + +[1] BERNARD, Earl of TREVISAN: _A Treatise of the +Philosopher's Stone_, 1683. (See _Collectanea Chymica: A Collection +of Ten Several Treatises in Chemistry_, 1684, p. 91.) + + + +II + +PYTHAGORAS AND HIS PHILOSOPHY + +IT is a matter for enduring regret that so little is known to us +concerning PYTHAGORAS. What little we do know serves but to enhance +for us the interest of the man and his philosophy, to make him, +in many ways, the most attractive of Greek thinkers; and, basing our +estimate on the extent of his influence on the thought of succeeding ages, +we recognise in him one of the world's master-minds. + +PYTHAGORAS was born about 582 B.C. at Samos, one of the Grecian isles. +In his youth he came in contact with THALES--the Father of Geometry, +as he is well called,--and though he did not become a member of THALES' +school, his contact with the latter no doubt helped to turn his mind +towards the study of geometry. This interest found the right ground +for its development in Egypt, which he visited when still young. +Egypt is generally regarded as the birthplace of geometry, +the subject having, it is supposed, been forced on the minds +of the Egyptians by the necessity of fixing the boundaries of lands +against the annual overflowing of the Nile. But the Egyptians +were what is called an essentially practical people, and their +geometrical knowledge did not extend beyond a few empirical rules +useful for fixing these boundaries and in constructing their temples. +Striking evidence of this fact is supplied by the AHMES papyrus, +compiled some little time before 1700 B.C. from an older work dating +from about 3400 B.C.,[1] a papyrus which almost certainly represents +the highest mathematical knowledge reached by the Egyptians of that day. +Geometry is treated very superficially and as of subsidiary interest +to arithmetic; there is no ordered series of reasoned geometrical +propositions given--nothing, indeed, beyond isolated rules, +and of these some are wanting in accuracy. + + +[1] See AUGUST EISENLOHR: _Ein mathematisches Handbuch der +alten Aegypter_ (1877); J. Gow: _A Short History of Greek Mathematics_ +(1884); and V. E. JOHNSON: _Egyptian Science from the Monuments +and Ancient Books_ (1891). + + +One geometrical fact known to the Egyptians was that if a triangle +be constructed having its sides 3, 4, and 5 units long respectively, +then the angle opposite the longest side is exactly a right angle; and the +Egyptian builders used this rule for constructing walls perpendicular +to each other, employing a cord graduated in the required manner. +The Greek mind was not, however, satisfied with the bald statement +of mere facts--it cared little for practical applications, +but sought above all for the underlying REASON of everything. +Nowadays we are beginning to realise that the results achieved by this +type of mind, the general laws of Nature's behaviour formulated +by its endeavours, are frequently of immense practical importance-- +of far more importance than the mere rules-of-thumb beyond which +so-called practical minds never advance. The classic example +of the utility of seemingly useless knowledge is afforded by +Sir WILLIAM HAMILTON'S discovery, or, rather, invention of Quarternions, +but no better example of the utilitarian triumph of the theoretical +over the so-called practical mind can be adduced than that afforded +by PYTHAGORAS. Given this rule for constructing a right angle, +about whose reason the Egyptian who used it never bothered himself, +and the mind of PYTHAGORAS, searching for its full significance, +made that gigantic geometrical discovery which is to this day known +as the Theorem of PYTHAGORAS--the law that in every right-angled +triangle the square on the side opposite the right angle is equal +in area to the sum of the squares on the other two sides.[1] +The importance of this discovery can hardly be overestimated. +It is of fundamental importance in most branches of geometry, +and the basis of the whole of trigonometry--the special branch +of geometry that deals with the practical mensuration of triangles. +EUCLID devoted the whole of the first book of his _Elements of +Geometry_ to establishing the truth of this theorem; how PYTHAGORAS +demonstrated it we unfortunately do not know. + + +[1] Fig. 3 affords an interesting practical demonstration of +the truth of this theorem. If the reader will copy this figure, +cut out the squares on the two shorter sides of the triangle +and divide them along the lines AD, BE, EF, he will find +that the five pieces so obtained can be made exactly to fit +the square on the longest side as shown by the dotted lines. +The size and shape of the triangle ABC, so long as it has +a right angle at C, is immaterial. The lines AD, BE are +obtained by continuing the sides of the square on the side AB, +_i.e_. the side opposite the right angle, and EF is drawn +at right angles to BE. + +After absorbing what knowledge was to be gained in Egypt, PYTHAGORAS journeyed +to Babylon, where he probably came into contact with even greater traditions +and more potent influences and sources of knowledge than in Egypt, for there +is reason for believing that the ancient Chaldeans were the builders of +the Pyramids and in many ways the intellectual superiors of the Egyptians. + +At last, after having travelled still further East, probably as far +as India, PYTHAGORAS returned to his birthplace to teach the men of his +native land the knowledge he had gained. But CROESUS was tyrant over Samos, +and so oppressive was his rule that none had leisure in which to learn. +Not a student came to PYTHAGORAS, until, in despair, so the story runs, +he offered to pay an artisan if he would but learn geometry. +The man accepted, and later, when PYTHAGORAS pretended inability +any longer to continue the payments, he offered, so fascinating did +he find the subject, to pay his teacher instead if the lessons might +only be continued. PYTHAGORAS no doubt was much gratified at this; +and the motto he adopted for his great Brotherhood, of which we shall make +the acquaintance in a moment, was in all likelihood based on this event. +It ran, "Honour a figure and a step before a figure and a tribolus"; +or, as a freer translation renders it:-- + +"A figure and a step onward Not a figure and a florin." + + +"At all events, as Mr FRANKLAND remarks, "the motto is a lasting witness +to a very singular devotion to knowledge for its own sake."[1] + + +[1] W. B. FRANKLAND, M.A.: _The Story of Euclid_ (1902), p. 33 + +But PYTHAGORAS needed a greater audience than one man, however +enthusiastic a pupil he might be, and he left Samos for Southern Italy, +the rich inhabitants of whose cities had both the leisure +and inclination to study. Delphi, far-famed for its Oracles, +was visited _en route_, and PYTHAGORAS, after a sojourn at Tarentum, +settled at Croton, where he gathered about him a great band +of pupils, mainly young people of the aristocratic class. +By consent of the Senate of Croton, he formed out of these a +great philosophical brotherhood, whose members lived apart from +the ordinary people, forming, as it were, a separate community. +They were bound to PYTHAGORAS by the closest ties of admiration +and reverence, and, for years after his death, discoveries made +by Pythagoreans were invariably attributed to the Master, +a fact which makes it very difficult exactly to gauge +the extent of PYTHAGORAS' own knowledge and achievements. +The regime of the Brotherhood, or Pythagorean Order, was a strict one, +entailing "high thinking and low living" at all times. +A restricted diet, the exact nature of which is in dispute, +was observed by all members, and long periods of silence, +as conducive to deep thinking, were imposed on novices. +Women were admitted to the Order, and PYTHAGORAS' asceticism did +not prohibit romance, for we read that one of his fair pupils +won her way to his heart, and, declaring her affection for him, +found it reciprocated and became his wife. + +SCHURE writes: "By his marriage with Theano, Pythagoras affixed +_the seal of realization_ to his work. The union and fusion +of the two lives was complete. One day when the master's +wife was asked what length of time elapsed before a woman +could become pure after intercourse with a man, she replied: +`If it is with her husband, she is pure all the time; +if with another man, she is never pure.' " "Many women," +adds the writer, "would smilingly remark that to give such a reply +one must be the wife of Pythagoras, and love him as Theano did. +And they would be in the right, for it is not marriage that +sanctifies love, it is love which justifies marriage."[1] + + +[1] EDOUARD SCHURE: _Pythagoras and the Delphic Mysteries_, trans. +by F. ROTHWELL, B.A. (1906), pp. 164 and 165. + + +PYTHAGORAS was not merely a mathematician. he was first and foremost +a philosopher, whose philosophy found in number the basis of all things, +because number, for him, alone possessed stability of relationship. +As I have remarked on a former occasion, "The theory that the Cosmos +has its origin and explanation in Number . . . is one for which it +is not difficult to account if we take into consideration the nature +of the times in which it was formulated. The Greek of the period, +looking upon Nature, beheld no picture of harmony, uniformity and +fundamental unity. The outer world appeared to him rather +as a discordant chaos, the mere sport and plaything of the gods. +The theory of the uniformity of Nature--that Nature is ever +like to herself--the very essence of the modern scientific spirit, +had yet to be born of years of unwearied labour and unceasing +delving into Nature's innermost secrets. Only in Mathematics-- +in the properties of geometrical figures, and of numbers-- +was the reign of law, the principle of harmony, perceivable. +Even at this present day when the marvellous has become commonplace, +that property of right-angled triangles . . . already +discussed . . . comes to the mind as a remarkable and notable fact: +it must have seemed a stupendous marvel to its discoverer, to whom, +it appears, the regular alternation of the odd and even numbers, +a fact so obvious to us that we are inclined to attach no importance +to it, seemed, itself, to be something wonderful. Here in Geometry +and Arithmetic, here was order and harmony unsurpassed and unsurpassable. +What wonder then that Pythagoras concluded that the solution +of the mighty riddle of the Universe was contained in the mysteries +of Geometry? What wonder that he read mystic meanings into the laws +of Arithmetic, and believed Number to be the explanation and origin +of all that is?"[1] + + +[1] _A Mathematical Theory of Spirit_ (1912), pp. 64-65. + + +No doubt the Pythagorean theory suffers from a defect similar +to that of the Kabalistic doctrine, which, starting from the fact +that all words are composed of letters, representing the primary +sounds of language, maintained that all the things represented +by these words were created by God by means of the twenty-two letters +of the Hebrew alphabet. But at the same time the Pythagorean +theory certainly embodies a considerable element of truth. +Modern science demonstrates nothing more clearly than the importance +of numerical relationships. Indeed, "the history of science shows us +the gradual transformation of crude facts of experience into increasingly +exact generalisations by the application to them of mathematics. +The enormous advances that have been made in recent years in +physics and chemistry are very largely due to mathematical methods +of interpreting and co-ordinating facts experimentally revealed, +whereby further experiments have been suggested, the results of +which have themselves been mathematically interpreted. Both physics +and chemistry, especially the former, are now highly mathematical. +In the biological sciences and especially in psychology it is true +that mathematical methods are, as yet, not so largely employed. +But these sciences are far less highly developed, far less exact +and systematic, that is to say, far less scientific, at present, +than is either physics or chemistry. However, the application of +statistical methods promises good results, and there are not wanting +generalisations already arrived at which are expressible mathematically; +Weber's Law in psychology, and the law concerning the arrangement +of the leaves about the stems of plants in biology, may be instanced +as cases in point."[1] + + +[1] Quoted from a lecture by the present writer on "The Law +of Correspondences Mathematically Considered," delivered before +The Theological and Philosophical Society on 26th April 1912, +and published in _Morning Light_, vol. xxxv (1912), p. +434 _et seq_. + + +The Pythagorean doctrine of the Cosmos, in its most reasonable form, +however, is confronted with one great difficulty which it seems incapable +of overcoming, namely, that of continuity. Modern science, with its atomic +theories of matter and electricity, does, indeed, show us that the apparent +continuity of material things is spurious, that all material things consist +of discrete particles, and are hence measurable in numerical terms. +But modern science is also obliged to postulate an ether behind these atoms, +an ether which is wholly continuous, and hence transcends the domain +of number.[1] It is true that, in quite recent times, a certain school +of thought has argued that the ether is also atomic in constitution-- +that all things, indeed, have a grained structure, even forces being +made up of a large number of quantums or indivisible units of force. +But this view has not gained general acceptance, and it seems to necessitate +the postulation of an ether beyond the ether, filling the interspaces +between its atoms, to obviate the difficulty of conceiving of action +at a distance. + + +[1] Cf. chap. iii., "On Nature as the Embodiment of Number," +of my _A Mathematical Theory of Spirit_, to which reference has +already been made. + + +According to BERGSON, life--the reality that can only be lived, +not understood--is absolutely continuous (_i.e_. not amenable to +numerical treatment). It is because life is absolutely continuous that +we cannot, he says, understand it; for reason acts discontinuously, +grasping only, so to speak, a cinematographic view of life, +made up of an immense number of instantaneous glimpses. +All that passes between the glimpses is lost, and so the true whole, +reason can never synthesise from that which it possesses. +On the other hand, one might also argue--extending, in a way, +the teaching of the physical sciences of the period between +the postulation of DALTON'S atomic theory and the discovery +of the significance of the ether of space--that reality is +essentially discontinuous, our idea that it is continuous being +a mere illusion arising from the coarseness of our senses. +That might provide a complete vindication of the Pythagorean view; +but a better vindication, if not of that theory, at any rate +of PYTHAGORAS' philosophical attitude, is forthcoming, I think, +in the fact that modern mathematics has transcended the shackles +of number, and has enlarged her kingdom, so as to include +quantities other than numerical. PYTHAGORAS, had he been +born in these latter centuries, would surely have rejoiced +in this, enlargement, whereby the continuous as well as +the discontinuous is brought, if not under the rule of number, +under the rule of mathematics indeed. + +PYTHAGORAS' foremost achievement in mathematics I have already mentioned. +Another notable piece of work in the same department was the discovery +of a method of constructing a parallelogram having a side equal +to a given line, an angle equal to a given angle, and its area equal +to that of a given triangle. PYTHAGORAS is said to have celebrated +this discovery by the sacrifice of a whole ox. The problem appears +in the first book of EUCLID'S _Elements of Geometry_ as proposition 44. +In fact, many of the propositions of EUCLID'S first, second, fourth, +and sixth books were worked out by PYTHAGORAS and the Pythagoreans; +but, curiously enough, they seem greatly to have neglected the geometry +of the circle. + +The symmetrical solids were regarded by PYTHAGORAS, and by +the Greek thinkers after him, as of the greatest importance. +To be perfectly symmetrical or regular, a solid must have an equal +number of faces meeting at each of its angles, and these faces +must be equal regular polygons, _i.e_. figures whose sides +and angles are all equal. PYTHAGORAS, perhaps, may be credited +with the great discovery that there are only five such solids. +These are as follows:-- + +The Tetrahedron, having four equilateral triangles as faces. + +The Cube, having six squares as faces. + +The Octahedron, having eight equilateral triangles as faces. + +The Dodecahedron, having twelve regular pentagons +(or five-sided figures) as faces. + +The Icosahedron, having twenty equilateral triangles as faces.[1] + + +[1] If the reader will copy figs. 4 to 8 on cardboard or stiff paper, +bend each along the dotted lines so as to form a solid, fastening together +the free edges with gummed paper, he will be in possession of models +of the five solids in question. + + +Now, the Greeks believed the world to be composed of +four elements--earth, air, fire, water,--and to the Greek +mind the conclusion was inevitable[2a] that the shapes of +the particles of the elements were those of the regular solids. +Earth-particles were cubical, the cube being the regular solid +possessed of greatest stability; fire-particles were tetrahedral, +the tetrahedron being the simplest and, hence, lightest solid. +Water-particles were icosahedral for exactly the reverse reason, +whilst air-particles, as intermediate between the two latter, +were octahedral. The dodecahedron was, to these +ancient mathematicians, the most mysterious of the solids: +it was by far the most difficult to construct, the accurate +drawing of the regular pentagon necessitating a rather elaborate +application of PYTHAGORAS' great theorem.[1] Hence the conclusion, +as PLATO put it, that "this [the regular dodecahedron] the Deity +employed in tracing the plan of the Universe."[2b] Hence +also the high esteem in which the pentagon was held by +the Pythagoreans. By producing each side of this latter figure +the five-pointed star (fig. 9), known as the pentagram, is obtained. +This was adopted by the Pythagoreans as the badge of their Society, +and for many ages was held as a symbol possessed of magic powers. +The mediaeval magicians made use of it in their evocations, +and as a talisman it was held in the highest esteem. + + +[2a] _Cf_. PLATO: The Timaeus, SESE xxviii--xxx. + +[1] [1] In reference to this matter FRANKLAND remarks: +"In those early days the innermost secrets of nature lay +in the lap of geometry, and the extraordinary inference follows +that Euclid's _Elements_, which are devoted to the investigation +of the regular solids, are therefore in reality and at bottom +an attempt to `solve the universe.' Euclid, in fact, made this +goal of the Pythagoreans the aim of his _Elements_."--_Op. +cit_., p. 35. + +[2b] _Op. cit_., SE xxix. + + +Music played an important part in the curriculum of the +Pythagorean Brotherhood, and the important discovery that the relations +between the notes of musical scales can be expressed by means of +numbers is a Pythagorean one. It must have seemed to its discoverer-- +as, in a sense, it indeed is--a striking confirmation of the numerical +theory of the Cosmos. The Pythagoreans held that the positions +of the heavenly bodies were governed by similar numerical relations, +and that in consequence their motion was productive of celestial music. +This concept of "the harmony of the spheres" is among the most +celebrated of the Pythagorean doctrines, and has found ready acceptance +in many mystically-speculative minds. "Look how the floor of heaven," +says Lorenzo in SHAKESPEARE'S _The Merchant of Venice_-- + + " . . . Look how the floor of heaven + Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold: + There's not the smallest orb which thou behold's" + But in his motion like an angel sings, + Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins; + Such harmony is in immortal souls; + But whilst this muddy vesture of decay + Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it."[1] + + +[1] Act v. scene i. + +Or, as KINGSLEY writes in one of his letters, "When I walk +the fields I am oppressed every now and then with an innate feeling +that everything I see has a meaning, if I could but understand it. +And this feeling of being surrounded with truths which I +cannot grasp, amounts to an indescribable awe sometimes! +Everything seems to be full of God's reflex, if we could but see it. +Oh! how I have prayed to have the mystery unfolded, at least hereafter. +To see, if but for a moment, the whole harmony of the great system! +To hear once the music which the whole universe makes as it performs +His bidding!"[1] In this connection may be mentioned the very +significant fact that the Pythagoreans did not consider the earth, +in accordance with current opinion, to be a stationary body, +but believed that it and the other planets revolved about a central point, +or fire, as they called it. + + +[1] CHAREES KINGSLEY: _His Letters and Memories of His Life_, +edited by his wife (1883), p. 28. + + +As concerns PYTHAGORAS' ethical teaching, judging from +the so-called _Golden Verses_ attributed to him, and no doubt +written by one of his disciples,[2] this would appear to be +in some respects similar to that of the Stoics who came later, +but free from the materialism of the Stoic doctrines. Due regard +for oneself is blended with regard for the gods and for other men, +the atmosphere of the whole being at once rational and austere. +One verse--"Thou shalt likewise know, according to Justice, +that the nature of this Universe is in all things alike"[3]-- +is of particular interest, as showing PYTHAGORAS' belief in that +principle of analogy--that "What is below is as that which is above, +what is above is as that which is below"--which held so dominant +a sway over the minds of ancient and mediaeval philosophers, +leading them--in spite, I suggest, of its fundamental truth-- +into so many fantastic errors, as we shall see in future excursions. +Metempsychosis was another of the Pythagorean tenets, a fact which +is interesting in view of the modern revival of this doctrine. +PYTHAGORAS, no doubt, derived it from the East, apparently introducing +it for the first time to Western thought. + + +[2] It seems probable, though not certain, that PYTHAGORAS wrote +nothing himself, but taught always by the oral method. + +[3] Cf. the remarks of HIEROCLES on this verse in his _Commentary_. + + +Such, in brief, were the outstanding doctrines of the +Pythagorean Brotherhood. Their teachings included, as we have seen, +what may justly be called scientific discoveries of the first importance, +as well as doctrines which, though we may feel compelled--perhaps rightly-- +to regard them as fantastic now, had an immense influence on the thought +of succeeding ages, especially on Greek philosophy as represented by PLATO and +the Neo-Platonists, and the more speculative minds--the occult philosophers, +shall I say?--of the latter mediaeval period and succeeding centuries. +The Brotherhood, however, was not destined to continue its days in peace. +As I have indicated, it was a philosophical, not a political, association; +but naturally PYTHAGORAS philosophy included political doctrines. +At any rate, the Brotherhood acquired a considerable share in the government +of Croton, a fact which was greatly resented by the members of the democratic +party, who feared the loss of their rights; and, urged thereto, it is said, +by a rejected applicant for membership of the Order, the mob made an onslaught +on the Brotherhood's place of assembly and burnt it to the ground. +One account has it that PYTHAGORAS himself died in the conflagration, +a sacrifice to the mad fury of the mob. According to another account-- +and we like to believe that this is the true one--he escaped to Tarentum, +from which he was banished, to find an asylum in Metapontum, where he lived +his last years in peace. + +The Pythagorean Order was broken up, but the bonds of brotherhood +still existed between its members. "One of them who had fallen +upon sickness and poverty was kindly taken in by an innkeeper. +Before dying he traced a few mysterious signs [the pentagram, +no doubt] on the door of the inn and said to the host: +`Do not be uneasy, one of my brothers will pay my debts.' +A year afterwards, as a stranger was passing by this inn +he saw the signs and said to the host: `I am a Pythagorean; +one of my brothers died here; tell me what I owe you on +his account.' "[1] + + + +[1] EDOUARD SCHURE: _Op. cit_., p. 174. + + +In endeavouring to estimate the worth of PYTHAGORAS' +discoveries and teaching, Mr FRANKLAND writes, with reference +to his achievements in geometry: "Even after making a considerable +allowance for his pupils' share, the Master's geometrical work +calls for much admiration"; and, ". . . it cannot be far wrong +to suppose that it was Pythagoras' wont to insist upon proofs, +and so to secure that rigour which gives to mathematics its +honourable position amongst the sciences." And of his work +in arithmetic, music, and astronomy, the same author writes: +". . . everywhere he appears to have inaugurated genuinely +scientific methods, and to have laid the foundations of a high +and liberal education"; adding, "For nearly a score of centuries, +to the very close of the Middle Ages, the four Pythagorean subjects +of study--arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music--were the staple +educational course, and were bound together into a fourfold way +of knowledge--the Quadrivium."[1] With these words of due praise, +our present excursion may fittingly close. + + +[1] _Op. cit_., pp. 35, 37, and 38. + + + + +III + +MEDICINE AND MAGIC + +THERE are few tasks at once so instructive and so fascinating +as the tracing of the development of the human mind as manifested +in the evolution of scientific and philosophical theories. +And this is, perhaps, especially true when, as in the case of medicine, +this evolution has followed paths so tortuous, intersected by so many +fantastic byways, that one is not infrequently doubtful as to the true road. +The history of medicine is at once the history of human wisdom and +the history of human credulity and folly, and the romantic element +(to use the expression in its popular acceptation) thus introduced, +whilst making the subject more entertaining, by no means detracts +from its importance considered psychologically. + +To whom the honour of having first invented medicines is due is unknown, +the origins of pharmacy being lost in the twilight of myth. +OSIRIS and ISIS, BACCHUS, APOLLO father of the famous physician AESCULAPTUS, +and CHIRON the Centaur, tutor of the latter, are among the many +mythological personages who have been accredited with the invention +of physic. It is certain that the art of compounding medicines is +extraordinarily ancient. There is a papyrus in the British Museum +containing medical prescriptions which was written about 1200 B.C.; +and the famous EBERS papyrus, which is devoted to medical matters, +is reckoned to date from about the year 1550 B.C. It is interesting +to note that in the prescriptions given in this latter papyrus, +as seems to have been the case throughout the history of medicine, +the principle that the efficacy of a medicine is in proportion to its +nastiness appears to have been the main idea. Indeed, many old medicines +contained ingredients of the most disgusting nature imaginable: +a mediaeval remedy known as oil of puppies, made by cutting up two +newly-born puppies and boiling them with one pound of live earthworms, +may be cited as a comparatively pleasant example of the remedies (?) used +in the days when all sorts of excreta were prescribed as medicines.[1] + + +[1] See the late Mr A. C. WOOTTON'S excellent work, _Chronicles of Pharmacy_ +(2 vols, 1910), to which I gladly acknowledge my indebtedness. + + +Presumably the oldest theory concerning the causation of disease +is that which attributes all the ills of mankind to the malignant +operations of evil spirits, a theory which someone has rather +fancifully suggested is not so erroneous after all, if we may +be allowed to apply the term "evil spirits" to the microbes +of modern bacteriology. Remnants of this theory (which does-- +shall I say?--conceal a transcendental truth), that is, +in its original form, still survive to the present day in various +superstitious customs, whose absurdity does not need emphasising: +for example, the use of red flannel by old-fashioned folk +with which to tie up sore throats--red having once been +supposed to be a colour very angatonistic to evil spirits; +so much so that at one time red cloth hung in the patient's +room was much employed as a cure for smallpox! + +Medicine and magic have always been closely associated. +Indeed, the greatest name in the history of pharmacy is also what is +probably the greatest name in the history of magic--the reference, +of course, being to PARACELSUS (1493-1541). Until PARACELSUS, +partly by his vigorous invective and partly by his remarkable +cures of various diseases, demolished the old school of medicine, +no one dared contest the authority of GALEN (130-_circa_ 205) +and AVICENNA (980--1037). GALEN'S theory of disease was largely +based upon that of the four humours in man--bile, blood, phlegm, +and black bile,--which were regarded as related to (but not +identical with) the four elements--fire, air, water, and earth,-- +being supposed to have characters similar to these. Thus, to bile, +as to fire, were attributed the properties of hotness and dryness; +to blood and air those of hotness and moistness; to phlegm and +water those of coldness and moistness; and, finally, black bile, +like earth, was said to be cold and dry. GALEN supposed +that an alteration in the due proportion of these humours gives +rise to disease, though he did not consider this to be its +only cause; thus, cancer, it was thought, might result from an +excess of black bile, and rheumatism from an excess of phlegm. +Drugs, GALEN argued, are of efficiency in the curing of disease, +according as they possess one or more of these so-called +fundamental properties, hotness, dryness, coldness, and moistness, +whereby it was considered that an excess of any humour might +be counteracted; moreover, it was further assumed that four degrees +of each property exist, and that only those drugs are of use in +curing a disease which contain the necessary property or properties +in the degree proportionate to that in which the opposite humour +or humours are in excess in the patient's system. + +PARACELSUS' views were based upon his theory (undoubtedly true +in a sense) that man is a microcosm, a world in miniature.[1] Now, +all things material, taught PARACELSUS, contain the three principles +termed in alchemistic phraseology salt, sulphur, and mercury. +This is true, therefore, of man: the healthy body, he argued, +is a sort of chemical compound in which these three principles +are harmoniously blended (as in the Macrocosm) in due proportion, +whilst disease is due to a preponderance of one principle, +fevers, for example, being the result of an excess of sulphur +(_i.e_. the fiery principle), _etc_. PARACELSUS, although his theory +was not so different from that of GALEN, whose views he denounced, +was thus led to seek for CHEMICAL remedies, containing these principles +in varying proportions; he was not content with medicinal herbs +and minerals in their crude state, but attempted to extract their +effective essences; indeed, he maintained that the preparation +of new and better drugs is the chief business of chemistry. + + +[1] See the "Note on the Paracelsian Doctrine of the Microcosm" below. + + +This theory of disease and of the efficacy of drugs was complicated +by many fantastic additions;[1] thus there is the "Archaeus," a sort of +benevolent demon, supposed by PARACELSUS to look after all the unconscious +functions of the bodily organism, who has to be taken into account. +PARACELSUS also held the Doctrine of Signatures, according to which the +medicinal value of plants and minerals is indicated by their external form, +or by some sign impressed upon them by the operation of the stars. +A very old example of this belief is to be found in the use of mandrake +(whose roots resemble the human form) by the Hebrews and Greeks as a cure +for sterility; or, to give an instance which is still accredited by some, +the use of eye-bright (_Euphrasia officinalis_, L., a plant with a black +pupil-like spot in its corolla) for complaints of the eyes.[2] Allied +to this doctrine are such beliefs, once held, as that the lungs of foxes +are good for bronchial troubles, or that the heart of a lion will endow +one with courage; as CORNELIUS AGRIPPA put it, "It is well known amongst +physicians that brain helps the brain, and lungs the lungs."[3] + + +[1] The question of PARACELSUS' pharmacy is further complicated +by the fact that this eccentric genius coined many new words +(without regard to the principles of etymology) as names for his medicines, +and often used the same term to stand for quite different bodies. +Some of his disciples maintained that he must not always be understood +in a literal sense, in which probably there is an element of truth. +See, for instance, _A Golden and Blessed Casket of Nature's Marvels_, +by BENEDICTUS FIGULUS (trans. by A. E. WAITE, 1893). + +[2] See Dr ALFRED C. HADDON'S _Magic and Fetishism_ (1906), p. 15. + +[3] HENRY CORNELIUS AGRIPPA: _Occult Philosophy_, bk. i. chap. xv. +(WHITEHEAD'S edition, Chicago, 1898, P. 72). + + +In modern times homoeopathy--according to which a drug is a cure, +if administered in small doses, for that disease whose symptoms it produces, +if given in large doses to a healthy person---seems to bear some resemblance +to these old medical theories concerning the curing of like by like. +That the system of HAHNEMANN (1755--1843), the founder of homoeopathy, +is free from error could be scarcely maintained, but certain recent +discoveries in connection with serum-therapy appear to indicate that the last +word has not yet been said on the subject, and the formula "like cures like" +may still have another lease of life to run. + +To return to PARACELSUS, however. It may be thought that his views were not +so great an advance on those of GALEN; but whether or not this be the case, +his union of chemistry and medicine was of immense benefit to each science, +and marked a new era in pharmacy. Even if his theories were highly fantastic, +it was he who freed medicine from the shackles of traditionalism, and rendered +progress in medical science possible. + +I must not conclude these brief notes without some reference +to the medical theory of the medicinal efficacy of words. +The EBERS papyrus already mentioned gives various formulas which +must be pronounced when preparing and when administering a drug; +and there is a draught used by the Eastern Jews as a cure +for bronchial complaints prepared by writing certain words +on a plate, washing them off with wine, and adding three grains +of a citron which has been used at the Tabernacle festival. +But enough for our present excursion; we must hie us back to +the modern world, with its alkaloids, serums, and anti-toxins-- +another day we will, perhaps, wander again down the by-paths +of Medicinal Magic. + + +NOTE ON THE PARACELSIAN DOCTRINE OF THE MICROCOSM + + +"Man's nature," writes CORNELIUS AGRIPPA, "_is the most complete +Image of the whole Universe_."[1] This theory, especially connected +with the name of PARACELSUS, is worthy of more than passing reference; +but as the consideration of it leads us from medicine to metaphysics, +I have thought it preferable to deal with the subject in a note. + + +[1] H. C. AGRIPPA: _Occult Philosophy_, bk. i. chap. xxxiii. +(WHITEHEAD'S edition, p. 111). + + +Man, taught the old mystical philosophers, is threefold in nature, +consisting of spirit, soul, and body. The Paracelsian mercury, +sulphur, and salt were the mineral analogues of these. +"As to the Spirit," writes VALENTINE WEIGEL (1533--1588), +a disciple of PARACELSUS, "we are of God, move in God, and live +in God, and are nourished of God. Hence God is in us and we +are in God; God hath put and placed Himself in us, and we are put +and placed in God. As to the Soul, we are from the Firmament +and Stars, we live and move therein, and are nourished thereof. +Hence the Firmament with its astralic virtues and operations +is in us, and we in it. The Firmament is put and placed in us, +and we are put and placed in the Firmament. As to the Body, +we are of the elements, we move and live therein, and are +nourished of them:--hence the elements are in us, and we in them. +The elements, by the slime, are put and placed in us, and we are +put and placed in them."[1] Or, to quote from PARACELSUS himself, +in his _Hermetic Astronomy_ he writes: "God took the body out +of which He built up man from those things which He created from +nothingness into something . . . Hence man is now a microcosm, +or a little world, because he is an extract from all the stars +and planets of the whole firmament, from the earth and the elements, +and so he is their quintessence.... But between the macrocosm +and the microcosm this difference occurs, that the form, +image, species, and substance of man are diverse therefrom. +In man the earth is flesh, the water is blood, fire is the +heat thereof, and air is the balsam. These properties have not +been changed but only the substance of the body. So man is man, +not a world, yet made from the world, made in the likeness, +not of the world, but of God. Yet man comprises in himself +all the qualities of the world.... His body is from the world, +and therefore must be fed and nourished by that world from +which he has sprung.... He has been taken from the earth and from +the elements, and therefore, must be nourished by these.... Now, +man is not only flesh and blood, but there is within the intellect +which does not, like the complexion, come from the elements, +but from the stars. And the condition of the stars is this, +that all the wisdom, intelligence, industry of the animal, +and all the arts peculiar to man are contained in them. +From the stars man has these same things, and that is called +the light of Nature; in fact, it is whatever man has found +by the light of Nature.... Such, then, is the condition of man, +that, out of the great universe he needs both elements and stars, +seeing that he himself is constituted in that way."[1b] + + +[1] VALENTINE WEIGEL: "_Astrology Theologised": The Spiritual Hermeneutics +of Astrology and Holy Writ_, ed. by ANNA BONUS KINGSFORD (1886), p. 59. + +[1b] _The Hermetic and Alchemical Writings of_ PARACELSUS, ed. by A. E. WAITE +(1894), vol. ii. pp. 289-291. + + + +It is not difficult to discern a certain truth in all this, making +allowances for modes of thought which are not those of the present day. +The Swedish philosopher SWEDENBORG (1688-1772) reaffirmed +the theory in later years; but, as he points out,[2] the reason +that man is a microcosm lies deeper than in the facts that his +body is of the elements of this earth and is nourished thereby. +According to this profound thinker, FORM, spiritually understood, +is the expression of USE, the uses of things being indicated +by their forms. Now, the human form is the highest of all forms, +because it subserves the highest of all uses. Hence, both the world +of matter and the world of spirit are in the human form, because there +is a correspondence in use between man and the Cosmos. We may, +therefore, call man as to his body a microcosm, or little world; +as to his soul a micro-uranos, or little heaven. Or we may speak +of the macrocosm, or great world, as the Grand Man, and we may say +that the Soul of this Grand Man, the self-existent, substantial, +and efficient cause of all things, at once immanent within yet +transcending all things, is God. + +[2] See especially his _Divine Love and Wisdom_, SESE 251 and 319. + + + +IV + +SUPERSTITIONS CONCERNING BIRDS + +AMONGST the most remarkable of natural occurrences must be included +many of the phenomena connected with the behaviour of birds. +Undoubtedly numerous species of birds are susceptible to atmospheric changes +(of an electrical and barometric nature) too slight to be observed +by man's unaided senses; thus only is to be explained the phenomenon +of migration and also the many other peculiarities in the behaviour +of birds whereby approaching changes in the weather may be foretold. +Probably, also, this fact has much to do with the extraordinary homing +instinct of pigeons. But, of course, in the days when meteorological +science had yet to be born, no such explanation as this could be known. +The ancients observed that birds by their migrations or by other +peculiarities in their behaviour prognosticated coming changes in +the seasons of the year and other changes connected with the weather +(such as storms, _etc_.); they saw, too, in the homing instincts of +pigeons an apparent exhibition of intelligence exceeding that of man. +What more natural, then, for them to attribute foresight to birds, +and to suppose that all sorts of coming events (other than those +of an atmospheric nature) might be foretold by careful observation +of their flight and song? + +Augury--that is, the art of divination by observing the behaviour +of birds--was extensively cultivated by the Etrurians +and Romans.[1] It is still used, I believe, by the natives +of Samoa. The Romans had an official college of augurs, +the members of which were originally three patricians. +About 300 B.C. the number of patrician augurs was increased by one, +and five plebeian augurs were added. Later the number was again +increased to fifteen. The object of augury was not so much +to foretell the future as to indicate what line of action +should be followed, in any given circumstances, by the nation. +The augurs were consulted on all matters of importance, +and the position of augur was thus one of great consequence. +In what appears to be the oldest method, the augur, arrayed in +a special costume, and carrying a staff with which to mark out +the visible heavens into houses, proceeded to an elevated piece +of ground, where a sacrifice was made and a prayer repeated. +Then, gazing towards the sky, he waited until a bird appeared. +The point in the heavens where it first made its appearance +was carefully noted, also the manner and direction +of its flight, and the point where it was lost sight of. +From these particulars an augury was derived, but, in order +to be of effect, it had to be confirmed by a further one. + + +[1] This is not quite an accurate definition, as "auguries" were +also obtained from other animals and from celestial phenomena +(_e.g_. lightning), _etc_. + +Auguries were also drawn from the notes of birds, birds being +divided by the augurs into two classes: (i) _oscines_, +"those which give omens by their note," and (ii) _alites_, +"those which afford presages by their flight."[1] Another method +of augury was performed by the feeding of chickens specially +kept for this purpose. This was done just before sunrise +by the _pullarius_ or feeder, strict silence being observed. +If the birds manifested no desire for their food, the omen +was of a most direful nature. On the other hand, if from +the greediness of the chickens the grain fell from their beaks +and rebounded from the ground, the augury was most favourable. +This latter augury was known as _tripudium solistimum_. +"Any fraud practiced by the `pullarius'," writes +the Rev. EDWARD SMEDLEY, "reverted to his own head. +Of this we have a memorable instance in the great battle between +Papirius Cursor and the Samnites in the year of Rome 459. +So anxious were the troops for battle, that the `pullarius' +dared to announce to the consul a `tripudium solistimum,' +although the chickens refused to eat. Papirius unhesitatingly +gave the signal for fight, when his son, having discovered +the false augury, hastened to communicate it to his father. +`Do thy part well,' was his reply, `and let the deceit of the augur +fall on himself. The "tripudium" has been announced to me, +and no omen could be better for the Roman army and people!' +As the troops advanced, a javelin thrown at random struck +the `pullatius' dead. `The hand of heaven is in the battle,' +cried Papirius; `the guilty is punished!' and he advanced and +conquered."[1b] A coincidence of this sort, if it really occurred, +would very greatly strengthen the popular belief in auguries. + + +[1] PLINY: _Natural History_, bk. x. chap. xxii. (BOSTOCK and RILEY'S +trans., vol. ii., 1855, p. 495). + +[1b] Rev. EDWARD SMEDLEY, M.A.: _The Occult Sciences_ +(_Encyclopaedia Metropolitana_), ed. by ELIHU RICH +(1855), p. 144. + + +The _cock_ has always been reckoned a bird possessed of magic power. +At its crowing, we are told, all unquiet spirits who roam the earth depart +to their dismal abodes, and the orgies of the Witches' Sabbath terminate. +A cock is the favourite sacrifice offered to evil spirits in Ceylon +and elsewhere. Alectromancy[2] was an ancient and peculiarly senseless +method of divination (so called) in which a cock was employed. +The bird had to be young and quite white. Its feet were cut off and crammed +down its throat with a piece of parchment on which were written certain +Hebrew words. The cock, after the repetition of a prayer by the operator, +was placed in a circle divided into parts corresponding to the letters +of the alphabet, in each of which a grain of wheat was placed. +A certain psalm was recited, and then the letters were noted from +which the cock picked up the grains, a fresh grain being put down +for each one picked up. These letters, properly arranged, were said +to give the answer to the inquiry for which divination was made. +I am not sure what one was supposed to do if, as seems likely, +the cock refused to act in the required manner. + + +[2] Cf. ARTHUR EDWARD WAITE: _The Occult Sciences_ (1891), pp. +124 and 125. + + +The _owl_ was reckoned a bird of evil omen with the Romans, +who derived this opinion from the Etrurians, along with much +else of their so-called science of augury. It was particularly +dreaded if seen in a city, or, indeed, anywhere by day. +PLINY (Caius Plinius Secundus, A.D. 61-before 115) informs us +that on one occasion "a horned owl entered the very sanctuary +of the Capitol; . . . in consequence of which, Rome was purified +on the nones of March in that year."[1] + + +[1] PLINY: _Natural History_, bk. x. chap. xvi. (BOSTOCK and RILEY'S +trans., vol. ii., 1855, p. 492). + + +The folk-lore of the British Isles abounds with quaint beliefs and stories +concerning birds. There is a charming Welsh legend concerning the _robin_, +which the Rev. T. F. T. DYER quotes from _Notes and Queries_:--"Far, far away, +is a land of woe, darkness, spirits of evil, and fire. Day by day does this +little bird bear in his bill a drop of water to quench the flame. So near +the burning stream does he fly, that his dear little feathers are SCORCHED; +and hence he is named Brou-rhuddyn (Breast-burnt). To serve little children, +the robin dares approach the infernal pit. No good child will hurt +the devoted benefactor of man. The robin returns from the land of fire, +and therefore he feels the cold of winter far more than his brother birds. +He shivers in the brumal blast; hungry, he chirps before your door."[2] + + +[2] T. F. THISELTON DYER, M.A.: _English Folk-Lore_ (1878), pp. +65 and 66). + + +Another legend accounts for the robin's red breast by supposing this +bird to have tried to pluck a thorn from the crown encircling the brow +of the crucified CHRIST, in order to alleviate His sufferings. +No doubt it is on account of these legends that it is considered a crime, +which will be punished with great misfortune, to kill a robin. +In some places the same prohibition extends to the _wren_, +which is popularly believed to be the wife of the robin. +In other parts, however, the wren is (or at least was) cruelly hunted +on certain days. In the Isle of Man the wren-hunt took place +on Christmas Eve and St Stephen's Day, and is accounted for by a +legend concerning an evil fairy who lured many men to destruction, +but had to assume the form of a wren to escape punishment at the hands +of an ingenious knight-errant. + +For several centuries there was prevalent over the whole of +civilised Europe a most extraordinary superstition concerning +the small Arctic bird resembling, but not so large as, the common +wild goose, known as the _barnacle_ or _bernicle goose_. +MAX MUELLER[1] has suggested that this word was really derived +from _Hibernicula_, the name thus referring to Ireland, +where the birds were caught; but common opinion associated +the barnacle goose with the shell-fish known as the barnacle +(which is found on timber exposed to the sea), supposing +that the former was generated out of the latter. +Thus in one old medical writer we find: "There are founde +in the north parts of Scotland, and the Ilands adjacent, +called Orchades [Orkney Islands], certain trees, whereon doe +growe certaine shell fishes, of a white colour tending +to russet; wherein are conteined little liuing creatures: +which shells in time of maturitie doe open, and out of them +grow those little living things; which falling into the water, +doe become foules, whom we call Barnakles . . . but the other +that do fall vpon the land, perish and come to nothing: +this much by the writings of others, and also from the mouths +of the people of those parts...."[1b] + + +[1] See F. MAX MUELLER'S _Lectures on the Science of Language_ +(1885), where a very full account of the tradition concerning +the origin of the barnacle goose will be found. + +[1b] JOHN GERARDE: _The Herball; or, Generall Historie +of Plantes_ (1597). 1391. + + +The writer, however, who was a well-known surgeon and botanist +of his day, adds that he had personally examined certain shell-fish +from Lancashire, and on opening the shells had observed within +birds in various stages of development. No doubt he was deceived +by some purely superficial resemblances--for example, the feet +of the barnacle fish resemble somewhat the feathers of a bird. +He gives an imaginative illustration of the barnacle fowl escaping +from its shell, which is reproduced in fig. 12. + +Turning now from superstitions concerning actual birds to legends of those +that are purely mythical, passing reference must be made to the _roc_, +a bird existing in Arabian legend, which we meet in the _Arabian Nights_, +and which is chiefly remarkable for its size and strength. + +The _phoenix_, perhaps, is of more interest. +Of "that famous bird of Arabia," PLINY writes as follows, +prefixing his description of it with the cautious remark, +"I am not quite sure that its existence is not all a fable." +"It is said that there is only one in existence in the +whole world, and that that one has not been seen very often. +We are told that this bird is of the size of an eagle, and has +a brilliant golden plumage around the neck, while the rest of +the body is of a purple colour; except the tail, which is azure, +with long feathers intermingled of a roseate hue; the throat +is adorned with a crest, and the head with a tuft of feathers. +The first Roman who described this bird . . . was the senator +Manilius.... He tells us that no person has ever seen this +bird eat, that in Arabia it is looked upon as sacred to the sun, +that it lives five hundred and forty years, that when it becomes +old it builds a nest of cassia and sprigs of incense, which it +fills with perfumes, and then lays its body down upon them to die; +that from its bones and marrow there springs at first a sort +of small worm, which in time changes into a little bird; +that the first thing that it does is to perform the obsequies +of its predecessor, and to carry the nest entire to the city +of the Sun near Panchaia, and there deposit it upon the altar +of that divinity. + +"The same Manilius states also, that the revolution of the great year +is completed with the life of this bird, and that then a new cycle +comes round again with the same characteristics as the former one, +in the seasons and the appearance of the stars. . . . This bird was +brought to Rome in the censorship of the Emperor Claudius . . . and was +exposed to public view.... This fact is attested by the public Annals, +but there is no one that doubts that it was a fictitious phoenix only."[1] + + +[1] PLINY: _Natural History_, bk. x. chap. ii. (BOSTOCK and RILEY'S +trans., vol. ii., 1855, PP. 479-481). + + +The description of the plumage, _etc_., of this bird applies +fairly well, as CUVIER has pointed out,[2] to the golden pheasant, +and a specimen of the latter may have been the "fictitious phoenix" +referred to above. That this bird should have been credited +with the extraordinary and wholly fabulous properties related +by PLINY and others is not, however, easy to understand. +The phoenix was frequently used to illustrate the doctrine of +the immortality of the soul (_e.g_. in CLEMENT'S _First Epistle +to the Corinthians_), and it is not impossible that originally +it was nothing more than a symbol of immortality which in +time became to be believed in as a really existing bird. +The fact, however, that there was supposed to be only one phoenix, +and also that the length of each of its lives coincided with what +the ancients termed a "great year," may indicate that the phoenix +was a symbol of cosmological periodicity. On the other hand, +some ancient writers (e_.g_. TACITUS, A.D. 55-120) explicitly refer +to the phoenix as a symbol of the sun, and in the minds of the ancients +the sun was closely connected with the idea of immortality. +Certainly the accounts of the gorgeous colours of the plumage +of the phoenix might well be descriptions of the rising sun. +It appears, moreover, that the Egyptian hieroglyphic _benu_, +{glyph}, which is a figure of a heron or crane (and thus akin +to the phoenix), was employed to designate the rising sun. + + +[2] See CUVIER'S _The Animal Kingdom_, GRIFFITH'S trans., vol. viii. +(1829), p. 23. + + +There are some curious Jewish legends to account for the supposed +immortality of the phoenix. According to one, it was the sole +animal that refused to eat of the forbidden tree when tempted +by EVE. According to another, its immortality was conferred +on it by NOAH because of its considerate behaviour in the Ark, +the phoenix not clamouring for food like the other animals.[1] + + +[1] The existence of such fables as these shows how grossly the real +meanings of the Sacred Writings have been misunderstood. + + +There is a celebrated bird in Chinese tradition, the _Fung Hwang_, +which some sinologues identify with the phoenix of the West.[2] According +to a commentator on the '_Rh Ya_, this "felicitous and perfect bird has +a cock's head, a snake's neck, a swallow's beak, a tortoise's back, +is of five different colours and more than six feet high." + + +[2] Mr CHAS. GOULD, B.A., to whose book _Mythical Monsters_ +(1886) I am very largely indebted for my account of this bird, and from +which I have culled extracts from the Chinese, is not of this opinion. +Certainly the fact that we read of Fung Hwangs in the plural, +whilst tradition asserts that there is only one phoenix, seems to point +to a difference in origin. + + +Another account (that in the _Lun Yu Tseh Shwai Shing_) tells us +that "its head resembles heaven, its eye the sun, its back the moon, +its wings the wind, its foot the ground, and its tail the woof." +Furthermore, "its mouth contains commands, its heart is conformable +to regulations, its ear is thoroughly acute in hearing, its tongue +utters sincerity, its colour is luminous, its comb resembles uprightness, +its spur is sharp and curved, its voice is sonorous, and its belly is +the treasure of literature." Like the dragon, tortoise, and unicorn, +it was considered to be a spiritual creature; but, unlike the Western phoenix, +more than one Fung Hwang was, as I have pointed out, believed to exist. +The birds were not always to be seen, but, according to Chinese records, +they made their appearance during the reigns of certain sovereigns. +The Fung Hwang is regarded by the Chinese as an omen of great happiness +and prosperity, and its likeness is embroidered on the robes of empresses +to ensure success. Probably, if the bird is not to be regarded +as purely mythological and symbolic in origin, we have in the stories +of it no more than exaggerated accounts of some species of pheasant. +Japanese literature contains similar stories. + +Of other fabulous bird-forms mention may be made of the _griffin_ +and the _harpy_. The former was a creature half eagle, half lion, +popularly supposed to be the progeny of the union of these two latter. +It is described in the so-called _Voiage and Travaile of +Sir_ JOHN MAUNDEVILLE in the following terms[1]: "Sum men seyn, +that thei hen the Body upward, as an Egle, and benethe as a Lyoun: +and treuly thei seyn sothe, that thei ben of that schapp. +But o Griffoun hathe the body more gret and is more strong thanne +8 Lyouns, of suche Lyouns as ben o this half; and more gret +and strongere, than an 100 Egles, suche as we hen amonges us. +For o Griffoun there will bere, fleynge to his Nest, a gret Hors, +or 2 Oxen zoked to gidere, as thei gon at the Plowghe. For he hathe +his Talouns so longe and so large and grete, upon his Feet, +as thoughe thei weren Hornes of grete Oxen or of Bugles +or of Kyzn; so that men maken Cuppes of hem, to drynken of: +and of hire Ribbes and of the Pennes of hire Wenges, men maken Bowes +fulle strong, to schote with Arwes and Quarelle." The special +characteristic of the griffin was its watchfulness, its chief +function being thought to be that of guarding secret treasure. +This characteristic, no doubt, accounts for its frequent use +in heraldry as a supporter to the arms. It was sacred to APOLLO, +the sun-god, whose chariot was, according to early sculptures, +drawn by griffins. PLINY, who speaks of it as a bird having long +ears and a hooked beak, regarded it as fabulous. + + +[1] _The Voiage and Travaile of Sir_ JOHN MAUNDEVILLE, _Kt. Which treateth +of the Way to Hierusalem; and of Marvayles of Inde, with other +Ilands and Countryes. Now Publish'd entire from an Original MS. +in The Cotton Library_ (London, 1727), cap. xxvi. pp. 325 and 326. + +"This work is mainly a compilation from the writings +of William of Boldensele, Friar Odoric of Pordenone, Hetoum +of Armenia, Vincent de Beauvais, and other geographers. +It is probable that the name John de Mandeville should be regarded +as a pseudonym concealing the identity of Jean de Bourgogne, +a physician at Liege, mentioned under the name of Joannes ad +Barbam in the vulgate Latin version of the Travels." (Note in +British Museum Catalogue). The work, which was first published +in French during the latter part of the fourteenth century, +achieved an immense popularity, the marvels that it relates +being readily received by the credulous folk of that and many +a succeeding day. + + +The harpies (_i.e_. snatchers) in Greek mythology are creatures +like vultures as to their bodies, but with the faces of women, +and armed with sharp claws. + +"Of Monsters all, most Monstrous this; no greater Wrath God sends +'mongst Men; it comes from depth of pitchy Hell: And Virgin's Face, +but Womb like Gulf unsatiate hath, Her Hands are griping Claws, +her Colour pale and fell."[1] + + +[1] Quoted from VERGIL by JOHN GUILLIM in his _A Display of Heraldry_ +(sixth edition, 1724), p. 271. + + +We meet with the harpies in the story of PHINEUS, a son +of AGENOR, King of Thrace. At the bidding of his jealous wife, +IDAEA, daughter of DARDANUS, PHINEUS put out the sight of his +children by his former wife, CLEOPATRA, daughter of BOREAS. +To punish this cruelty, the gods caused him to become blind, +and the harpies were sent continually to harass and affright him, +and to snatch away his food or defile it by their presence. +They were afterwards driven away by his brothers-in-law, ZETES +and CALAIS. It has been suggested that originally the harpies +were nothing more than personifications of the swift storm-winds; +and few of the old naturalists, credulous as they were, +regarded them as real creatures, though this cannot be said of all. +Some other fabulous bird-forms are to be met with in Greek and Arabian +mythologies, _etc_., but they are not of any particular interest. +And it is time for us to conclude our present excursion, +and to seek for other byways. + + + +V + +THE POWDER OF SYMPATHY: A CURIOUS MEDICAL SUPERSTITION + +OUT of the superstitions of the past the science of the present +has gradually evolved. In the Middle Ages, what by courtesy we +may term medical science was, as we have seen, little better +than a heterogeneous collection of superstitions, and although +various reforms were instituted with the passing of time, +superstition still continued for long to play a prominent part +in medical practice. + +One of the most curious of these old medical (or perhaps I should say +surgical) superstitions was that relating to the Powder of Sympathy, a remedy +(?) chiefly remembered in connection with the name of Sir KENELM DIGBY +(1603-1665), though he was probably not the first to employ it. +The Powder itself, which was used as a cure for wounds, was, in fact, +nothing else than common vitriol,[1] though an improved and more +elegant form (if one may so describe it) was composed of vitriol +desiccated by the sun's rays, mixed with _gum tragacanth_. +It was in the application of the Powder that the remedy was peculiar. +It was not, as one might expect, applied to the wound itself, +but any article that might have blood from the wound upon it was either +sprinkled with the Powder or else placed in a basin of water in which +the Powder had been dissolved, and maintained at a temperate heat. +Meanwhile, the wound was kept clean and cool. + + +[1] Green vitriol, ferrous sulphate heptahydrate, a compound of iron, +sulphur, and oxygen, crystallised with seven molecules of water, +represented by the formula FeSO4<.>7H2O. On exposure to the air it +loses water, and is gradually converted into basic ferric sulphate. +For long, green vitriol was confused with blue vitriol, +which generally occurs as an impurity in crude green vitriol. +Blue vitriol is copper sulphate pentahydrate, CuSO4<.>5H2O. + + +Sir KENELM DIGBY appears to have delivered a discourse dealing with +the famous Powder before a learned assembly at Montpellier in France; +at least a work purporting to be a translation of such a discourse was +published in 1658,[1] and further editions appeared in 1660 and 1664. +KENELM was a son of the Sir EVERARD DIGBY (1578-1606) who was executed +for his share in the Gunpowder Plot. In spite of this fact, however, +JAMES I. appears to have regarded him with favour. He was a man of +romantic temperament, possessed of charming manners, considerable learning, +and even greater credulity. His contemporaries seem to have differed +in their opinions concerning him. EVELYN (1620-1706), the diarist, +after inspecting his chemical laboratory, rather harshly speaks of him +as "an errant mountebank". Elsewhere he well refers to him as "a teller +of strange things"--this was on the occasion of DIGBY'S relating a story +of a lady who had such an aversion to roses that one laid on her cheek +produced a blister! + +[1] _A late Discourse . . . by Sir_ KENEEM DIGBY, _Kt. +&c. Touching the Cure of Wounds by the Powder of Sympathy . . . +rendered . . . out of French into English by_ R. WHITE, Gent. +(1658). This is entitled the second edition, but appears to have +been the first. + + +To return to the _Late Discourse_: after some preliminary remarks, +Sir KENELM records a cure which he claims to have effected by means +of the Powder. It appears that JAMES HOWELL (1594-1666, afterwards +historiographer royal to CHARLES II.), had, in the attempt to separate +two friends engaged in a duel, received two serious wounds in the hand. +To proceed in the writer's own words:--"It was my chance to be lodged +hard by him; and four or five days after, as I was making myself ready, +he [Mr Howell] came to my House, and prayed me to view his wounds; +for I understand, said he, that you have extraordinary remedies upon +such occasions, and my Surgeons apprehend some fear, that it may grow +to a Gangrene, and so the hand must be cut off.... + +"I asked him then for any thing that had the blood upon it, +so he presently sent for his Garter, wherewith his hand +was first bound: and having called for a Bason of water, +as if I would wash my hands; I took an handful! of Powder +of Vitrol, which I had in my study, and presently dissolved it. +As soon as the bloody garter was brought me, I put it within +the Bason, observing in the interim what Mr _Howel_ did, +who stood talking with a Gentleman in the corner of my Chamber, +not regarding at all what I was doing: but he started suddenly, +as if he had found some strange alteration in himself; I asked +him what he ailed? I know not what ailes me, but I find that I +feel no more pain, methinks that a pleasing kind of freshnesse, +as it were a wet cold Napkin did spread over my hand, which hath +taken away the inflammation that tormented me before; I replied, +since that you feel already so good an effect of my medicament, +I advise you to cast away all your Plaisters, onely keep +the wound clean, and in a moderate temper 'twixt heat and cold. +This was presently reported to the Duke of _Buckingham_, +and a little after to the King [James I.], who were both +very curious to know the issue of the businesse, which was, +that after dinner I took the garter out of the water, +and put it to dry before a great fire; it was scarce dry, +but Mr _Howels_ servant came running [and told me], that his +Master felt as much burning as ever he had done, if not more, +for the heat was such, as if his hand were betwixt coales of fire: +I answered, that although that had happened at present, +yet he should find ease in a short time; for I knew the reason +of this new accident, and I would provide accordingly, +for his Master should be free from that inflammation, +it may be, before he could possibly return unto him: +but in case he found no ease, I wished him to come presently +back again, if not he might forbear coming. Thereupon he went, +and at the instant I did put again the garter into the water; +thereupon he found his Master without any pain at all. +To be brief, there was no sense of pain afterward: +but within five or six dayes the wounds were cicatrized, +and entirely healed."[1] + + +[1] _Ibid_., pp. 7-11. + + +Sir KENELM proceeds, in this discourse, to relate that he obtained +the secret of the Powder from a Carmelite who had learnt +it in the East. Sir KENELM says that he told it only to +King JAMES and his celebrated physician, Sir THEODORE MAYERNE +(1573-1655). The latter disclosed it to the Duke of MAYERNE, +whose surgeon sold the secret to various persons, until ultimately, +as Sir KENELM remarks, it became known to every country barber. +However, DIGBY'S real connection with the Powder has +been questioned. In an Appendix to Dr NATHANAEL HIGHMORE'S +(1613-1685) _The History of Generation_, published in 1651, +entitled _A Discourse of the Cure of Wounds by Sympathy_, +the Powder is referred to as Sir GILBERT TALBOT'S Powder; +nor does it appear to have been DIGBY who brought the claims +of the Sympathetic Powder before the notice of the then +recently-formed Royal Society, although he was a by no means +inactive member of the Society. HIGHMORE, however, in the Appendix +to the work referred to above, does refer to DIGBY'S reputed cure +of HOWELL'S wounds already mentioned; and after the publication +of DIGBY'S _Discourse_ the Powder became generally known +as Sir KENELM DIGBY'S Sympathetic Powder. As such it is +referred to in an advertisement appended to _Wit and Drollery_ +(1661) by the bookseller, NATHANAEL BROOK.[1] + + +[1] This advertisement is as follows: "These are to give notice, +that Sir _Kenelme Digbies_ Sympathetical Powder prepar'd by Promethean fire, +curing all green wounds that come within the compass of a Remedy; +and likewise the Tooth-ache infallibly in a very short time: +Is to be had at Mr _Nathanael Brook's_ at the Angel in _Cornhil_." + +The belief in cure by sympathy, however, is much older than DIGBY'S +or TALBOT'S Sympathetic Powder. PARACELSUS described an ointment +consisting essentially of the moss on the skull of a man who +had died a violent death, combined with boar's and bear's fat, +burnt worms, dried boar's brain, red sandal-wood and mummy, +which was used to cure (?) wounds in a similar manner, +being applied to the weapon with which the hurt had been inflicted. +With reference to this ointment, readers will probably recall +the passage in SCOTT'S _Lay of the Last Minstrel_ (canto 3, +stanza 23), respecting the magical cure of WILLIAM of DELORAINE'S +wound by "the Ladye of Branksome":-- + +"She drew the splinter from the wound And with a charm she stanch'd the blood; +She bade the gash be cleans'd and bound: No longer by his couch she stood; +But she had ta'en the broken lance, And washed it from the clotted gore +And salved the splinter o'er and o'er. William of Deloraine, in trance, +Whene'er she turned it round and round, Twisted as if she gall'd his wound. +Then to her maidens she did say That he should be whole man and sound Within +the course of a night and day. + Full long she toil'd; for she did rue + Mishap to friend so stout and true." + + +FRANCIS BACON (1561-1626) writes of sympathetic cures as follows:--"It +is constantly Received, and Avouched, that the _Anointing_ of +the _Weapon_, that maketh the _Wound_, wil heale the _Wound_ it selfe. +In this _Experiment_, upon the Relation of _Men of Credit_, +(though my selfe, as yet, am not fully inclined to beleeve it,) +you shal note the _Points_ following; First, the _Ointment_ . . . is made +of Divers _ingredients_; whereof the Strangest and Hardest to come by, +are the Mosse upon the _Skull_ of a _dead Man, Vnburied_; And the _Fats_ +of a _Boare_, and a _Beare_, killed in the _Act of Generation_. These Two +last I could easily suspect to be prescribed as a Starting Hole; That if +the _Experiment_ proved not, it mought be pretended, that the _Beasts_ +were not killed in due Time; For as for the _Mosse_, it is certain +there is great Quantity of it in _Ireland_, upon _Slain Bodies_, +laid on _Heaps, Vnburied_. The other _Ingredients_ are, the _Bloud-Stone_ +in _Powder_, and some other _Things_, which seeme to have a _Vertue_ +to _Stanch Bloud_; As also the _Mosse_ hath.... Secondly, the same +_kind_ of _Ointment_, applied to the Hurt it selfe, worketh not +the _Effect_; but onely applied to the _Weapon_..... Fourthly, +it may be applied to the _Weapon_, though the Party Hurt be at a +great Distance. Fifthly, it seemeth the _Imagination_ of the Party, +to be _Cured_, is not needful! to Concurre; For it may be done +without the knowledge of the _Party Wounded_; And thus much hath +been tried, that the _Ointment_ (for _Experiments_ sake,) hath been +wiped off the _Weapon_, without the knowledge of the _Party Hurt_, +and presently the _Party Hurt_, hath been in great _Rage of Paine_, +till the _Weapon_ was _Reannointed_. Sixthly, it is affirmed, +that if you cannot get the _Weapon_, yet if you put an _Instrument_ +of _Iron_, or _Wood_, resembling the _Weapon_, into the _Wound_, +whereby it bleedeth, the _Annointing_ of that _Instrument_ will serve, +and work the _Effect_. This I doubt should be a Device, to keep this +strange _Forme of Cure_, in Request, and Use; Because many times you +cannot come by the _Weapon_ it selve. Seventhly, the _Wound_ be at first +_Washed clean_ with _White Wine_ or the _Parties_ own _Water_; And then +bound up close in _Fine Linen_ and no more _Dressing_ renewed, +till it be _whole_."[1] + + +[1] FRANCIS BACON: _Sylva Sylvarum: or, A Natural History . . . +Published after the Authors death . . . The sixt Edition_ ù . . +(1651), p. 217. + + +Owing to the demand for making this ointment, quite a considerable +trade was done in skulls from Ireland upon which moss had grown +owing to their exposure to the atmosphere, high prices being +obtained for fine specimens. + +The idea underlying the belief in the efficacy of sympathetic remedies, +namely, that by acting on part of a thing or on a symbol of it, +one thereby acts magically on the whole or the thing symbolised, +is the root-idea of all magic, and is of extreme antiquity. +DIGBY and others, however, tried to give a natural explanation +to the supposed efficacy of the Powder. They argued that particles +of the blood would ascend from the bloody cloth or weapon, +only coming to rest when they had reached their natural +home in the wound from which they had originally issued. +These particles would carry with them the more volatile +part of the vitriol, which would effect a cure more readily +than when combined with the grosser part of the vitriol. +In the days when there was hardly any knowledge of chemistry +and physics, this theory no doubt bore every semblance of truth. +In passing, however, it is interesting to note that +DIGBY'S _Discourse_ called forth a reply from J. F. HELVETIUS +(or SCHWETTZER, 1625-1709), physician to the Prince of Orange, +who afterwards became celebrated as an alchemist who had achieved +the magnum opus.[1] + + +[1] See my _Alchemy: Ancient and Modern_ (1911), SESE 63-67. + + +Writing of the Sympathetic Powder, Professor DE MORGAN wittily +argues that it must have been quite efficacious. He says: +"The directions were to keep the wound clean and cool, and to +take care of diet, rubbing the salve on the knife or sword. +If we remember the dreadful notions upon drugs which prevailed, +both as to quantity and quality, we shall readily see that +any way of NOT dressing the wound would have been useful. +If the physicians had taken the hint, had been careful of diet, +_etc_., and had poured the little barrels of medicine down the throat +of a practicable doll, THEY would have had their magical cures +as well as the surgeons."[2] As Dr PETTIGREW has pointed out,[3] +Nature exhibits very remarkable powers in effecting the healing +of wounds by adhesion, when her processes are not impeded. +In fact, many cases have been recorded in which noses, ears, +and fingers severed from the body have been rejoined thereto, +merely by washing the parts, placing them in close continuity, +and allowing the natural powers of the body to effect the healing. +Moreover, in spite of BACON'S remarks on this point, the effect +of the imagination of the patient, who was usually not ignorant +that a sympathetic cure was to be attempted, must be taken +into account; for, without going to the excesses of "Christian Science" +in this respect, the fact must be recognised that the state +of the mind exercises a powerful effect on the natural forces +of the body, and a firm faith is undoubtedly helpful in effecting +the cure of any sort of ill. + + +[2] Professor AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN: _A Budget of Paradoxes_ +(1872), p 66. + +[3] THOMAS JOSEPH PETTIGREW, F.R.S.: _On Superstitions connected +with the History and Practice of Medicine and Surgery_ +(1844), pp. 164-167. + + + +VI + +THE BELIEF IN TALISMANS + +THE word "talisman" is derived from the Arabic "tilsam," +"a magical image," through the plural form "tilsamen." +This Arabic word is itself probably derived from the Greek telesma +in its late meaning of "a religious mystery" or "consecrated +object". The term is often employed to designate amulets +in general, but, correctly speaking, it has a more restricted +and special significance. A talisman may be defined briefly +as an astrological or other symbol expressive of the influence +and power of one of the planets, engraved on a sympathetic +stone or metal (or inscribed on specially prepared parchment) +under the auspices of this planet. + +Before proceeding to an account of the preparation of talismans proper, +it will not be out of place to notice some of the more interesting +and curious of other amulets. All sorts of substances have been +employed as charms, sometimes of a very unpleasant nature, +such as dried toads. Generally, however, amulets consist +of stones, herbs, or passages from Sacred Writings written on paper. +This latter class are sometimes called "characts," as an example +of which may be mentioned the Jewish phylacteries. + +Every precious stone was supposed to exercise its own peculiar virtue; +for instance, amber was regarded as a good remedy for throat troubles, +and agate was thought to preserve from snake-bites. ELIHU RICH[1] +gives a very full list of stones and their supposed virtues. +Each sign of the zodiac was supposed to have its own particular stone[2] +(as shown in the annexed table), and hence the superstitious though +not inartistic custom of wearing one's birth- + +Month (com-Astro- mencing Sign of the Zodiac. logical 21st +of Stone. Symbol. preceding month). + Aries, the Ram . {} April Sardonyx. + Taurus the Bull . {} May Cornelian. + Gemini the Twins . {} June Topaz. + Cancer, the Crab . {} July Chalcedony. + Leo, the Lion . . {} August Jasper. + Virgo, the Virgin . {} September Emerald. + Libra, the Balance . {} October Beryl. + Scorpio, the Scorpion {} November Amethyst. + Sagittarius, the Archer {} December Hyacinth +(=Sapphire). + Capricorn, the Goat . {} January Chrysoprase. + Aquarius, the Water- {} February Crystal. + bearer + Pisces, the Fishes . {} March Sapphire. +(=Lapis lazuli). stone for "luck". The belief in the occult powers +of certain stones is by no means non-existent at the present day; +for even in these enlightened times there are not wanting those +who fear the beautiful opal, and put their faith in the virtues +of New Zealand green-stone. + + +[1] ELTHU RICH: _The Occult Sciences (Encyclopaedia Metropolitana_, +1855), pp. 348 _et seq_. + +[2] With regard to these stones, however, there is much confusion +and difference of opinion. The arrangement adopted in the table +here given is that of CORNELIUS AGRIPPA (_Occult Philosophy_, bk. +ii.). A comparatively recent work, esteemed by modern occultists, +namely, _The Light of Egypt, or the Science of the Soul and the Stars_ +(1889), gives the following scheme:-- + +{}=Amethyst. {}=Emerald. {}=Diamond. {}=Onyx (Chalcedony). + +{}=Agate. {}=Ruby. {}=Topaz. {}=Sapphire (skyblue). + +{}=Beryl. {}=Jasper. {}=Carbuncle. {}=Chrysolite. + + +Common superstitious opinion regarding birth-stones, as reflected, +for example, in the "lucky birth charms" exhibited in +the windows of the jewellers' shops, considerably diverges +in this matter from the views of both these authorities. +The usual scheme is as follows:-- + + Jan.=Garnet. May =Emerald. Sept. =Sapphire, + Feb.=Amethyst. June=Agate. Oct. =Opal. + Mar.=Bloodstone. July =Ruby. Nov.=Topaz. + Apr.=Diamond. Aug.=Sardonyx. Dec. =Turquoise. + + +The bloodstone is frequently assigned either to Aries or Scorpio, +owing to its symbolical connection with Mars; and the opal to Cancer, +which in astrology is the constellation of the moon. + +Confusion is rendered still worse by the fact that the ancients +whilst in some cases using the same names as ourselves, +applied them to different stones; thus their "hyacinth" is our +"sapphire," whilst their "sapphire" is our "lapis lazuli". + + +Certain herbs, culled at favourable conjunctions of the planets +and worn as amulets, were held to be very efficacious +against various diseases. Precious stones and metals +were also taken internally for the same purpose--"remedies" +which in certain cases must have proved exceedingly harmful. +One theory put forward for the supposed medical value of amulets +was the Doctrine of Effluvia. This theory supposes the amulets +to give off vapours or effluvia which penetrate into the body +and effect a cure. It is, of course, true that certain herbs, +_etc_., might, under the heat of the body, give off such effluvia, +but the theory on the whole is manifestly absurd. +The Doctrine of Signatures, which we have already encountered +in our excursions,[1] may also be mentioned in this connection +as a complementary and equally untenable hypothesis. + +According to ELIHU RICH,[2] the following were the commonest Egyptian amulets:-- + + +1. Those inscribed with the figure of _Serapis_, used to preserve +against evils inflicted by earth. + 2. Figure of _Canopus_, against evil by water. + 3. Figure of a _hawk_, against evil from the air. + 4. Figure of an _asp_, against evil by fire. + + +PARACELSUS believed there to be much occult virtue in an alloy of +the seven chief metals, which he called _Electrum_. Certain definite +proportions of these metals had to be taken, and each was +to be added during a favourable conjunction of the planets. +From this electrum he supposed that valuable amulets and magic +mirrors could be prepared. + + +[1] See "Medicine and Magic." [2] _Op. Cit_., p- 343- + + +A curious and ancient amulet for the cure of various diseases, +particularly the ague, was a triangle formed of the letters +of the word "Abracadabra." The usual form was that shown +in fig. 19, and that shown in fig. 20 was also known. +The origin of this magical word is lost in obscurity. + +The belief in the horn as a powerful amulet, especially prevalent in Italy, +where is it the custom of the common people to make the sign of the _mano +cornuto_ to avoid the consequence of the dreaded _jettatore_ or evil eye, +can be traced to the fact that the horn was the symbol of the Goddess +of the Moon. Probably the belief in the powers of the horse-shoe had +a similar origin. Indeed, it seems likely that not only this, but most +other amulets, like talismans proper--as will appear below,--were originally +designed as appeals to gods and other powerful spiritual beings. + +\ ABRACADABRA / \ ABRACADABRA | + \ ABRACADABR / \ BRACADABRA | + \ ABRACADAB / \ RACADABRA | + \ ABRACADA / \ ACADABRA | + \ ABRACAD / \ CADABRA | + \ ABRACA / \ ADABRA | + \ ABRAC / \ DABRA | + \ ABRA / \ ABRA | +\ ABR / \ BRA | \ AB / \ RA | \ A/ \ A | \/ \ | + + +[1] See FREDERICK T. ELWORTHY'S _Horns of Honour_ (1900), especially pp. +56 _et seq_. + +To turn our attention, however, to the art of preparing talismans proper: +I may remark at the outset that it was necessary for the talisman +to be prepared by one's own self--a task by no means easy as a rule. +Indeed, the right mental attitude of the occultist was insisted upon +as essential to the operation. + +As to the various signs to be engraver on the talismans, +various authorities differ, though there are certain points +connected with the art of talismanic magic on which they all agree. +It so happened that the ancients were acquainted with seven +metals and seven planets (including the sun and moon +as planets), and the days of the week are also seven. +It was concluded, therefore, that there was some occult +connection between the planets, metals, and days of the week. +Each of the seven days of the week was supposed to be +under the auspices of the spirits of one of the planets; +so also was the generation in the womb of Nature of each of +the seven chief metals. + +In the following table are shown these particulars in detail:-- + + 1. + Planet. Symbol. Day of Metal. Colour. + Sun . {} Sunday Gold Gold or yellow. + Moon . {} Monday Silver Silver or white. + Mars . {} Tuesday Iron Red. + Mercury {} Wednesday [1]Mercury Mixed colours or +purple. + + Jupiter {} Thursday Tin Violet or blue. + Venus {} Friday Copper Turquoise or green. + Saturn. {} Saturday Lead Black. + +[1] Used in the form of a solid amalgam for talismans. + +Consequently, the metal of which a talisman was to be made, +and also the time of its preparation, had to be chosen with due +regard to the planet under which it was to be prepared.[1] The power +of such a talisman was thought to be due to the genie of this planet-- +a talisman, was, in fact, a silent evocation of an astral spirit. +Examples of the belief that a genie can be bound up in an amulet +in some way are afforded by the story of ALADDIN'S lamp and ring +and other stories in the _Thousand and One Nights_. Sometimes the +talismanic signs were engraved on precious stones, sometimes they were +inscribed on parchment; in both cases the same principle held good, +the nature of the stone chosen, or the colour of the ink employed, +being that in correspondence with the planet under whose auspices +the talisman was prepared. + + +[1] In this connection a rather surprising discovery made by Mr W. GORN OLD +(see his _A Manual of Occultism_, 1911, pp. 7 and 8) must be mentioned. +The ancient Chaldeans appear invariably to have enumerated the planets +in the following order: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon-- +which order was adopted by the mediaeval astrologers. Let us commence +with the Sun in the above sequence, and write down every third planet; +we then have-- + + Sun . . . . . Sunday. + Moon . . . . Monday. + Mars . . . . Tuesday. + Mercury. . . . Wednesday. + Jupiter . . . . Thursday. + Venus . . . . Friday. + Saturn . . . . Saturday. + +That is to say, we have the planets in the order in which they +were supposed to rule over the days of the week. This is perhaps, +not so surprising, because it seems probable that, each day being +first divided into twenty-four hours, it was assumed that the planets +ruled for one hour in turn, in the order first mentioned above. +Each day was then named after the planet which ruled during its first hour. +It will be found that if we start with the Sun and write down every +twenty-fourth planet, the result is exactly the same as if we write +down every third. But Mr OLD points out further, doing so by means +of a diagram which seems to be rather cumbersome that if we start +with Saturn in the first place, and write down every fifth planet, +and then for each planet substitute the metal over which it was +supposed to rule, we then have these metals arranged in descending +order of atomic weights, thus:-- + + Saturn . . . . Lead (=207). + Mercury . . . . Mercury (=200). + Sun . . . . . . Gold (=197). + Jupiter . . . . Tin (=119). + Moon . . . . . Silver (=108). + Venus . . . . Copper (=64). + Mars . . . . . Iron (=56). + + +Similarly we can, starting from any one of these orders, +pass to the other two. The fact is a very surprising one, +because the ancients could not possibly have been acquainted with +the atomic weights of the metals, and, it is important to note, +the order of the densities of these metals, which might possibly +have been known to them, is by no means the same as the order +of their atomic weights. Whether the fact indicates a real +relationship between the planets and the metals, or whether +there is some other explanation, I am not prepared to say. +Certainly some explanation is needed: to say that the fact is +mere coincidence is unsatisfactory, seeing that the odds against, +not merely this, but any such regularity occurring by chance-- +as calculated by the mathematical theory of probability-- +are 119 to 1. + + +All the instruments employed in the art had to be specially prepared +and consecrated. Special robes had to be worn, perfumes and +incense burnt, and invocations, conjurations, _etc_., recited, +all of which depended on the planet ruling the operation. +A description of a few typical talismans in detail will not here +be out of place. + +In _The Key of Solomon the King_ (translated by S. L. M. MATHERS, +1889)[1] are described five, six, or seven talismans for each planet. +Each of these was supposed to have its own peculiar virtues, +and many of them are stated to be of use in the evocation of spirits. +The majority of them consist of a central design encircled by a verse +of Hebrew Scripture. The central designs are of a varied character, +generally geometrical figures and Hebrew letters or words, +or magical characters. Five of these talismans are here portrayed, +the first three described differing from the above. The translations +of the Hebrew verses, _etc_., given below are due to Mr MATHERS. + + +[1] The _Clavicula Salomonis_, or _Key of Solomon the King_, consists mainly +of an elaborate ritual for the evocation of the various planetary spirits, +in which process the use of talismans or pentacles plays a prominent part. +It is claimed to be a work of white magic, but, inasmuch as it, like other +old books making the same claim, gives descriptions of a pentacle for +causing ruin, destruction, and death, and another for causing earthquakes-- +to give only two examples,--the distinction between black and white magic, +which we shall no doubt encounter again in later excursions, appears to +be somewhat arbitrary. + +Regarding the authorship of the work, Mr MATHERS, translator and +editor of the first printed copy of the book, says, "I see no reason +to doubt the tradition which assigns the authorship of the `Key' to +King Solomon." If this view be accepted, however, it is abundantly evident +that the _Key_ as it stands at present (in which we find S. JOHN quoted, +and mention made of SS. PETER and PAUL) must have received some +considerable alterations and additions at the hands of later editors. +But even if we are compelled to assign the _Clavicula Salomonis_ in its +present form to the fourteenth or fifteenth century, we must, I think, +allow that it was based upon traditions of the past, and, of course, +the possibility remains that it might have been based upon some earlier work. +With regard to the antiquity of the planetary sigils, Mr MATHERS +notes "that, among the Gnostic talismans in the British Museum, +there is a ring of copper with the sigils of Venus, which are exactly +the same as those given by mediaeval writers on magic." + +In spite of the absurdity of its claims, viewed in the light +of modern knowledge, the _Clavicula Salomonis_ exercised +a considerable influence in the past, and is to be regarded +as one of the chief sources of mediaeval ceremonial magic. +Historically speaking, therefore, it is a book of no little importance. + + +_The First Pentacle of the Sun_.--"The Countenance of Shaddai +the Almighty, at Whose aspect all creatures obey, and the Angelic Spirits +do reverence on bended knees." About the face is the name +"El Shaddai". Around is written in Latin: "Behold His face and form +by Whom all things were made, and Whom all creatures obey" (see fig. +21). _The Fifth Pentacle of Mars_.--"Write thou this Pentacle upon virgin +parchment or paper because it is terrible unto the Demons, and at its sight +and aspect they will obey thee, for they cannot resist its presence." +The design is a Scorpion,[1] around which the word Hvl is repeated. +The Hebrew versicle is from _Psalm_ xci. 13: "Thou shalt go upon the lion +and adder, the young lion and the dragon shalt thou tread under thy feet" +(see fig. 22). + + +[1] In astrology the zodiacal sign of the scorpion is the "night house" +of the planet Mars. + + +_The Third Pentacle of the Moon_.--"This being duly borne +with thee when upon a journey, if it be properly made, +serveth against all attacks by night, and against every kind +of danger and peril by Water." The design consists of a hand +and sleeved forearm (this occurs on three other moon talismans), +together with the Hebrew names Aub and Vevaphel. The versicle +is from _Psalm_ xl. 13: Be pleased O IHVH to deliver me, +O IHVH make haste to help me" (see fig 23) + +_The Third Pentacle of Venus_.--"This, if it be only shown unto +any person, serveth to attract love. Its Angel Monachiel should be +invoked in the day and hour of Venus, at one o'clock or at eight." +The design consists of two triangles joined at their apices, with the +following names--IHVH, Adonai, Ruach, Achides, AEgalmiel, Monachiel, +and Degaliel. The versicle is from _Genesis_ i. 28: "And the Elohim +blessed them, and the Elohim said unto them, Be ye fruitful, and multiply, +and replenish the earth, and subdue it" (see fig. 24). + +_The Third Pentacle of Mercury_.--"This serves to invoke +the Spirits subject unto Mercury; and especially those who are +written in this Pentacle." The design consists of crossed lines +and magical characters of Mercury. Around are the names of +the angels, Kokaviel, Ghedoriah, Savaniah, and Chokmahiel (see fig. +25). CORNELIUS AGRIPPA, in his _Three Books of Occult Philosophy_, +describes another interesting system of talismans. +FRANCIS BARRETT'S _Magus, or Celestial Intelligencer_, +a well-known occult work published in the first year of +the nineteenth century, I may mention, copies AGRIPPA'S system +of talismans, without acknowledgment, almost word for word. +To each of the planets is assigned a magic square or table, +_i.e_. a square composed of numbers so arranged that the sum +of each row or column is always the same. For example, +the table for Mars is as follows:-- + + 11 24 7 20 3 + 4 12 25 8 16 + 17 5 13 21 9 + 10 18 1 14 22 + 23 6 19 2 15 + + +It will be noticed that every number from 1 up to the highest +possible occurs once, and that no number occurs twice. +It will also be seen that the sum of each row and of each column +is always 65. Similar squares can be constructed containing +any square number of figures, and it is, indeed, by no means +surprising that the remarkable properties of such "magic squares," +before these were explained mathematically, gave rise to +the belief that they had some occult significance and virtue. +From the magic squares can be obtained certain numbers which +are said to be the numbers of the planets; their orderliness, +we are told, reflects the order of the heavens, and from +a consideration of them the magical properties of the planets +which they represent can be arrived at. For example, +in the above table the number of rows of numbers is 5. +The total number of numbers in the table is the square of this number, +namely, 25, which is also the greatest number in the table. +The sum of any row or column is 65. And, finally, the sum +of all the numbers is the product of the number of rows +(namely, 5) and the sum of any row (namely, 65), _i.e_. 325. +These numbers, namely, 5, 25, 65, and 325, are the numbers +of Mars. Sets of numbers for the other planets are obtained +in exactly the same manner.[1] + + +[1] Readers acquainted with mathematics will notice that if _n_ is +the number of rows in such a "magic square," the other numbers derived +as above will be n<2S>, 1/2_n_(_n_<2S> + 1), and 1/2_n_<2S>(_n_<2S> + 1). +This can readily be proved by the laws of arithmetical progressions. +Rather similar but more complicated and less uniform "magic squares" +are attributed to PARACELSUS. + + +Now to each planet is assigned an Intelligence or good spirit, +and an Evil Spirit or demon; and the names of these spirits +are related to certain of the numbers of the planets. +The other numbers are also connected with holy and magical +Hebrew names. AGRIPPA, and BARRETT copying him, gives the following +table of "names answering to the numbers of Mars":-- + + 5. He, the letter of the holy name. <hb > + 25. <hb ___> + 65. Adonai. <hb ____> + 325. Graphiel, the Intelligence of Mars. <hb _______> + 325. Barzabel, the Spirit of Mars. <hb _______> + +Similar tables are given for the other planets. The numbers +can be derived from the names by regarding the Hebrew letters +of which they are composed as numbers, in which case <hb > +(Aleph) to <hb > (Teth) represent the units 1 to 9 in order, +<hb > (Jod) to <hb > (Tzade) the tens 10 to 90 in order, <hb > +(Koph) to <hb > (Tau) the hundreds 100 to 400, whilst the hundreds +500 to 900 are represented by special terminal forms of certain +of the Hebrew letters.[2] It is evident that no little wasted +ingenuity must have been employed in working all this out. + + +[2] It may be noticed that this makes <hb _______> equal to 326, +one unit too much. Possibly an Alelph should be omitted. + + +Each planet has its own seal or signature, as well as the +signature of its intelligence and the signature of its demon. +These signatures were supposed to represent the characters +of the planets' intelligences and demons respectively. +The signature of Mars is shown in fig. 26, that of its intelligence +in fig. 27, and that of its demon in fig. 28. + +These various details were inscribed on the talismans each of which +was supposed to confer its own peculiar benefits--as follows: +On one side must be engraved the proper magic table and the astrological +sign of the planet, together with the highest planetary number, +the sacred names corresponding to the planet, and the name of +the intelligence of the planet, but not the name of its demon. +On the other side must be engraved the seals of the planet +and of its intelligence, and also the astrological sign. +BARRETT says, regarding the demons:[1] "It is to be understood +that the intelligences are the presiding good angels that are set +over the planets; but that the spirits or daemons, with their names, +seals, or characters, are never inscribed upon any Talisman, +except to execute any evil effect, and that they are subject +to the intelligences, or good spirits; and again, when the spirits +and their characters are used, it will be more conducive to the effect +to add some divine name appropriate to that effect which we desire." +Evil talismans can also be prepared, we are informed, +by using a metal antagonistic to the signs engraved thereon. +The complete talisman of Mars is shown in fig. 29. + + +[1] FRANCIS BARRETT: _The Magus, or Celestial Intelligencer_ +(1801), bk. i. p. 146. + + +ALPHONSE LOUIS CONSTANT,[1] a famous French occultist of the +nineteenth century, who wrote under the name of "ELIPHAS LEVI," +describes yet another system of talismans. He says: +"The Pentagram must be always engraved on one side of the talisman, +with a circle for the Sun, a crescent for the Moon, a winged +caduceus for Mercury, a sword for Mars, a G for Venus, +a crown for Jupiter, and a scythe for Saturn. The other side +of the talisman should bear the sign of Solomon, that is, +the six-pointed star formed by two interlaced triangles; in the centre +there should be placed a human figure for the sun talismans, +a cup for those of the Moon, a dog's head for those of Jupiter, +a lion for those of Mars, a dove's for those of Venus, a bull's +or goat's for those of Saturn. The names of the seven angels +should be added either in Hebrew, Arabic, or magic characters +similar to those of the alphabets of Trimethius. The two triangles +of Solomon may be replaced by the double cross of Ezekiel's wheels, +this being found on a great number of ancient pentacles. +All objects of this nature, whether in metals or in precious stones, +should be carefully wrapped in silk satchels of a colour +analogous to the spirit of the planet, perfumed with the perfumes +of the corresponding day, and preserved from all impure +looks and touches."[2] + +[1] For a biographical and critical account of this extraordinary +personage and his views, see Mr A. E. WAITE'S _The Mysteries of Magic: +a Digest of the writings of_ ELIPHAS LEVI (1897). + +[2] _Op. cit_., p. 201. + + +ELIPHAS LEVI, following PYTHAGORAS and many of the mediaeval magicians, +regarded the pentagram, or five-pointed star, as an extremely +powerful pentacle. According to him, if with one horn in +the ascendant it is the sign of the microcosm--Man. With two +horns in the ascendant, however, it is the sign of the Devil, +"the accursed Goat of Mendes," and an instrument of black magic. +We can, indeed, trace some faint likeness between the pentagram +and the outline form of a man, or of a goat's head, according to +whether it has one or two horns in the ascendant respectively, +which resemblances may account for this idea. Fig. 30 shows +the pentagram embellished with other symbols according to ELIPHAS LEVI, +whilst fig. 31 shows his embellished form of the six-pointed star, +or Seal of SOLOMON. This, he says, is "the sign of the Macrocosmos, +but is less powerful than the Pentagram, the microcosmic sign," +thus contradicting PYTHAGORAS, who, as we have seen, regarded the pentagram +as the sign of the Macrocosm. ELIPHAS LEVI asserts that he attempted +the evocation of the spirit of APOLLONIUS of Tyana in London on 24th +July 1854, by the aid of a pentagram and other magical apparatus +and ritual, apparently with success, if we may believe his word. +But he sensibly suggests that probably the apparition which appeared +was due to the effect of the ceremonies on his own imagination, +and comes to the conclusion that such magical experiments are +injurious to health.[1] + + +[1] _Op cit_. pp. 446-450. + + +Magical rings were prepared on the same principle as were talismans. +Says CORNELIUS AGRIPPA: "The manner of making these kinds of +Magical Rings is this, viz.: When any Star ascends fortunately, +with the fortunate aspect or conjunction of the Moon, +we must take a stone and herb that is under that Star, +and make a ring of the metal that is suitable to this Star, +and in it fasten the stone, putting the herb or root under it-- +not omitting the inscriptions of images, names, and characters, +as also the proper suffumigations...."[1] SOLOMON'S ring was +supposed to have been possessed of remarkable occult virtue. +Says JOSEPHUS (_c_. A.D. 37-100): "God also enabled +him [SOLOMON] to learn that skill which expels demons, +which is a science useful and sanative to men. He composed +such incantations also by which distempers are alleviated. +And he left behind him the manner of using exorcisms, +by which they drive away demons, so that they never return; +and this method of cure is of great force unto this day; +for I have seen a certain man of my own country, whose name +was Eleazar, releasing people that were demoniacal in the presence +of Vespasian, and his sons, and his captains, and the whole +multitude of his soldiers. The manner of the cure was this; +he put a ring that had under the seal a root of one of those +sorts mentioned by Solomon, to the nostrils of the demoniac, +after which he drew out the demon through his nostrils: +and when the man fell down immediately, he abjured him +to return unto him no more, making still mention of Solomon, +and reciting the incantations which he composed."[2] + +[1] H. C. AGRIPPA: _Occult Philosophy_, bk. i. chap. xlvii. +(WHITEHEAD'S edition, pp. 141 and 142). + +[2] FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS: _The Antiquities of the Jews_ +(trans. by W. WHISTON), bk. viii. chap. ii., SE 5 +(45) to (47). + +Enough has been said already to indicate the general nature +of talismanic magic. No one could maintain otherwise than +that much of it is pure nonsense; but the subject should not, +therefore, be dismissed as valueless, or lacking significance. +It is past belief that amulets and talismans should have been +believed in for so long unless they APPEARED to be productive +of some of the desired results, though these may have been due to +forces quite other than those which were supposed to be operative. +Indeed, it may be said that there has been no widely held superstition +which does not embody some truth, like some small specks of gold +hidden in an uninviting mass of quartz. As the poet BLAKE put it: +"Everything possible to be believ'd is an image of truth";[1] +and the attempt may here be made to extract the gold of truth +from the quartz of superstition concerning talismanic magic. +For this purpose the various theories regarding the supposed +efficacy of talismans must be examined. + + +[1] "Proverbs of Hell" (_The Marriage of Heaven and Hell_). + + +Two of these theories have already been noted, but the doctrine of effluvia +admittedly applied only to a certain class of amulets, and, I think, +need not be seriously considered. The "astral-spirit theory" +(as it may be called), in its ancient form at any rate, is equally +untenable to-day. The discoveries of new planets and new metals seem +destructive of the belief that there can be any occult connection +between planets, metals, and the days of the week, although the curious +fact discovered by Mr OLD, to which I have referred (footnote, p. +63@@@), assuredly demands an explanation, and a certain +validity may, perhaps, be allowed to astrological symbolism. +As concerns the belief in the existence of what may be called +(although the term is not a very happy one) "discarnate spirits," +however, the matter, in view of the modern investigation of spiritistic +and other abnormal psychical phenomena, stands in a different position. +There can, indeed, be little doubt that very many of the phenomena observed +at spiritistic seances come under the category of deliberate fraud, +and an even larger number, perhaps, can be explained on the theory +of the subconscious self. I think, however, that the evidence goes +to show that there is a residuum of phenomena which can only be +explained by the operation, in some way, of discarnate intelligences.[1] +Psychical research may be said to have supplied the modern world +with the evidence of the existence of discarnate personalities, +and of their operation on the material plane, which the ancient +world lacked. But so far as our present subject is concerned, +all the evidence obtainable goes to show that the phenomena in question +only take place in the presence of what is called "a medium"-- +a person of peculiar nervous or psychical organisation. +That this is the case, moreover, appears to be the general belief +of spiritists on the subject. In the sense, then, in which "a talisman" +connotes a material object of such a nature that by its aid the powers +of discarnate intelligences may become operative on material things, +we might apply the term "talisman" to the nervous system of a medium: +but then that would be the only talisman. Consequently, even if +one is prepared to admit the whole of modern spiritistic theory, +nothing is thereby gained towards a belief in talismans, and no light +is shed upon the subject. + + +[1] The publications of The Society for Psychical Research, +and FREDERICK MYERS' monumental work on _Human Personality and +its Survival of Bodily Death_, should be specially consulted. +I have attempted a brief discussion of modern spiritualism +and psychical research in my _Matter, Spirit, and the Cosmos_ +(1910), chap. ii. + + +Another theory concerning talismans which commended itself +to many of the old occult philosophers, PARACELSUS for instance, +is what may be called the "occult force" theory. This theory +assumes the existence of an occult mental force, a force +capable of being exerted by the human will, apart from its +usual mode of operation by means of the body. It was believed +to be possible to concentrate this mental energy and infuse it +into some suitable medium, with the production of a talisman, +which was thus regarded as a sort of accumulator for mental energy. +The theory seems a fantastic one to modern thought, though, in view +of the many startling phenomena brought to light by psychical research, +it is not advisable to be too positive regarding the limitations +of the powers of the human mind. However, I think we shall find +the element of truth in the otherwise absurd belief in talismans +by means of what may be called, not altogether fancifully perhaps, +a transcendental interpretation of this "occult force" theory. +I suggest, that is, that when a believer makes a talisman, +the transference of the occult energy is ideal, not actual; +that the power, believed to reside in the talisman itself, +is the power due to the reflex action of the believer's mind. +The power of what transcendentalists call "the imagination" +cannot be denied; for example, no one can deny that a man with +a firm conviction that such a success will be achieved by him, +or such a danger avoided, will be far more likely to gain his desire, +other conditions being equal, than one of a pessimistic turn of mind. +The mere conviction itself is a factor in success, or a factor +in failure, according to its nature; and it seems likely that +herein will be found a true explanation of the effects believed +to be due to the power of the talisman. + +On the other hand, however, we must beware of the exaggerations +into which certain schools of thought have fallen in their estimates +of the powers of the imagination. These exaggerations are +particularly marked in the views which are held by many nowadays +with regard to "faith-healing," although the "Christian Scientists" +get out of the difficulty--at least to their own satisfaction-- +by ascribing their alleged cures to the Power of the Divine Mind, +and not to the power of the individual mind. + +Of course the real question involved in this "transcendental +theory of talismans" as I may, perhaps, call it, is that of +the operation of incarnate spirit on the plane of matter. +This operation takes place only through the medium of the +nervous system, and it has been suggested,[1] to avoid any +violation of the law of the conservation of energy, that it +is effected, not by the transference, as is sometimes supposed, +of energy from the spiritual to the material plane, +but merely by means of directive control over the expenditure +of energy derived by the body from purely physical sources, +_e.g_. the latent chemical energy bound up in the food eaten +and the oxygen breathed. + + +[1] _Cf_ Sir OLIVER LODGE: _Life and Matter_ (1907), especially chap. +ix.; and W. HIBBERT, F.I.C.: _Life and Energy_ (1904). + + +I am not sure that this theory really avoids the difficulty which it +is intended to obviate;[1] but it is at least an interesting one, +and at any rate there may be modes in which the body, +under the directive control of the spirit, may expend energy derived +from the material plane, of which we know little or nothing. +We have the testimony of many eminent authorities[2] to the phenomenon +of the movement of physical objects without contact at spiritistic seances. +It seems to me that the introduction of discarnate intelligences +to explain this phenomenon is somewhat gratuitous--the psychic +phenomena which yield evidence of the survival of human personality +after bodily death are of a different character. For if we suppose +this particular phenomenon to be due to discarnate spirits, we must, +in view of what has been said concerning "mediums," conclude that +the movements in question are not produced by these spirits DIRECTLY, +but through and by means of the nervous system of the medium present. +Evidently, therefore, the means for the production of the phenomenon +reside in the human nervous system (or, at any rate, in the peculiar +nervous system of "mediums"), and all that is lacking is intelligence +or initiative to use these means. This intelligence or initiative +can surely be as well supplied by the sub-consciousness as by a +discarnate intelligence. Consequently, it does not seem unreasonable +to suppose that equally remarkable phenomena may have been produced +by the aid of talismans in the days when these were believed in, +and may be produced to-day, if one has sufficient faith--that is +to say, produced by man when in the peculiar condition of mind +brought about by the intense belief in the power of a talisman. +And here it should be noted that the term "talisman" may be applied +to any object (or doctrine) that is believed to possess peculiar power +or efficacy. In this fact, I think, is to be found the peculiar +danger of erroneous doctrines which promise extraordinary benefits, +here and now on the material plane, to such as believe in them. +Remarkable results may follow an intense belief in such doctrines, +which, whilst having no connection whatever with their accuracy, +being proportional only to the intensity with which they are held, +cannot do otherwise than confirm the believer in the validity of his beliefs, +though these may be in every way highly fantastic and erroneous. +Both the Roman Catholic, therefore, and the Buddhist may admit +many of the marvels attributed to the relics of each other's saints; +though, in denying that these marvels prove the accuracy of each +other's religious doctrines, each should remember that the same is +true of his own. + + +[1] The subject is rather too technical to deal with here. I have discussed +it elsewhere; see "Thermo-Dynamical Objections to the Mechanical Theory +of Life," _The Chemical News_, vol. cxii. pp. 271 _et seq_. +(3rd December 1915). + +[2] For instance, the well-known physicist, Sir W. F. BARRETT, F.R.S. +(late Professor of Experimental Physics in The Royal College of Science +for Ireland). See his _On the Threshold of a New World of Thought_ +(1908), SE 10. + + +In illustration of the real power of the imagination, I may instance +the Maori superstition of the Taboo. According to the Maories, +anyone who touches a tabooed object will assuredly die, the tabooed +object being a sort of "anti-talisman". Professor FRAZER[1] says: +"Cases have been known of Maories dying of sheer fright on learning +that they had unwittingly eaten the remains of a chief's dinner +or handled something that belonged to him," since such objects were, +_ipso facto_, tabooed. He gives the following case on good authority: +"A woman, having partaken of some fine peaches from a basket, was told +that they had come from a tabooed place. Immediately the basket dropped +from her hands and she cried out in agony that the atua or godhead +of the chief, whose divinity had been thus profaned, would kill her. +That happened in the afternoon, and next day by twelve o'clock she was dead." +For us the power of the taboo does not exist; for the Maori, who implicitly +believes in it, it is a very potent reality, but this power of the taboo +resides not in external objects but in his own mind. + + +[1] Professor J. G. FRAZER, D.C.L.: _Psyche's Task_ (1909), p. 7. + + +Dr HADDON[2] quotes a similar but still more remarkable story of a young +Congo negro which very strikingly shows the power of the imagination. +The young negro, "being on a journey, lodged at a friend's house; +the latter got a wild hen for his breakfast, and the young man asked +if it were a wild hen. His host answered `No.' Then he fell on heartily, +and afterwards proceeded on his journey. After four years these two met +together again, and his old friend asked him `if he would eat a wild hen,' +to which he answered that it was tabooed to him. Hereat the host +began immediately to laugh, inquiring of him, `What made him refuse +it now, when he had eaten one at his table about four years ago?' +At the hearing of this the negro immediately fell a-trembling, and +suffered himself to be so far possessed with the effects of imagination +that he died in less than twenty-four hours after." + + +[2] ALFRED C. HADDON, SC.D., F.R.S.: _Magic and Fetishism_ +(1906), p. 56. + + +There are, of course, many stories about amulets, _etc_., which cannot +be thus explained. For example, ELIHU RICH gives the following:-- + +"In 1568, we are told (Transl. of Salverte, p. 196) that the Prince +of Orange condemned a Spanish prisoner to be shot at Juliers. +The soldiers tied him to a tree and fired, but he was invulnerable. +They then stripped him to see what armour he wore, but they found only +an amulet bearing the figure of a lamb (the _Agnus Dei_, we presume). +This was taken from him, and he was then killed by the first shot. +De Baros relates that the Portuguese in like manner vainly attempted +to destroy a Malay, so long as he wore a bracelet containing a bone +set in gold, which rendered him proof against their swords. A similar +marvel is related in the travels of the veracious Marco Polo. `In an +attempt of Kublai Khan to make a conquest of the island of Zipangu, +a jealousy arose between the two commanders of the expedition, +which led to an order for putting the whole garrison to the sword. +In obedience to this order, the heads of all were cut off excepting +of eight persons, who by the efficacy of a diabolical charm, +consisting of a jewel or amulet introduced into the right arm, +between the skin and the flesh, were rendered secure from the effects +of iron, either to kill or wound. Upon this discovery being made, +they were beaten with a heavy wooden club, and presently died.' +"[1] I think, however, that these, and many similar stories, +must be taken _cum grano salis_. + +In conclusion, mention must be made of a very interesting and +suggestive philosophical doctrine--the Law of Correspondences,-- +due in its explicit form to the Swedish philosopher, +who was both scientist and mystic, EMANUEL SWEDENBORG. To deal +in any way adequately with this important topic is totally +impossible within the confines of the present discussion.[2] But, +to put the matter as briefly as possible, it may be said +that SWEDENBORG maintains (and the conclusion, I think, +is valid) that all causation is from the spiritual world, +physical causation being but secondary, or apparent--that is +to say, a mere reflection, as it were, of the true process. +He argues from this, thereby supplying a philosophical basis +for the unanimous belief of the nature-mystics, that every natural +object is the symbol (because the creation) of an idea or spiritual +verity in its widest sense. Thus, there are symbols which are +inherent in the nature of things, and symbols which are not. +The former are genuine, the latter merely artificial. +Writing from the transcendental point of view, ELIPHAS LEVI says: +"Ceremonies, vestments, perfumes, characters and figures being . . . +necessary to enlist the imagination in the education of the will, +the success of magical works depends upon the faithful observance +of all the rites, which are in no sense fantastic or arbitrary, +having been transmitted to us by antiquity, and permanently +subsisting by the essential laws of analogical realisation +and of the correspondence which inevitably connects ideas +and forms."[1b] Some scepticism, perhaps, may be permitted +as to the validity of the latter part of this statement, +and the former may be qualified by the proviso that such +things are only of value in the right education of the will, +if they are, indeed, genuine, and not merely artificial, symbols. +But the writer, as I think will be admitted, has grasped +the essential point, and, to conclude our excursion, +as we began it, with a definition, I will say that _the power +of the talisman is the power of the mind (or imagination) +brought into activity by means of a suitable symbol_. + + +[1] ELIHU RICH: _The Occult Sciences_, p. 346. + +[2] I may refer the reader to my _A Mathematical Theory of Spirit_ +(1912), chap. i., for a more adequate statement. + +[1b] ELIPHAS LEVI: _Transcendental Magic: its Doctrine and Ritual_ +(trans. by A. E. WAITE, 1896), p. 234. + + + +VII + +CEREMONIAL MAGIC IN THEORY AND PRACTICE + +THE word "magic," if one may be permitted to say so, is itself almost magical-- +magical in its power to conjure up visions in the human mind. +For some these are of bloody rites, pacts with the powers of darkness, +and the lascivious orgies of the Saturnalia or Witches' Sabbath; in other +minds it has pleasanter associations, serving to transport them from the world +of fact to the fairyland of fancy, where the purse of FORTUNATUS, the lamp and +ring of ALADDIN, fairies, gnomes, jinn, and innumerable other strange beings +flit across the scene in a marvellous kaleidoscope of ever-changing wonders. +To the study of the magical beliefs of the past cannot be denied the interest +and fascination which the marvellous and wonderful ever has for so many minds, +many of whom, perhaps, cannot resist the temptation of thinking that there +may be some element of truth in these wonderful stories. But the study +has a greater claim to our attention; for, as I have intimated already, +magic represents a phase in the development of human thought, and the magic +of the past was the womb from which sprang the science of the present, +unlike its parent though it be. + +What then is magic? According to the dictionary definition-- +and this will serve us for the present--it is the (pretended) art +of producing marvellous results by the aid of spiritual beings or arcane +spiritual forces. Magic, therefore, is the practical complement +of animism. Wherever man has really believed in the existence +of a spiritual world, there do we find attempts to enter into +communication with that world's inhabitants and to utilise its forces. +Professor LEUBA[1] and others distinguish between propitiative +behaviour towards the beings of the spiritual world, as marking +the religious attitude, and coercive behaviour towards these beings +as characteristic of the magical attitude; but one form of behaviour +merges by insensible degrees into the other, and the distinction +(though a useful one) may, for our present purpose, be neglected. + + +[1] JAMES H. LEUBA: _The Psychological Origin and the Nature of Religion_ +(1909), chap. ii. + + +Animism, "the Conception of Spirit everywhere " as +Mr EDWARD CLODD[2] neatly calls it, and perhaps man's earliest +view of natural phenomena, persisted in a modified form, as I +have pointed out in "Some Characteristics of Mediaeval Thought," +throughout the Middle Ages. A belief in magic persisted likewise. +In the writings of the Greek philosophers of the Neo-Platonic school, +in that curious body of esoteric Jewish lore known as the Kabala, +and in the works of later occult philosophers such as AGRIPPA +and PARACELSUS, we find magic, or rather the theory upon which magic +as an art was based, presented in its most philosophical form. +If there is anything of value for modern thought in the theory of magic, +here is it to be found; and it is, I think, indeed to be found, +absurd and fantastic though the practices based upon this philosophy, +or which this philosophy was thought to substantiate, most certainly are. +I shall here endeavour to give a sketch of certain of the outstanding +doctrines of magical philosophy, some details concerning the art +of magic, more especially as practiced in the Middle Ages +in Europe, and, finally, an attempt to extract from the former +what I consider to be of real worth. We have already wandered +down many of the byways of magical belief, and, indeed, the word +"magic" may be made to cover almost every superstition of the past: +To what we have already gained on previous excursions the present, +I hope, will add what we need in order to take a synthetic view +of the whole subject. + + +[2] EDWARD CLODD: _Animism the Seed of Religion_ (1905), p. 26. + + +In the first place, something must be said concerning +what is called the Doctrine of Emanations, a theory of prime +importance in Neo-Platonic and Kabalistic ontology. +According to this theory, everything in the universe +owes its existence and virtue to an emanation from God, +which divine emanation is supposed to descend, step by step +(so to speak), through the hierarchies of angels and the stars, +down to the things of earth, that which is nearer to the Source +containing more of the divine nature than that which is +relatively distant. As CORNELIUS AGRIPPA expresses it: +"For God, in the first place is the end and beginning of all Virtues; +he gives the seal of the _Ideas_ to his servants, the Intelligences; +who as faithful officers, sign all things intrusted to them +with an Ideal Virtue; the Heavens and Stars, as instruments, +disposing the matter in the mean while for the receiving +of those forms which reside in Divine Majesty (as saith +Plato in Timeus) and to be conveyed by Stars; and the Giver +of Forms distributes them by the ministry of his Intelligences, +which he hath set as Rulers and Controllers over his Works, +to whom such a power is intrusted to things committed to them +that so all Virtues of Stones, Herbs, Metals, and all other things +may come from the Intelligences, the Governors. The Form, +therefore, and Virtue of things comes first from the _Ideas_, +then from the ruling and governing Intelligences, then from +the aspects of the Heavens disposing, and lastly from the tempers +of the Elements disposed, answering the influences of the Heavens, +by which the Elements themselves are ordered, or disposed. +These kinds of operations, therefore, are performed in these inferior +things by express forms, and in the Heavens by disposing virtues, +in Intelligences by mediating rules, in the Original Cause +by _Ideas_ and exemplary forms, all which must of necessity +agree in the execution of the effect and virtue of every thing. + +"There is, therefore, a wonderful virtue and operation in every +Herb and Stone, but greater in a Star, beyond which, even from +the governing Intelligences everything receiveth and obtains +many things for itself, especially from the Supreme Cause, +with whom all things do mutually and exactly correspond, +agreeing in an harmonious consent, as it were in hymns always +praising the highest Maker of all things.... There is, therefore, +no other cause of the necessity of effects than the connection +of all things with the First Cause, and their correspondency +with those Divine patterns and eternal _Ideas_ whence every thing +hath its determinate and particular place in the exemplary world, +from whence it lives and receives its original being: +And every virtue of herbs, stones, metals, animals, words +and speeches, and all things that are of God, is placed +there."[1] As compared with the _ex nihilo_ creationism +of orthodox theology, this theory is as light is to darkness. +Of course, there is much in CORNELIUS AGRIPPA'S statement of it +which is inacceptable to modern thought; but these are matters +of form merely, and do not affect the doctrine fundamentally. +For instance, as a nexus between spirit and matter AGRIPPA +places the stars: modern thought prefers the ether. +The theory of emanations may be, and was, as a matter of fact, +made the justification of superstitious practices of the +grossest absurdity, but on the other hand it may be made the basis +of a lofty system of transcendental philosophy, as, for instance, +that of EMANUEL SWEDENBORG, whose ontology resembles in some respects +that of the Neo-Platonists. AGRIPPA uses the theory to explain +all the marvels which his age accredited, marvels which we know +had for the most part no existence outside of man's imagination. +I suggest, on the contrary, that the theory is really needed +to explain the commonplace, since, in the last analysis, +every bit of experience, every phenomenon, be it ever so ordinary-- +indeed the very fact of experience itself,--is most truly +marvellous and magical, explicable only in terms of spirit. +As ELIPHAS LEVI well says in one of his flashes of insight: +"The supernatural is only the natural in an extraordinary grade, +or it is the exalted natural; a miracle is a phenomenon +which strikes the multitude because it is unexpected; +the astonishing is that which astonishes; miracles are effects +which surprise those who are ignorant of their causes, or assign +them causes which are not in proportion to such effects."[1b] +But I am anticipating the sequel. + + +[1] H. C. AGRIPPA: _Occult Philosophy_, bk. i., chap. xiii. +(WHITEHEAD'S edition, pp. 67-68). + +[1b] ELIPHAS LEVI: _Transcendental Magic, its Doctrine and Ritual_ +(trans. by A. E. WAITE, 1896), p. 192. + + +The doctrine of emanations makes the universe one vast +harmonious whole, between whose various parts there is +an exact analogy, correspondence, or sympathetic relation. +"Nature (the productive principle), says IAMBLICHOS +(3rd-4th century), the Neo-Platonist, "in her peculiar way, +makes a likeness of invisible principles through symbols in visible +forms."[2] The belief that seemingly similar things sympathetically +affect one another, and that a similar relation holds good +between different things which have been intimately connected +with one another as parts within a whole, is a very ancient one. +Most primitive peoples are very careful to destroy all their +nail-cuttings and hair-clippings, since they believe that +a witch gaining possession of these might work them harm. +For a similar reason they refuse to reveal their REAL names, +which they regard as part of themselves, and adopt nicknames +for common use. The belief that a witch can torment an enemy by +making an image of his person in clay or wax, correctly naming it, +and mutilating it with pins, or, in the case of a waxen image, +melting it by fire, is a very ancient one, and was held +throughout and beyond the Middle Ages. The Sympathetic Powder +of Sir KENELM DIGBY we have already noticed, as well as other +instances of the belief in "sympathy," and examples of similar +superstitions might be multiplied almost indefinitely. +Such are generally grouped under the term "sympathetic magic"; +but inasmuch as all magical practices assume that by acting +on part of a thing, or a symbolic representation of it, +one acts magically on the whole, or on the thing symbolised, +the expression may in its broadest sense be said to involve +the whole of magic. + + +[2] IAMBLICHOS: _Theurgia, or the Egyptian Mysteries_ +(trans. by Dr ALEX. WILDER, New York, 1911), p. 239. + + +The names of the Divine Being, angels and devils, the planets +of the solar system (including sun and moon) and the days of +the week, birds and beasts, colours, herbs, and precious stones-- +all, according to old-time occult philosophy, are connected +by the sympathetic relation believed to run through all creation, +the knowledge of which was essential to the magician; as well, also, +the chief portions of the human body, for man, as we have seen, +was believed to be a microcosm--a universe in miniature. +I have dealt with this matter and exhibited some of the supposed +correspondences in "The Belief in Talismans". Some further +particulars are shown in the annexed table, for which I am +mainly indebted to AGRIPPA. But, as in the case of the zodiacal +gems already dealt with, the old authorities by no means agree +as to the majority of the planetary correspondences. + +TABLE OF OCCULT CORRESPONDENCES + +Arch- Part of Precious angel. Angel. Planet. Human Animal. +Bird. stone. Body. + +Raphael Michael Sun Heart Lion Swan Carbuncle Gabriel Gabriel Moon Left +foot Cat Owl Crystal Camael Zamael Mars Right Wolf Vulture Diamond +hand Michael Raphael Mercury Left hand Ape Stork Agate Zadikel +Sachiel Jupiter Head Hart Eagle Sapphire (=Lapis lazuli) +Haniel Anael Venus Generative Goat Dove Emerald organs +Zaphhiel Cassiel Saturn Right foot Mole Hoopoe Onyx + + +The names of the angels are from Mr Mather's translation +of _Clavicula Salomonis_; the other correspondences are from +the second book of Agrippa's _Occult Philosophy_, chap. x. + + +In many cases these supposed correspondences are based, as will be obvious +to the reader, upon purely trivial resemblances, and, in any case, +whatever may be said--and I think a great deal may be said--in favour +of the theory of symbology, there is little that may be adduced to support +the old occultists' application of it. + +So essential a part does the use of symbols play in all magical +operations that we may, I think, modify the definition of "magic" +adopted at the outset, and define "magic" as "an attempt +to employ the powers of the spiritual world for the production +of marvellous results, BY THE AID OF SYMBOLS." It has, +on the other hand, been questioned whether the appeal +to the spirit-world is an essential element in magic. +But a close examination of magical practices always reveals at +the root a belief in spiritual powers as the operating causes. +The belief in talismans at first sight seems to have little +to do with that in a supernatural realm; but, as we have seen, +the talisman was always a silent invocation of the powers of +some spiritual being with which it was symbolically connected, +and whose sign was engraved thereon. And, as Dr T. WITTON DAVIES +well remarks with regard to "sympathetic magic": "Even this +could not, at the start, be anything other than a symbolic prayer +to the spirit or spirits having authority in these matters. +In so far as no spirit is thought of, it is a mere survival, +and not magic at all...."[1] + + +[1] Dr T. WITTON DAVIES: _Magic, Divination, and Demonology +among the Hebrews and their Neighbours_ (1898), p. 17. + + +What I regard as the two essentials of magical practices, namely, +the use of symbols and the appeal to the supernatural realm, +are most obvious in what is called "ceremonial magic". Mediaeval +ceremonial magic was subdivided into three chief branches-- +White Magic, Black Magic, and Necromancy. White magic was concerned +with the evocations of angels, spiritual beings supposed to be +essentially superior to mankind, concerning which I shall give some +further details later--and the spirits of the elements,--which were, +as I have mentioned in "Some Characteristics of Mediaeval Thought," +personifications of the primeval forces of Nature. As there +were supposed to be four elements, fire, air, water, and earth, +so there were supposed to be four classes of elementals or spirits +of the elements, namely, Salamanders, Sylphs, Undines, and Gnomes, +inhabiting these elements respectively, and deriving their +characters therefrom. Concerning these curious beings, +the inquisitive reader may gain some information from a quaint +little book, by the Abbe de MONTFAUCON DE VILLARS, entitled +_The Count of Gabalis, or Conferences about Secret Sciences_ +(1670), translated into English and published in 1680, which has +recently been reprinted. The elementals, we learn therefrom, +were, unlike other supernatural beings, thought to be mortal. +They could, however, be rendered immortal by means of sexual +intercourse with men or women, as the case might be; and it was, +we are told, to the noble end of endowing them with this great gift, +that the sages devoted themselves. + +Goety, or black magic, was concerned with the evocation of demons +and devils--spirits supposed to be superior to man in certain powers, +but utterly depraved. Sorcery may be distinguished from witchcraft, +inasmuch as the sorcerer attempted to command evil spirits by the aid +of charms, _etc_., whereas the witch or wizard was supposed to have made +a pact with the Evil One; though both terms have been rather loosely used, +"sorcery" being sometimes employed as a synonym for "necromancy". +Necromancy was concerned with the evocation of the spirits of the dead: +etymologically, the term stands for the art of foretelling events by means +of such evocations, though it is frequently employed in the wider sense. + +It would be unnecessary and tedious to give any detailed account of +the methods employed in these magical arts beyond some general remarks. +Mr A. E. WAITE gives full particulars of the various rituals in his _Book +of Ceremonial Magic_ (1911), to which the curious reader may be referred. +The following will, in brief terms, convey a general idea of +a magical evocation:-- + +Choosing a time when there is a favourable conjunction of the planets, +the magician, armed with the implements of magical art, after much prayer +and fasting, betakes himself to a suitable spot, alone, or perhaps +accompanied by two trusty companions. All the articles he intends +to employ, the vestments, the magic sword and lamp, the talismans, +the book of spirits, _etc_., have been specially prepared and consecrated. +If he is about to invoke a martial spirit, the magician's vestment +will be of a red colour, the talismans in virtue of which he may have +power over the spirit will be of iron, the day chosen a Tuesday, +and the incense and perfumes employed of a nature analogous to Mars. In a +similar manner all the articles employed and the rites performed must +in some way be symbolical of the spirit with which converse is desired. +Having arrived at the spot, the magician first of all traces the magic circle +within which, we are told, no evil spirit can enter; he then commences +the magic rite, involving various prayers and conjurations, a medley +of meaningless words, and, in the case of the black art, a sacrifice. +The spirit summoned then appears (at least, so we are told), and, +after granting the magician's request, is licensed to depart--a matter, +we are admonished, of great importance. + +The question naturally arises, What were the results obtained +by these magical arts? How far, if at all, was the magician +rewarded by the attainment of his desires? We have asked a similar +question regarding the belief in talismans, and the reply which we +there gained undoubtedly applies in the present case as well. +Modern psychical research, as I have already pointed out, +is supplying us with further evidence for the survival of human +personality after bodily death than the innate conviction +humanity in general seems to have in this belief, and the many +reasons which idealistic philosophy advances in favour of it. +The question of the reality of the phenomenon of "materialisation," +that is, the bodily appearance of a discarnate spirit, such as +is vouched for by spiritists, and which is what, it appears, +was aimed at in necromancy (though why the discarnate should be +better informed as to the future than the incarnate, I cannot +suppose), must be regarded as _sub judice_.[1] Many cases of fraud +in connection with the alleged production of this phenomenon have +been detected in recent times; but, inasmuch as the last word has +not yet been said on the subject, we must allow the possibility +that necromancy in the past may have been sometimes successful. +But as to the existence of the angels and devils of magical belief-- +as well, one might add, of those of orthodox faith,--nothing can +be adduced in evidence of this either from the results of psychical +research or on _a priori_ grounds. + + +[1 The late Sir WILLIAM CROOKES' _Experimental Researches in the Phenomena +of Spiritualism_ contains evidence in favour of the reality of this phenomenon +very difficult to gainsay. + + +Pseudo-DIONYSIUS classified the angels into three hierarchies, +each subdivided into three orders, as under:-- + + +_First Hierarchy_.--Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones; + +_Second Hierarchy_.--Dominions, Powers, and Authorities (or Virtues); + +_Third Hierarchy_.--Principalities, Archangels, and Angels,-- + +and this classification was adopted by AGRIPPA and others. +Pseudo-DIONYSIUS explains the names of these orders as follows: +" . . . the holy designation of the Seraphim denotes either +that they are kindling or burning; and that of the Cherubim, +a fulness of knowledge or stream of wisdom.... The appellation +of the most exalted and pre-eminent Thrones denotes their +manifest exaltation above every grovelling inferiority, and their +super-mundane tendency towards higher things; . . . and their +invariable and firmly-fixed settlement around the veritable Highest, +with the whole force of their powers.... The explanatory name +of the Holy Lordships [Dominions] denotes a certain unslavish +elevation . . . superior to every kind of cringing slavery, +indomitable to every subserviency, and elevated above +every dissimularity, ever aspiring to the true Lordship and source +of Lordship.... The appellation of the Holy Powers denotes +a certain courageous and unflinching virility . . . vigorously +conducted to the Divine imitation, not forsaking the Godlike +movement through its own unmanliness, but unflinchingly looking +to the super-essential and powerful-making power, and becoming +a powerlike image of this, as far as is attainable.... The +appellation of the Holy Authorities . . . denotes the beautiful +and unconfused good order, with regard to Divine receptions, +and the discipline of the super-mundane and intellectual +authority . . . conducted indomitably, with good order towards Divine +things.... [And the appellation] of the Heavenly Principalities +manifests their princely and leading function, after the Divine +example...."[1] There is a certain grandeur in these views, +and if we may be permitted to understand by the orders of +the hierarchy, "discrete " degrees (to use SWEDENBORG'S term) +of spiritual reality--stages in spiritual involution,-- +we may see in them a certain truth as well. As I said, +all virtue, power, and knowledge which man has from God was +believed to descend to him by way of these angelical hierarchies, +step by step; and thus it was thought that those of +the lowest hierarchy alone were sent from heaven to man. +It was such beings that white magic pretended to evoke. +But the practical occultists, when they did not make +them altogether fatuous, attributed to these angels +characters not distinguishable from those of the devils. +The description of the angels in the _Heptemeron_, +or _Magical Elements_,[2] falsely attributed to PETER DE ABANO +(1250-1316), may be taken as fairly characteristic. +Of MICHAEL and the other spirits of Sunday he writes: +"Their nature is to procure Gold, Gemmes, Carbuncles, Riches; +to cause one to obtain favour and benevolence; +to dissolve the enmities of men; to raise men to honors; +to carry or take away infirmities." Of GABRIEL and the other +spirits of Monday, he says: "Their nature is to give silver; +to convey things from place to place; to make horses swift, +and to disclose the secrets of persons both present and future." +Of SAMAEL and the other spirits of Tuesday he says: +"Their nature is to cause wars, mortality, death and combustions; +and to give two thousand Souldiers at a time; to bring death, +infirmities or health," and so on for RAPHAEL, SACHIEL, ANAEL, CASSIEL, +and their colleagues.[1b] + + +[1] _On the Heavenly Hierarchy_. See the Rev. JOHN PARKER'S translation +of _The Works of_ DIONYSIUS _the Areopagite_, vol. ii. (1889), pp. +24, 25, 31, 32, and 36. + +[2] The book, which first saw the light three centuries +after its alleged author's death, was translated into +English by ROBERT TURNER, and published in 1655 in a volume +containing the spurious _Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy_, +attributed to CORNELIUS AGRIPPA, and other magical works. +It is from this edition that I quote. + +[1b] _Op. cit_., pp. 90, 92, and 94. + + +Concerning the evil planetary spirits, the spurious _Fourth Book +of Occult Philosophy_, attributed to CORNELIUS AGRIPPA, +informs us that the spirits of Saturn "appear for the most part +with a tall, lean, and slender body, with an angry countenance, +having four faces; one in the hinder part of the head, one on +the former part of the head, and on each side nosed or beaked: +there likewise appeareth a face on each knee, of a black shining colour: +their motion is the moving of the wince, with a kinde of earthquake: +their signe is white earth, whiter than any Snow." The writer +adds that their "particular forms are,-- + A King having a beard, riding on a Dragon. + An Old man with a beard. + An Old woman leaning on a staffe. + A Hog. + A Dragon. + An Owl. + A black Garment. + A Hooke or Sickle. + A Juniper-tree." + +Concerning the spirits of Jupiter, he says that they "appear with a body +sanguine and cholerick, of a middle stature, with a horrible fearful motion; +but with a milde countenance, a gentle speech, and of the colour +of Iron. The motion of them is flashings of Lightning and Thunder; +their signe is, there will appear men about the circle, who shall seem +to be devoured of Lions," their particular forms being-- + "A King with a Sword drawn, riding on a Stag. + A Man wearing a Mitre in long rayment. + A Maid with a Laurel-Crown adorned with +Flowers. + A Bull. + A Stag. + A Peacock. + An azure Garment. + A Sword. + A Box-tree." + +As to the Martian spirits, we learn that "they appear in a tall body, +cholerick, a filthy countenance, of colour brown, swarthy or red, +having horns like Harts horns, and Griphins claws, bellowing like +wilde Bulls. Their Motion is like fire burning; their signe Thunder +and Lightning about the Circle. Their particular shapes are,-- + A King armed riding upon a Wolf. + A Man armed. + A Woman holding a buckler on her thigh. + A Hee-goat. + A Horse. + A Stag. + A red Garment. + Wool. + A Cheeslip."[1] + + +[1] _Op. cit_., pp. 43-45. + +The rest are described in equally fantastic terms. + +I do not think I shall be accused of being unduly sceptical if I +say that such beings as these could not have been evoked by any +magical rites, because such beings do not and did not exist, save in +the magician's own imagination. The proviso, however, is important, +for, inasmuch as these fantastic beings did exist in the imagination +of the credulous, therein they may, indeed, have been evoked. +The whole of magic ritual was well devised to produce hallucination. +A firm faith in the ritual employed, and a strong effort of +will to bring about the desired result, were usually insisted +upon as essential to the success of the operation.[2] A period +of fasting prior to the experiment was also frequently prescribed +as necessary, which, by weakening the body, must have been conducive +to hallucination. Furthermore, abstention from the gratification +of the sexual appetite was stipulated in certain cases, and this, +no doubt, had a similar effect, especially as concerns magical +evocations directed to the satisfaction of the sexual impulse. +Add to these factors the details of the ritual itself, +the nocturnal conditions under which it was carried out, +and particularly the suffumigations employed, which, most frequently, +were of a narcotic nature, and it is not difficult to believe +that almost any type of hallucination may have occurred. +Such, as we have seen, was ELIPHAS LEVI'S view of ceremonial magic; +and whatever may be said as concerns his own experiment therein +(for one would have thought that the essential element of faith was +lacking in this case), it is undoubtedly the true view as concerns +the ceremonial magic of the past. As this author well says: +"Witchcraft, properly so-called, that is ceremonial operation +with intent to bewitch, acts only on the operator, and serves to fix +and confirm his will, by formulating it with persistence and labour, +the two conditions which make volition efficacious."[1b] + + +[2] "MAGICAL AXIOM. In the circle of its action, every word +creates that which it affirms. + +DIRECT CONSEQUENCE. He who affirms the devil, creates or makes the devil. + +"_Conditions of Success in Infernal Evocations_. +1, Invincible obstinacy; 2, a conscience at once hardened +to crime and most subject to remorse and fear; 3, affected or +natural ignorance; 4, blind faith in all that is incredible, 5, +a completely false idea of God. (ELIPHAS LEVI: _Op. cit_., pp. +297 and 298.) + +[1b] ELIPHAS LEVI: _Op. cit_., pp. 130 and 131. + + +EMANUEL SWEDENBORG in one place writes: "Magic is nothing +but the perversion of order; it is especially the abuse +of correspondences."[2] A study of the ceremonial magic +of the Middle Ages and the following century or two certainly +justifies SWEDENBORG in writing of magic as something evil. +The distinction, rigid enough in theory, between white and black, +legitimate and illegitimate, magic, was, as I have indicated, +extremely indefinite in practice. As Mr A. E. WAITE justly remarks: +"Much that passed current in the west as White (_i.e_. permissible) +Magic was only a disguised goeticism, and many of the resplendent +angels invoked with divine rites reveal their cloven hoofs. +It is not too much to say that a large majority of past +psychological experiments were conducted to establish +communication with demons, and that for unlawful purposes. +The popular conceptions concerning the diabolical spheres, +which have been all accredited by magic, may have been gross +exaggerations of fact concerning rudimentary and perverse +intelligences, but the wilful viciousness of the communicants +is substantially untouched thereby."[1b] + + +[2] EMANUEL SWEDENBORG: _Arcana Caelestia_, SE 6692. + +[1b] ARTHUR EDWARD WAITE: _The Occult Sciences_ (1891), p. 51. + + +These "psychological experiments" were not, save, perhaps, in rare cases, +carried out in the spirit of modern psychical research, with the high +aim of the man of science. It was, indeed, far otherwise; +selfish motives were at the root of most of them; and, apart from +what may be termed "medicinal magic," it was for the satisfaction +of greed, lust, revenge, that men and women had recourse to magical arts. +The history of goeticism and witchcraft is one of the most horrible +of all histories. The "Grimoires," witnesses to the superstitious +folly of the past, are full of disgusting, absurd, and even criminal +rites for the satisfaction of unlawful desires and passions. +The Church was certainly justified in attempting to put down the practice +of magic, but the means adopted in this design and the results +to which they led were even more abominable than witchcraft itself. +The methods of detecting witches and the tortures to which suspected persons +were subjected to force them to confess to imaginary crimes, employed in +so-called civilised England and Scotland and also in America, to say +nothing of countries in which the "Holy" Inquisition held undisputed sway, +are almost too horrible to describe. For details the reader may be referred +to Sir WALTER SCOTT'S _Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft_ (1830), and +(as concerns America) COTTON MATHER'S The _Wonders of the Invisible World_ +(1692). The credulous Church and the credulous people were terribly +afraid of the power of witchcraft, and, as always, fear destroyed their +mental balance and made them totally disregard the demands of justice. +The result may be well illustrated by what almost inevitably happens +when a country goes to war; for war, as the Hon. BERTRAND RUSSELL has +well shown, is fear's offspring. Fear of the enemy causes the military +party to persecute in an insensate manner, without the least regard +to justice, all those of their fellow-men whom they consider are +not heart and soul with them in their cause; similarly the Church +relentlessly persecuted its supposed enemies, of whom it was so afraid. +No doubt some of the poor wretches that were tortured and killed on +the charge of witchcraft really believed themselves to have made a pact +with the devil, and were thus morally depraved, though, generally speaking, +they were no more responsible for their actions than any other madmen. +But the majority of the persons persecuted as witches and wizards +were innocent even of this. + +However, it would, I think, be unwise to disregard the existence of +another side to the question of the validity and ethical value of magic, +and to use the word only to stand for something essentially evil. +SWEDENBORG, we may note, in the course of a long passage from the work +from which I have already quoted, says that by "magic" is signified "the +science of spiritual things"[1] His position appears to be that there +is a genuine magic, or science of spiritual things, and a false magic, +that science perverted: a view of the matter which I propose here to adopt. +The word "magic" itself is derived from the Greek "magos," the wise man +of the East, and hence the strict etymological meaning of the term is "the +wisdom or science of the magi"; and it is, I think, significant that we +are told (and I see no reason to doubt the truth of it) that the magi +were among the first to worship the new-born CHRIST.[2] + + + +[1] _Op. cit_., SE 5223. + +[2] See The Gospel according to MATTHEW, chap. ii., verses 1 to 12. + + +If there be an abuse of correspondences, or symbols, there surely +must also be a use, to which the word "magic" is not inapplicable. +As such, religious ritual, and especially the sacraments +of the Christian Church, will, no doubt, occur to the minds +of those who regard these symbols as efficacious, though they +would probably hesitate to apply the term "magical" to them. +But in using this term as applying thereto, I do not wish to +suggest that any such rites or ceremonies possess, or can possess, +any CAUSAL efficacy in the moral evolution of the soul. +The will alone, in virtue of the power vouchsafed to it +by the Source of all power, can achieve this; but I do think +that the soul may be assisted by ritual, harmoniously related +to the states of mind which it is desired to induce. +No doubt there is a danger of religious ritual, especially when +its meaning is lost, being engaged in for its own sake. +It is then mere superstition;[1] and, in view of the danger +of this degeneracy, many robust minds, such as the members of +the Society of Friends, prefer to dispense with its aid altogether. +When ritual is associated with erroneous doctrines, the results +are even more disastrous, as I have indicated in "The Belief +in Talismans". But when ritual is allied with, and based upon, +as adequately symbolising, the high teaching of genuine religion, +it may be, and, in fact, is, found very helpful by many people. +As such its efficacy seems to me to be altogether magical, +in the best sense of that word. + + +[1] As "ELIPHAS LEVI" well says: "Superstition . . . is the sign +surviving the thought; it is the dead body of a religious rite." +(_Op cit_., p. 150.) + + +But, indeed, I think a still wider application of the word +"magic" is possible. "All experience is magic," says NOVALIS +(1772-1801), "and only magically explicable";[2a] and again: +"It is only because of the feebleness of our perceptions and activity +that we do not perceive ourselves to be in a fairy world." +No doubt it will be objected that the common experiences of daily +life are "natural," whereas magic postulates the "supernatural". If, +as is frequently done, we use the term "natural," as relating +exclus-ively to the physical realm, then, indeed, we may well speak +of magic as "supernatural," because its aims are psychical. +On the other hand, the term "natural" is sometimes employed as +referring to the whole realm of order, and in this sense one can +use the word "magic" as descriptive of Nature herself when viewed +in the light of an idealistic philosophy, such as that of SWEDENBORG, +in which all causation is seen to be essentially spiritual, +the things of this world being envisaged as symbols of ideas +or spiritual verities, and thus physical causation regarded as an +appearance produced in virtue of the magical, non-causal efficacy +of symbols.[1] Says CORNELIUS AGRIPPA: ". . . every day some +natural thing is drawn by art and some divine thing is drawn +by Nature which, the Egyptians, seeing, called Nature a Magicianess +(_i.e_.) the very Magical power itself, in the attracting of like +by like, and of suitable things by suitable."[2] + + +[2a] NOVALIS: _Schriften_ (ed. by LUDWIG TIECK +and FR. SCHLEGEL, 1805), vol. ii. p. 195 + +[1] For a discussion of the essentially magical character +of inductive reasoning, see my _The Magic of Experience_ (1915) + +[2] _Op. cit_., bk. i. chap. xxxvii. p. 119. + + +I would suggest, in conclusion, that there is nothing really opposed to +the spirit of modern science in the thesis that "all experience is magic, +and only magically explicable." Science does not pretend to reveal +the fundamental or underlying cause of phenomena, does not pretend +to answer the final Why? This is rather the business of philosophy, +though, in thus distinguishing between science and philosophy, I am far +from insinuating that philosophy should be otherwise than scientific. +We often hear religious but non-scientific men complain because scientific +and perhaps equally as religious men do not in their books ascribe +the production of natural phenomena to the Divine Power. But if they +were so to do they would be transcending their business as scientists. +In every science certain simple facts of experience are taken for granted: +it is the business of the scientist to reduce other and more complex facts +of experience to terms of these data, not to explain these data themselves. +Thus the physicist attempts to reduce other related phenomena of +greater complexity to terms of simple force and motion; but, What are +force and motion? Why does force produce or result in motion? are +questions which lie beyond the scope of physics. In order to answer +these questions, if, indeed, this be possible, we must first inquire, +How and why do these ideas of force and motion arise in our minds? +These problems land us in the psychical or spiritual world, and the term +"magic" at once becomes significant. + +"If, says THOMAS CARLYLE, . . . we . . . have led thee into the true Land +of Dreams; and . . . thou lookest, even for moments, into the region of +the Wonderful, and seest and feelest that thy daily life is girt with Wonder, +and based on Wonder, and thy very blankets and breeches are Miracles,-- +then art thou profited beyond money's worth...."[1] + + +[1] THOMAS CARLYLE: _Sartor Resartus_, bk. iii. chap. ix. + + + +VIII + +ARCHITECTURAL SYMBOLISM + +I WAS once rash enough to suggest in an essay "On Symbolism in Art"[1] +that "a true work of art is at once realistic, imaginative, and symbolical," +and that its aim is to make manifest the spiritual significance +of the natural objects dealt with. I trust that those artists +(no doubt many) who disagree with me will forgive me--a man of science-- +for having ventured to express any opinion whatever on the subject. +But, at any rate, if the suggestions in question are accepted, then a +criterion for distinguishing between art and craft is at once available; +for we may say that, whilst craft aims at producing works which are +physically useful, art aims at producing works which are spiritually useful. +Architecture, from this point of view, is a combination of craft +and art. It may, indeed, be said that the modern architecture +which creates our dwelling-houses, factories, and even to a large +extent our places of worship, is pure craft unmixed with art. +On the other hand, it might be argued that such works of architecture +are not always devoid of decoration, and that "decorative art," +even though the "decorative artist" is unconscious of this fact, +is based upon rules and employs symbols which have a deep significance. +The truly artistic element in architecture, however, is more clearly +manifest if we turn our gaze to the past. One thinks at once, of course, +of the pyramids and sphinx of Egypt, and the rich and varied symbolism +of design and decoration of antique structures to be found in Persia +and elsewhere in the East. It is highly probable that the Egyptian +pyramids were employed for astronomical purposes, and thus subserved +physical utility, but it seems no less likely that their shape was suggested +by a belief in some system of geometrical symbolism, and was intended +to embody certain of their philosophical or religious doctrines. + + +[1] Published in _The Occult Review_ for August 1912, vol. xvi. pp. +98 to 102. + + +The mediaeval cathedrals and churches of Europe admirably exhibit this +combination of art with craft. Craft was needed to design and construct +permanent buildings to protect worshippers from the inclemency +of the weather; art was employed not only to decorate such buildings, +but it dictated to craft many points in connection with their design. +The builders of the mediaeval churches endeavoured so to construct +their works that these might, as a whole and in their various parts, +embody the truths, as they believed them, of the Christian religion: +thus the cruciform shape of churches, their orientation, etc. +The practical value of symbolism in church architecture is obvious. +As Mr F. E. HULME remarks, "The sculptured fonts or stained-glass +windows in the churches of the Middle Ages were full of teaching +to a congregation of whom the greater part could not read, +to whom therefore one great avenue of knowledge was closed. +The ignorant are especially impressed by pictorial teaching, +and grasp its meaning far more readily than they can follow a written +description or a spoken discourse."[1] + + +[1] F. EDWARD HULME, F.L.S., F.S.A.: _The History, Principles, and Practice +of Symbolism in Christian Art_ (1909), p. 2. + + +The subject of symbolism in church architecture is an extensive one, +involving many side issues. In these excursions we shall consider +only one aspect of it, namely, the symbolic use of animal forms +in English church architecture. + +As Mr COLLINS, who has written, in recent years, an interesting work +on this topic of much use to archaeologists as a book of data,[2a] +points out, the great sources of animal symbolism were the famous +_Physiologus_ and other natural history books of the Middle Ages +(generally called "Bestiaries"), and the Bible, mystically understood. +The modern tendency is somewhat unsympathetic towards any attempt +to interpret the Bible symbolically, and certainly some of the +interpretations that have been forced upon it in the name of symbolism +are crude and fantastic enough. But in the belief of the mystics, +culminating in the elaborate system of correspondences of SWEDENBORG, +that every natural object, every event in the history of the human race, +and every word of the Bible, has a symbolic and spiritual significance, +there is, I think, a fundamental truth. We must, however, as I have +suggested already, distinguish between true and forced symbolism. +The early Christians employed the fish as a symbol of Christ, +because the Greek word for fish, icqus, is obtained by _notariqon_[1] +from the phrase <gr 'Ihsous Cristos Qeou Uios, Swthr>--"JESUS CHRIST, +the Son of God, the Saviour." Of course, the obvious use of such a symbol +was its entire unintelligibility to those who had not yet been instructed +in the mysteries of the Christian faith, since in the days of persecution +some degree of secrecy was necessary. But the symbol has significance +only in the Greek language, and that of an entirely arbitrary nature. +There is nothing in the nature of the fish, apart from its name in Greek, +which renders it suitable to be used as a symbol of CHRIST. Contrast this +pseudo-symbol, however, with that of the Good Shepherd, the Lamb of God +(fig. 34), or the Lion of Judah. Here we have what may be regarded +as true symbols, something of whose meanings are clear to the smallest +degree of spiritual sight, even though the second of them has frequently +been badly misinterpreted. + + +[2a] ARTHUR H. COLLINS, M.A.: _Symbolism of Animals and Birds +represented in English Church Architecture_ (1913). + +[1] A Kabalistic process by which a word is formed by taking +the initial letters of a sentence or phrase. + + +It was a belief in the spiritual or moral significance +of nature similar to that of the mystical expositors +of the Bible, that inspired the mediaeval naturalists. +The Bestiaries almost invariably conclude the account of each +animal with the moral that might be drawn from its behaviour. +The interpretations are frequently very far-fetched, and +as the writers were more interested in the morals than in +the facts of natural history themselves, the supposed facts +from which they drew their morals were frequently very far from +being of the nature of facts. Sometimes the product of this +inaccuracy is grotesque, as shown by the following quotation: +"The elephants are in an absurd way typical of Adam and Eve, who ate +of the forbidden fruit, and also have the dragon for their enemy. +It was supposed that the elephant . . . used to sleep by leaning +against a tree. The hunters would come by night, and cut +the trunk through. Down he would come, roaring helplessly. +None of his friends would be able to help him, until a small +elephant should come and lever him up with his trunk. +This small elephant was symbolic of Jesus Christ, Who came +in great humility to rescue the human race which had fallen +`through a tree.' "[1] + + +[1] A. H. COLLINS: _Symbolism of Animals, etc_., pp. +41 and 42. + + +In some cases, though the symbolism is based upon +quite erroneous notions concerning natural history, +and is so far fantastic, it is not devoid of charm. +The use of the pelican to symbolise the Saviour is a case in point. +Legend tells us that when other food is unobtainable, +the pelican thrusts its bill into its breast (whence the red +colour of the bill) and feeds its young with its life-blood. +Were this only a fact, the symbol would be most appropriate. +There is another and far less charming form of the legend, +though more in accord with current perversions of Christian doctrine, +according to which the pelican uses its blood to revive +its young, after having slain them through anger aroused +by the great provocation which they are supposed to give it. +For an example of the use of the pelican in church architecture +see fig. 36. + +Mention must also be made of the purely fabulous animals of the Bestiaries, +such as the basilisk, centaur, dragon, griffin, hydra, mantichora, unicorn, +phoenix, _etc_. The centaur (fig. 39) was a beast, half man, half horse. +It typified the flesh or carnal mind of man, and the legend of the perpetual +war between the centaur and a certain tribe of simple savages who were +said to live in trees in India, symbolised the combat between the flesh +and the spirit.[1] + + +[1] A H. COLLINS: _Symbolism of Animals, etc_., pp. +150 and 153. + + +With bow and arrow in its hands the centaur forms the astrological +sign Sagittarius (or the Archer). An interesting example of this sign +occurring in church architecture is to be found on the western doorway +of Portchester Church--a most beautiful piece of Norman architecture. +"This sign of the Zodiac," writes the Rev. Canon VAUGHAN, M.A., a +former Vicar of Portchester, "was the badge of King Stephen, and its +presence on the west front [of Portchester Church] seems to indicate, +what was often the case elsewhere, that the elaborate Norman carving +was not carried out until after the completion of the building."[2] +The facts, however, that this Sagittarius is accompanied on the other +side of the doorway by a couple of fishes, which form the astrological +sign Pisces (or the Fishes), and that these two signs are what are termed, +in astrological phraseology, the "houses" of the planet Jupiter, +the "Major Fortune," suggest that the architect responsible for the design, +influenced by the astrological notions of his day, may have put +the signs there in order to attract Jupiter's beneficent influence. +Or he may have had the Sagittarius carved for the reason Canon VAUGHAN +suggests, and then, remembering how good a sign it was astrologically, +had the Pisces added to complete the effect.[1b] + + +[2] Rev. Canon VAUGHAN, M.A.: A Short History of Portchester Castle, p. 14. + +[1b] Two other possible explanations of the Pisces +have been suggested by the Rev. A. HEADLEY. In his MS. +book written in 1888, when he was Vicar of Portchester, he writes: +"I have discovered an interesting proof that it [the Church] was +finished in Stephen's reign, namely, the figure of Sagittarius +in the Western Doorway. + +"Stephen adopted this as his badge for the double reason that it +formed part of the arms of the city of Blois, and that the sun +was in Sagittarius in December when he came to the throne. +I, therefore, conclude that this badge was placed where it +is to mark the completion of the church. + +"There is another sign of the Zodiac in the archway, +apparently Pisces. This may have been chosen to mark the month +in which the church was finished, or simply on account of its +nearness to the sea. At one time I fancied it might refer +to March, the month in which Lady Day occurred, thus referring +to the Patron Saint, St Mary. As the sun leaves Pisces just +before Lady Day this does not explain it. Possibly in the old +calendar it might do so. This is a matter for further research." +(I have to thank the Rev. H. LAWRENCE FRY, present Vicar +of Portchester, for this quotation, and the Rev. A. HEADLEY +for permission to utilise it.) + + +The phoenix and griffin we have encountered already in our excursions. +The latter, we are told, inhabits desert places in India, where it +can find nothing for its young to eat. It flies away to other +regions to seek food, and is sufficiently strong to carry off an ox. +Thus it symbolises the devil, who is ever anxious to carry away +our souls to the deserts of hell. Fig. 37 illustrates an example +of the use of this symbolic beast in church architecture. + +The mantichora is described by PLINY (whose statements were unquestioningly +accepted by the mediaeval naturalists), on the authority of CTESIAS +(_fl_. 400 B.C.), as having "A triple row of teeth, which fit +into each other like those of a comb, the face and ears of a man, +and azure eyes, is the colour of blood, has the body of the lion, +and a tail ending in a sting, like that of the scorpion. +Its voice resembles the union of the sound of the flute and the trumpet; +it is of excessive swiftness, and is particularly fond of human flesh."[1] + + +[1] PLINY: _Natural History_, bk. viii. chap. xxx. (BOSTOCK and RILEY'S +trans., vol. ii., 1855, p. 280.) + + +Concerning the unicorn, in an eighteenth-century work on +natural history we read that this is "a Beast, which though +doubted of by many Writers, yet is by others thus described: +He has but one Horn, and that an exceedingly rich one, growing out +of the middle of his Forehead. His Head resembles an Hart's, +his Feet an Elephant's, his tail a Boar's, and the rest of his +Body an Horse's. The Horn is about a Foot and half in length. +His Voice is like the Lowing of an Ox. His Mane and Hair +are of a yellowish Colour. His Horn is as hard as Iron, +and as rough as any File, twisted or curled, like a +flaming Sword; very straight, sharp, and every where black, +excepting the Point. Great Virtues are attributed to it, +in expelling of Poison and curing of several Diseases. He is +not a Beast of prey."[2] The method of capturing the animal +believed in by mediaeval writers was a curious one. +The following is a literal translation from the _Bestiary_ +of PHILIPPE DE THAUN (12th century):-- + +[2] [THOMAS BOREMAN]: _A Description of Three Hundred Animals_ +(1730), p. 6. + + "Monosceros is an animal which has one horn on its head, + Therefore it is so named; it has the form of a goat, + It is caught by means of a virgin, now hear in what manner. + When a man intends to hunt it and to take and ensnare it + He goes to the forest where is its repair; + There he places a virgin, with her breast uncovered, + And by its smell the monosceros perceives it; + Then it comes to the virgin, and kisses her breast, + Falls asleep on her lap, and so comes to its death; + The man arrives immediately, and kills it in its sleep, + Or takes it alive and does as he likes with it. + It signifies much, I will not omit to tell it you. + + "Monosceros is Greek, it means _one horn_ in French: + A beast of such a description signifies Jesus Christ; + One God he is and shall be, and was and will continue so; + He placed himself in the virgin, and took flesh for man's sake, + And for virginity to show chastity; + To a virgin he APPEARED and a virgin conceived him, + A virgin she is, and will be, and will remain always. + Now hear briefly the signification. + + "This animal in truth signifies God; + Know that the virgin signifies St Mary; + By her breast we understand similarly Holy Church; + And then by the kiss it ought to signify, + That a man when he sleeps is in semblance of death; + God slept as man, who suffered death on the cross, + And his destruction was our redemption, + And his labour our repose, + Thus God deceived the Devil by a proper semblance; + Soul and body were one, so was God and man, + And this is the signification of an animal of that description."[1] + + +[1] _Popular Treatises on Science written during the +Middle Ages in Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman, and English_, ed. +by THOMAS WRIGHT (Historical Society of Science, 1841), pp. +81-82. + +This being the current belief concerning the symbolism of the unicorn +in the Middle Ages, it is not surprising to find this animal utilised +in church architecture; for an example see fig. 35. + +The belief in the existence of these fabulous beasts may very probably +have been due to the materialising of what were originally nothing more +than mere arbitrary symbols, as I have already suggested of the phoenix.[1] +Thus the account of the mantichora may, as BOSTOCK has suggested, +very well be a description of certain hieroglyphic figures, examples of +which are still to be found in the ruins of Assyrian and Persian cities. +This explanation seems, on the whole, more likely than the alternative +hypothesis that such beliefs were due to mal-observation; though that, +no doubt, helped in their formation. + + +[1] "Superstitions concerning Birds." + + +It may be questioned, however, whether the architects and preachers +of the Middle Ages altogether believed in the strange fables +of the Bestiaries. As Mr COLLINS says in reply to this question: +"Probably they were credulous enough. But, on the whole, we may say +that the truth of the story was just what they did not trouble about, +any more than some clergymen are particular about the absolute +truth of the stories they tell children from the pulpit. +The application, the lesson, is the thing!" With their desire +to interpret Nature spiritually, we ought, I think, to sympathise. +But there was one truth they had yet to learn, namely, that in order +to interpret Nature spiritually, it is necessary first to understand +her aright in her literal sense. + + + +IX + +THE QUEST OF THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE + +THE need of unity is a primary need of human thought. +Behind the varied multiplicity of the world of phenomena, +primitive man, as I have indicated on a preceding excursion, +begins to seek, more or less consciously, for that Unity +which alone is Real. And this statement not only applies +to the first dim gropings of the primitive human mind, but sums +up almost the whole of science and philosophy; for almost all +science and philosophy is explicitly or implicitly a search +for unity, for one law or one love, one matter or one spirit. +That which is the aim of the search may, indeed, be expressed +under widely different terms, but it is always conceived +to be the unity in which all multiplicity is resolved, +whether it be thought of as one final law of necessity, +which all things obey, and of which all the various other "laws +of nature" are so many special and limited applications; +or as one final love for which all things are created, +and to which all things aspire; as one matter of which all bodies +are but varying forms; or as one spirit, which is the life of +all things, and of which all things are so many manifestations. +Every scientist and philosopher is a merchant seeking +for goodly pearls, willing to sell every pearl that he has, +if he may secure the One Pearl beyond price, because he knows +that in that One Pearl all others are included. + +This search for unity in multiplicity, however, is not +confined to the acknowledged scientist and philosopher. +More or less unconsciously everyone is engaged in this quest. +Harmony and unity are the very fundamental laws of the human +mind itself, and, in a sense, all mental activity is the endeavour +to bring about a state of harmony and unity in the mind. +No two ideas that are contradictory of one another, and are perceived +to be of this nature, can permanently exist in any sane man's mind. +It is true that many people try to keep certain portions +of their mental life in water-tight compartments; thus some try +to keep their religious convictions and their business ideas, +or their religious faith and their scientific knowledge, +separate from another one--and, it seems, often succeed remarkably +well in so doing. But, ultimately, the arbitrary mental walls they +have erected will break down by the force of their own ideas. +Contradictory ideas from different compartments will then +present themselves to consciousness at the same moment of time, +and the result of the perception of their contradictory nature +will be mental anguish and turmoil, persisting until one set +of ideas is conquered and overcome by the other, and harmony +and unity are restored. + +It is true of all of us, then, that we seek for Unity-- +unity in mind and life. Some seek it in science and a life +of knowledge; some seek it in religion and a life of faith; +some seek it in human love and find it in the life of service +to their fellows; some seek it in pleasure and the gratification +of the senses' demands; some seek it in the harmonious +development of all the facets of their being. Many the methods, +right and wrong; many the terms under which the One is conceived, +true and false--in a sense, to use the phraseology of a bygone +system of philosophy, we are all, consciously or unconsciously, +following paths that lead thither or paths that lead away, +seekers in the quest of the Philosopher's Stone. + +Let us, in these excursions in the byways of thought, +consider for a while the form that the quest of fundamental +unity took in the hands of those curious mediaeval philosophers, +half mystics, half experimentalists in natural things-- +that are known by the name of "alchemists." + +The common opinion concerning alchemy is that it was a pseudo-science +or pseudo-art flourishing during the Dark Ages, and having for its aim +the conversion of common metals into silver and gold by means of a most +marvellous and wholly fabulous agent called the Philosopher's Stone, +that its devotees were half knaves, half fools, whose views concerning +Nature were entirely erroneous, and whose objects were entirely mercenary. +This opinion is not absolutely destitute of truth; as a science alchemy +involved many fantastic errors; and in the course of its history it certainly +proved attractive to both knaves and fools. But if this opinion involves +some element of truth, it involves a far greater proportion of error. +Amongst the alchemists are numbered some of the greatest intellects +of the Middle Ages--ROGER BACON (_c_. 1214-1294), for example, +who might almost be called the father of experimental science. +And whether or not the desire for material wealth was a secondary object, +the true aim of the genuine alchemist was a much nobler one than +this as one of them exclaims with true scientific fervour: +"Would to God . . . all men might become adepts in our Art-- +for then gold, the great idol of mankind, would lose its value, +and we should prize it only for its scientific teaching."[1] Moreover, +recent developments in physical and chemical science seem to indicate +that the alchemists were not so utterly wrong in their concept of Nature +as has formerly been supposed--that, whilst they certainly erred in +both their methods and their interpretations of individual phenomena, +they did intuitively grasp certain fundamental facts concerning +the universe of the very greatest importance. + + +[1] EIRENAEUS PHILALETHES: _An Open Entrance to the Closed Palace +of the King_. (See _The Hermetic Museum, Restored and Enlarged_, ed. +by A. E. WAITE, 1893, vol. ii. p. 178.) + + +Suppose, however, that the theories of the alchemists are entirely +erroneous from beginning to end, and are nowhere relieved by +the merest glimmer of truth. Still they were believed to be true, +and this belief had an important influence upon human thought. +Many men of science have, I am afraid, been too prone to regard the mystical +views of the alchemists as unintelligible; but, whatever their theories +may be to us, these theories were certainly very real to them: +it is preposterous to maintain that the writings of the alchemists +are without meaning, even though their views are altogether false. +And the more false their views are believed to be, the more necessary does +it become to explain why they should have gained such universal credit. +Here we have problems into which scientific inquiry is not only legitimate, +but, I think, very desirable,--apart altogether from the question of +the truth or falsity of alchemy as a science, or its utility as an art. +What exactly was the system of beliefs grouped under the term +"alchemy," and what was its aim? Why were the beliefs held? +What was their precise influence upon human thought and culture? + +It was in order to elucidate problems of this sort, as well as to determine +what elements of truth, if any, there are in the theories of the alchemists, +that The Alchemical Society was founded in 1912, mainly through my own efforts +and those of my confreres, and for the first time something like justice +was being done to the memory of the alchemists when the Society's activities +were stayed by that greatest calamity of history, the European War. + +Some students of the writings of the alchemists have advanced a very curious +and interesting theory as to the aims of the alchemists, which may be termed +"the transcendental theory". According to this theory, the alchemists +were concerned only with the mystical processes affecting the soul of man, +and their chemical references are only to be understood symbolically. +In my opinion, however, this view of the subject is rendered untenable +by the lives of the alchemists themselves; for, as Mr WAITE has +very fully pointed out in his _Lives of Alchemystical Philosophers_ +(1888), the lives of the alchemists show them to have been mainly +concerned with chemical and physical processes; and, indeed, to their +labours we owe many valuable discoveries of a chemical nature. +But the fact that such a theory should ever have been formulated, +and should not be altogether lacking in consistency, may serve to direct +our attention to the close connection between alchemy and mysticism. + +If we wish to understand the origin and aims of alchemy we must +endeavour to recreate the atmosphere of the Middle Ages, and to look +at the subject from the point of view of the alchemists themselves. +Now, this atmosphere was, as I have indicated in a previous essay, +surcharged with mystical theology and mystical philosophy. +Alchemy, so to speak, was generated and throve in a dim religious light. +We cannot open a book by any one of the better sort of alchemists without +noticing how closely their theology and their chemistry are interwoven, +and what a remarkably religious view they take of their subject. +Thus one alchemist writes: "In the first place, let every devout and +God-fearing chemist and student of this Art consider that this arcanum +should be regarded, not only as a truly great, but as a most holy Art +(seeing that it typifies and shadows out the highest heavenly good). +Therefore, if any man desire to reach this great and unspeakable Mystery, +he must remember that it is obtained not by the might of man, +but by the grace of God, and that not our will or desire, but only +the mercy of the Most High, can bestow it upon us. For this reason +you must first of all cleanse your heart, lift it up to Him alone, +and ask of Him this gift in true, earnest and undoubting prayer. +He alone can give and bestow it."[1] Whilst another alchemist declares: +"I am firmly persuaded that any unbeliever who got truly to know +this Art, would straightway confess the truth of our Blessed Religion, +and believe in the Trinity and in our Lord JESUS CHRIST.[2] + + +[1] _The Sophic Hydrolith; or, Water Stone of the Wise_. +(See _The Hermetic Museum_, vol. i. pp. 74 and 75.) + +[2] PETER BONUS: _The New Pearl of Great Price_ (trans. by A. E. WAITE, +1894), p. 275. + + +Now, what I suggest is that the alchemists constructed their chemical +theories for the main part by means of _a priori_ reasoning, +and that the premises from which they started were (i.) the truth +of mystical theology, especially the doctrine of the soul's +regeneration, and (ii.) the truth of mystical philosophy, which asserts +that the objects of Nature are symbols of spiritual verities. +There is, I think, abundant evidence to show that alchemy was a more or less +deliberate attempt to apply, according to the principles of analogy, +the doctrines of religious mysticism to chemical and physical phenomena. +Some of this evidence I shall attempt to put forward in this essay. + +In the first place, however, I propose to say a few words +more in description of the theological and philosophical +doctrines which so greatly influenced the alchemists, and which, +I believe, they borrowed for their attempted explanations +of chemical and physical phenomena. This system of doctrine I +have termed "mysticism"--a word which is unfortunately equivocal, +and has been used to denote various systems of religious and +philosophical thought, from the noblest to the most degraded. +I have, therefore, further to define my usage of the term. + +By mystical theology I mean that system of religious thought +which emphasises the unity between Creator and creature, +though not necessarily to the extent of becoming pantheistic. +Man, mystical theology asserts, has sprung from God, but has +fallen away from Him through self-love. Within man, however, +is the seed of divine grace, whereby, if he will follow +the narrow road of self-renunciation, he may be regenerated, +born anew, becoming transformed into the likeness of God +and ultimately indissolubly united to God in love. +God is at once the Creator and the Restorer of man's soul, +He is the Origin as well as the End of all existence; +and He is also the Way to that End. In Christian mysticism, +CHRIST is the Pattern, towards which the mystic strives; +CHRIST also is the means towards the attainment of this end. + +By mystical philosophy I mean that system of philosophical thought +which emphasises the unity of the Cosmos, asserting that God and +the spiritual may be perceived immanent in the things of this world, +because all things natural are symbols and emblems of spiritual verities. +As one of the _Golden Verses_ attributed to PYTHAGORAS, which I have +quoted in a previous essay, puts it: "The Nature of this Universe +is in all things alike"; commenting upon which, HIEROCLES, writing in +the fifth or sixth century, remarks that "Nature, in forming this +Universe after the Divine Measure and Proportion, made it in all things +conformable and like to itself, analogically in different manners. +Of all the different species, diffused throughout the whole, it made, +as it were, an Image of the Divine Beauty, imparting variously +to the copy the perfections of the Original."[1] We have, however, +already encountered so many instances of this belief, that no more +need be said here concerning it. + + +[1] _Commentary of_ HIEROCLES _on the Golden Verses of_ PYTHAGORAS +(trans. by N. ROWE, 1906), pp. 101 and 102. + + +In fine, as Dean INGE well says: "Religious Mysticism may be defined +as the attempt to realise the presence of the living God in the soul +and in nature, or, more generally, as _the attempt to realise, +in thought and feeling, the immanence of the temporal in the eternal, +and of the eternal in the temporal_."[2] + + +[2] WILLIAM RALPH INGE, M.A.: _Christian Mysticism_ (the Bampton Lectures, +1899), p. 5. + + +Now, doctrines such as these were not only very prevalent during +the Middle Ages, when alchemy so greatly flourished, but are of +great antiquity, and were undoubtedly believed in by the learned +class in Egypt and elsewhere in the East in those remote days when, +as some think, alchemy originated, though the evidence, +as will, I hope, become plain as we proceed, points to a later +and post-Christian origin for the central theorem of alchemy. +So far as we can judge from their writings, the more important +alchemists were convinced of the truth of these doctrines, +and it was with such beliefs in mind that they commenced +their investigations of physical and chemical phenomena. +Indeed, if we may judge by the esteem in which the Hermetic maxim, +"What is above is as that which is below, what is below is as that +which is above, to accomplish the miracles of the One Thing," +was held by every alchemist, we are justified in asserting +that the mystical theory of the spiritual significance of Nature-- +a theory with which, as we have seen, is closely connected +the Neoplatonic and Kabalistic doctrine that all things +emanate in series from the Divine Source of all Being-- +was at the very heart of alchemy. As writes one alchemist: +" . . . the Sages have been taught of God that this natural world is +only an image and material copy of a heavenly and spiritual pattern; +that the very existence of this world is based upon the reality +of its celestial archetype; and that God has created it in imitation +of the spiritual and invisible universe, in order that men +might be the better enabled to comprehend His heavenly teaching, +and the wonders of His absolute and ineffable power and wisdom. +Thus the sage sees heaven reflected in Nature as in a mirror; +and he pursues this Art, not for the sake of gold or silver, +but for the love of the knowledge which it reveals; he jealously +conceals it from the sinner and the scornful, lest the mysteries +of heaven should be laid bare to the vulgar gaze."[1] + + +[1] MICHAEL SENDIVOGIUS (?): _The New Chemical Light, Pt. +II., Concerning Sulphur_. (See _The Hermetic Museum_, vol. ii. p. 138.) + + +The alchemists, I hold, convinced of the truth of this view of Nature, +_i.e_. that principles true of one plane of being are true also of all +other planes, adopted analogy as their guide in dealing with the facts +of chemistry and physics known to them. They endeavoured to explain these +facts by an application to them of the principles of mystical theology, +their chief aim being to prove the truth of these principles as applied +to the facts of the natural realm, and by studying natural phenomena +to become instructed in spiritual truth. They did not proceed by the sure, +but slow, method of modern science, _i.e_. the method of induction, +which questions experience at every step in the construction of a theory; +but they boldly allowed their imaginations to leap ahead and to formulate +a complete theory of the Cosmos on the strength of but few facts. +This led them into many fantastic errors, but I would not venture to deny +them an intuitive perception of certain fundamental truths concerning +the constitution of the Cosmos, even if they distorted these truths +and dressed them in a fantastic garb. + +Now, as I hope to make plain in the course of this excursion, +the alchemists regarded the discovery of the Philosopher's Stone +and the transmutation of "base" metals into gold as the consummation +of the proof of the doctrines of mystical theology as applied to +chemical phenomena, and it was as such that they so ardently sought +to achieve the _magnum opus_, as this transmutation was called. +Of course, it would be useless to deny that many, accepting the truth +of the great alchemical theorem, sought for the Philosopher's Stone +because of what was claimed for it in the way of material benefits. +But, as I have already indicated, with the nobler alchemists this +was not the case, and the desire for wealth, if present at all, +was merely a secondary object. + +The idea expressed in DALTON'S atomic hypothesis (1802), and universally +held during the nineteenth century, that the material world is made +up of a certain limited number of elements unalterable in quantity, +subject in themselves to no change or development, and inconvertible +one into another, is quite alien to the views of the alchemists. +The alchemists conceived the universe to be a unity; they believed +that all material bodies had been developed from one seed; +their elements are merely different forms of one matter and, +therefore, convertible one into another. They were thoroughgoing +evolutionists with regard to the things of the material world, +and their theory concerning the evolution of the metals was, +I believe, the direct outcome of a metallurgical application of +the mystical doctrine of the soul's development and regeneration. +The metals, they taught, all spring from the same seed in Nature's womb, +but are not all equally matured and perfect; for, as they say, +although Nature always intends to produce only gold, various impurities +impede the process. In the metals the alchemists saw symbols +of man in the various stages of his spiritual development. +Gold, the most beautiful as well as the most untarnishable metal, +keeping its beauty permanently, unaffected by sulphur, most acids, +and fire--indeed, purified by such treatment,--gold, to the alchemist, +was the symbol of regenerate man, and therefore he called it "a +noble metal". Silver was also termed "noble"; but it was regarded +as less mature than gold, for, although it is undoubtedly beautiful +and withstands the action of fire, it is corroded by nitric acid +and is blackened by sulphur; it was, therefore, considered to be +analogous to the regenerate man at a lower stage of his development. +Possibly we shall not be far wrong in using SWEDENBORG'S terms, +"celestial" to describe the man of gold, "spiritual" to designate +him of silver. Lead, on the other hand, the alchemists regarded +as a very immature and impure metal: heavy and dull, corroded by +sulphur and nitric acid, and converted into a calx by the action +of fire,--lead, to the alchemists, was a symbol of man in a sinful +and unregenerate condition. + +The alchemists assumed the existence of three principles in the metals, +their obvious reason for so doing being the mystical threefold division +of man into body, soul (_i.e_. affections and will), and spirit +(_i.e_. intelligence), though the principle corresponding to body +was a comparatively late introduction in alchemical philosophy. +This latter fact, however, is no argument against my thesis; +because, of course, I do not maintain that the alchemists started +out with their chemical philosophy ready made, but gradually +worked it out, by incorporating in it further doctrines drawn +from mystical theology. The three principles just referred +to were called "mercury," "sulphur," and "salt"; and they +must be distinguished from the common bodies so designated +(though the alchemists themselves seem often guilty of confusing +them). "Mercury" is the metallic principle _par excellence_, +conferring on metals their brightness and fusibility, +and corresponding to the spirit or intelligence in man.[1] "Sulphur," +the principle of combustion and colour, is the analogue of the soul. +Many alchemists postulated two sulphurs in the metals, +an inward and an outward.[1b] The outward sulphur was thought +to be the chief cause of metallic impurity, and the reason why all +(known) metals, save gold and silver, were acted on by fire. +The inward sulphur, on the other hand, was regarded as +essential to the development of the metals: pure mercury, +we are told, matured by a pure inward sulphur yields pure gold. +Here again it is evident that the alchemists borrowed their +theories from mystical theology; for, clearly, inward sulphur +is nothing else than the equivalent to love of God; +outward sulphur to love of self. Intelligence (mercury) matured +by love to God (inward sulphur) exactly expresses the spiritual +state of the regenerate man according to mystical theology. +There is no reason, other than their belief in analogy, why the +alchemists should have held such views concerning the metals. +"Salt," the principle of solidity and resistance to fire, +corresponding to the body in man, plays a comparatively +unimportant part in alchemical theory, as does its prototype +in mystical theology. + + +[1] The identification of the god MERCURY with THOTH, the Egyptian +god of learning, is worth noticing in this connection. + +[1b] Pseudo-GEBER, whose writings were highly esteemed, for instance. +See R. RUSSEL'S translation of his works (1678), p. 160. + + +Now, as I have pointed out already, the central theorem of mystical +theology is, in Christian terminology, that of the regeneration +of the soul by the Spirit of CHRIST. The corresponding process in +alchemy is that of the transmutation of the "base" metals into silver +and gold by the agency of the Philosopher's Stone. Merely to remove +the evil sulphur of the "base" metals, thought the alchemists, +though necessary, is not sufficient to transmute them into +"noble" metals; a maturing process is essential, similar to +that which they supposed was effected in Nature's womb. +Mystical theology teaches that the powers and life of the soul +are not inherent in it, but are given by the free grace +of God. Neither, according to the alchemists, are the powers +and life of nature in herself, but in that immanent spirit, +the Soul of the World, that animates her. As writes the famous +alchemist who adopted the pleasing pseudonym of "BASIL VALENTINE" +(_c_. 1600), "the power of growth . . . is imparted not +by the earth, but by the life-giving spirit that is in it. +If the earth were deserted by this spirit, it would be dead, +and no longer able to afford nourishment to anything. +For its sulphur or richness would lack the quickening spirit +without which there can be neither life nor growth."[1a] +To perfect the metals, therefore, the alchemists argued, +from analogy with mystical theology, which teaches that men can +be regenerated only by the power of CHRIST within the soul, that it +is necessary to subject them to the action of this world-spirit, +this one essence underlying all the varied powers of nature, +this One Thing from which "all things were produced . . . by adaption, +and which is the cause of all perfection throughout the whole +world."[2a] "This," writes one alchemist, "is the Spirit of Truth, +which the world cannot comprehend without the interposition of +the Holy Ghost, or without the instruction of those who know it. +The same is of a mysterious nature, wondrous strength, +boundless power.... By Avicenna this Spirit is named +the Soul of the World. For, as the Soul moves all the limbs +of the Body, so also does this Spirit move all bodies. +And as the Soul is in all the limbs of the Body, so also is +this Spirit in all elementary created things. It is sought +by many and found by few. It is beheld from afar and found near; +for it exists in every thing, in every place, and at all times. +It has the powers of all creatures; its action is found +in all elements, and the qualities of all things are therein, +even in the highest perfection . . . it heals all dead and living +bodies without other medicine . . . converts all metallic bodies +into gold, and there is nothing like unto it under Heaven."[1b] It +was this Spirit, concentrated in all its potency in a suitable +material form, which the alchemists sought under the name of "the +Philosopher's Stone". Now, mystical theology teaches that the Spirit +of CHRIST, by which alone the soul of man can be tinctured +and transmuted into the likeness of God, is Goodness itself; +consequently, the alchemists argued that the Philosopher's Stone +must be, so to speak, Gold itself, or the very essence of Gold: +it was to them, as CHRIST is of the soul's perfection, +at once the pattern and the means of metallic perfection. +"The Philosopher's Stone," declares "EIRENAEUS PHILALETHES" +(_nat. c_. 1623), "is a certain heavenly, spiritual, penetrative, +and fixed substance, which brings all metals to the perfection +of gold or silver (according to the quality of the Medicine), +and that by natural methods, which yet in their effects transcend +Nature.... Know, then, that it is called a stone, not because it +is like a stone, but only because, by virtue of its fixed nature, +it resists the action of fire as successfully as any stone. +In species it is gold, more pure than the purest; it is fixed and +incombustible like a stone [_i.e_. it contains no outward sulphur, +but only inward, fixed sulphur], but its appearance is that of a +very fine powder, impalpable to the touch, sweet to the taste, +fragrant to the smell, in potency a most penetrative spirit, +apparently dry and yet unctuous, and easily capable of tingeing +a plate of metal.... If we say that its nature is spiritual, +it would be no more than the truth; if we described it +as corporeal the expression would be equally correct; +for it is subtle, penetrative, glorified, spiritual gold. +It is the noblest of all created things after the rational soul, +and has virtue to repair all defects both in animal and metallic +bodies, by restoring them to the most exact and perfect temper; +wherefore is it a spirit or `quintessence.' "[1c] + + +[1a] BASIL VALENTINE: _The Twelve Keys_. (See _The Hermetic Museum_, vol. +i. pp. 333 and 334.) + +[2a] From the "Smaragdine Table," attributed to HERMES TRISMEGISTOS +(_ie_. MERCURY or THOTH). + +[1b] _The Book of the Revelation of_ HERMES, _interpreted by_ +THEOPHRASTUS PARACELSUS, _concerning the Supreme Secret of +the World_. (See BENEDICTUS FIGULUS, _A Golden and Blessed Casket +of Nature's Marvels_, trans. by A. E. WAITE, 1893, pp. +36, 37, and 41.) + +[1c] EIRENAEUS PHILALETHES: _A Brief Guide to the Celestial Ruby_. +(See _The Hermetic Museum_, vol. ii. pp. 246 and 249.) + + +In other accounts the Philosopher's Stone, or at least +the _materia prima_ of which it is compounded, is spoken +of as a despised substance, reckoned to be of no value. +Thus, according to one curious alchemistic work, "This matter, +so precious by the excellent Gifts, wherewith Nature has enriched it, +is truly mean, with regard to the Substances from whence it +derives its Original. Their price is not above the Ability +of the Poor. Ten Pence is more than sufficient to purchase +the Matter of the Stone. . . . The matter therefore is mean, +considering the Foundation of the Art because it costs very little; +it is no less mean, if one considers exteriourly that which gives +it Perfection, since in that regard it costs nothing at all, +in as much as _all the World has it in its Power_ . . . so +that . . . it is a constant Truth, that the Stone is a Thing +mean in one Sense, but that in another it is most precious, +and that there are none but Fools that despise it, by a just +Judgment of God."[1] And JACOB BOEHME (1575--1624) writes: +"The _philosopher's stone_ is a very dark, disesteemed stone, +of a grey colour, but therein lieth the highest tincture."[2] In +these passages there is probably some reference to the ubiquity of +the Spirit of the World, already referred to in a former quotation. +But this fact is not, in itself, sufficient to account for them. +I suggest that their origin is to be found in the religious +doctrine that God's Grace, the Spirit of CHRIST that is the means +of the transmutation of man's soul into spiritual gold, is free +to all; that it is, at once, the meanest and the most precious +thing in the whole Universe. Indeed, I think it quite probable +that the alchemists who penned the above-quoted passages had in mind +the words of ISAIAH, "He was despised and we esteemed him not." +And if further evidence is required that the alchemists +believed in a correspondence between CHRIST--"the Stone which +the builders rejected"--and the Philosopher's Stone, reference may +be made to the alchemical work called _The Sophic Hydrolith: +or Water Stone of the Wise_, a tract included in _The Hermetic Museum_, +in which this supposed correspondence is explicitly asserted +and dealt with in some detail. + + +[1] _A Discourse between Eudoxus and Pyrophilus, upon the +Ancient War of the Knights_. See _The Hermetical Triumph: +or, the Victorious Philosophical Stone_ (1723), pp. +101 and 102. + +[2] JACOB BOEHME: _Epistles_ (trans. by J. E., 1649, reprinted 1886), Ep. +iv., SE III. + + +Apart from the alchemists' belief in the analogy between natural +and spiritual things, it is, I think, incredible that any such theories +of the metals and the possibility of their transmutation or "regeneration" +by such an extraordinary agent as the Philosopher's Stone would +have occurred to the ancient investigators of Nature's secrets. +When they had started to formulate these theories, facts[1] were discovered +which appeared to support them; but it is, I suggest, practically impossible +to suppose that any or all of these facts would, in themselves, have been +sufficient to give rise to such wonderfully fantastic theories as these: +it is only from the standpoint of the theory that alchemy was a direct +offspring of mysticism that its origin seems to be capable of explanation. + + + +[1] One of those facts, amongst many others, that appeared to confirm +the alchemical doctrines, was the ease with which iron could apparently +be transmuted into copper. It was early observed that iron vessels +placed in contact with a solution of blue vitriol became converted +(at least, so far as their surfaces were concerned) into copper. +This we now know to be due to the fact that the copper originally +contained in the vitriol is thrown out of solution, whilst the iron +takes its place. And we know, also, that no more copper can be +obtained in this way from the blue vitriol than is actually used up +in preparing it; and, further, that all the iron which is apparently +converted into copper can be got out of the residual solution +by appropriate methods, if such be desired; so that the facts really +support DALTON'S theory rather than the alchemical doctrines. +But to the alchemist it looked like a real transmutation of iron +into copper, confirmation of his fond belief that iron and other +base metals could be transmuted into silver and gold by the aid +of the Great Arcanum of Nature. + + +In all the alchemical doctrines mystical connections +are evident, and mystical origins can generally be traced. +I shall content myself here with giving a couple of further examples. +Consider, in the first place, the alchemical doctrine of purification +by putrefaction, that the metals must die before they can +be resurrected and truly live, that through death alone are +they purified--in the more prosaic language of modern chemistry, +death becomes oxidation, and rebirth becomes reduction. +In many alchemical books there are to be found pictorial +symbols of the putrefaction and death of metals and their new +birth in the state of silver or gold, or as the Stone itself, +together with descriptions of these processes. The alchemists +sought to kill or destroy the body or outward form of the metals, +in the hope that they might get at and utilise the living essence +they believed to be immanent within. As PARACELSUS put it: +"Nothing of true value is located in the body of a substance, +but in the virtue . . . the less there is of body, +the more in proportion is the virtue." It seems to me quite +obvious that in such ideas as these we have the application +to metallurgy of the mystic doctrine of self-renunciation-- +that the soul must die to self before it can live to God; +that the body must be sacrificed to the spirit, and the individual +will bowed down utterly to the One Divine Will, before it can +become one therewith. + +In the second place, consider the directions as to the colours +that must be obtained in the preparation of the Philosopher's Stone, +if a successful issue to the Great Work is desired. +Such directions are frequently given in considerable detail +in alchemical works; and, without asserting any exact uniformity, +I think that I may state that practically all the alchemists agree +that three great colour-stages are necessary--(i.) an inky blackness, +which is termed the "Crow's Head" and is indicative of putrefaction; +(ii.) a white colour indicating that the Stone is now capable +of converting "base" metals into silver; this passes through +orange into (iii.) a red colour, which shows that the Stone +is now perfect, and will transmute "base" metals into gold. +Now, what was the reason for the belief in these three +colour-stages, and for their occurrence in the above order? +I suggest that no alchemist actually obtained these colours +in this order in his chemical experiments, and that we must +look for a speculative origin for the belief in them. We have, +I think, only to turn to religious mysticism for this origin. +For the exponents of religious mysticism unanimously agree +to a threefold division of the life of the mystic. The first +stage is called "the dark night of the soul," wherein it seems +as if the soul were deserted by God, although He is very near. +It is the time of trial, when self is sacrificed as a duty and +not as a delight. Afterwards, however, comes the morning light +of a new intelligence, which marks the commencement of that stage +of the soul's upward progress that is called the "illuminative +life". All the mental powers are now concentrated on God, +and the struggle is transferred from without to the inner man, +good works being now done, as it were, spontaneously. +The disciple, in this stage, not only does unselfish deeds, +but does them from unselfish motives, being guided by the light +of Divine Truth. The third stage, which is the consummation +of the process, is termed "the contemplative life". It is +barely describable. The disciple is wrapped about with the +Divine Love, and is united thereby with his Divine Source. It is +the life of love, as the illuminative life is that of wisdom. +I suggest that the alchemists, believing in this threefold +division of the regenerative process, argued that there must +be three similar stages in the preparation of the Stone, +which was the pattern of all metallic perfection; and that they +derived their beliefs concerning the colours, and other +peculiarities of each stage in the supposed chemical process, +from the characteristics of each stage in the psychological +process according to mystical theology. + +Moreover, in the course of the latter process many flitting thoughts +and affections arise and deeds are half-wittingly done which are not +of the soul's true character; and in entire agreement with this, +we read of the alchemical process, in the highly esteemed "Canons" +of D'ESPAGNET: "Besides these decretory signs [_i.e_. the black, +white, orange, and red colours] which firmly inhere in the matter, +and shew its essential mutations, almost infinite colours appear, +and shew themselves in vapours, as the Rainbow in the clouds, +which quickly pass away and are expelled by those that succeed, +more affecting the air than the earth: the operator must have +a gentle care of them, because they are not permanent, and proceed +not from the intrinsic disposition of the matter, but from the fire +painting and fashioning everything after its pleasure, or casually +by heat in slight moisture."[1] That D'ESPAGNET is arguing, +not so much from actual chemical experiments, as from analogy +with psychological processes in man, is, I think, evident. + + +[1] JEAN D'ESPAGNET: _Hermetic Arcanum_, canon 65. +(See _Collectanea Hermetica_, ed. by W. WYNN WESTCOTT, vol. +i., 1893, pp. 28 and 29.) + + +As well as a metallic, the alchemists believed in a physiological, +application of the fundamental doctrines of mysticism: +their physiology was analogically connected with their +metallurgy, the same principles holding good in each case. +PARACELSUS, as we have seen, taught that man is a microcosm, +a world in miniature; his spirit, the Divine Spark within, +is from God; his soul is from the Stars, extracted from +the Spirit of the World; and his body is from the earth, +extracted from the elements of which all things material are made. +This view of man was shared by many other alchemists. +The Philosopher's Stone, therefore (or, rather, a solution +of it in alcohol) was also regarded as the Elixir of Life; +which, thought the alchemists, would not endow man with +physical immortality, as is sometimes supposed, but restore him +again to the flower of youth, "regenerating" him physiologically. +Failing this, of course, they regarded gold in a potable form +as the next most powerful medicine--a belief which probably +led to injurious effects in some cases. + +Such are the facts from which I think we are justified in concluding, +as I have said, "that the alchemists constructed their chemical theories +for the main part by means of _a priori_ reasoning, and that the premises +from which they started were (i.) the truth of mystical theology, +especially the doctrine of the soul's regeneration, and (ii.) the truth +of mystical philosophy, which asserts that the objects of nature are +symbols of spiritual verities."[1] + + +[1] In the following excursion we will wander again in the alchemical bypaths +of thought, and certain objections to this view of the origin and nature +of alchemy will be dealt with and, I hope, satisfactorily answered. + + +It seems to follow, _ex hypothesi_, that every alchemical +work ought to permit of two interpretations, one physical, +the other transcendental. But I would not venture to assert this, +because, as I think, many of the lesser alchemists knew little +of the origin of their theories, nor realised their significance. +They were concerned merely with these theories in their strictly +metallurgical applications, and any transcendental meaning we can +extract from their works was not intended by the writers themselves. +However, many alchemists, I conceive, especially the better sort, +realised more or less clearly the dual nature of their subject, +and their books are to some extent intended to permit of a +double interpretation, although the emphasis is laid upon +the physical and chemical application of mystical doctrine. +And there are a few writers who adopted alchemical terminology +on the principle that, if the language of theology is competent +to describe chemical processes, then, conversely, the language +of alchemy must be competent to describe psychological processes: +this is certainly and entirely true of JACOB BOEHME, and, +to some extent also, I think, of HENRY KHUNRATH (1560-1605) and +THOMAS VAUGHAN (1622-1666). + +As may be easily understood, many of the alchemists led most +romantic lives, often running the risk of torture and death at +the hands of avaricious princes who believed them to be in possession +of the Philosopher's Stone, and adopted such pleasant methods +of extorting (or, at least, of trying to extort) their secrets. +A brief sketch, which I quote from my _Alchemy: Ancient and Modern_ +(1911), SE 54, of the lives of ALEXANDER SETHON and MICHAEL SENDIVOGIUS, +will serve as an example:-- + +"The date and birthplace of ALEXANDER SETHON, a Scottish alchemist, +do not appear to have been recorded, but MICHAEL SENDIVOGIUS was +probably born in Moravia about 1566. Sethon, we are told, was in +possession of the arch-secrets of Alchemy. He visited Holland in 1602, +proceeded after a time to Italy, and passed through Basle to Germany; +meanwhile he is said to have performed many transmutations. +Ultimately arriving at Dresden, however, he fell into the clutches +of the young Elector, Christian II., who, in order to extort his secret, +cast him into prison and put him to the torture, but without avail. +Now it so happened that Sendivogius, who was in quest of +the Philosopher's Stone, was staying at Dresden, and hearing +of Sethon's imprisonment obtained permission to visit him. +Sendivogius offered to effect Sethon's escape in return for assistance +in his alchemistic pursuits, to which arrangement the Scottish +alchemist willingly agreed. After some considerable outlay +of money in bribery, Sendivogius's plan of escape was successfully +carried out, and Sethon found himself a free man; but he refused +to betray the high secrets of Hermetic philosophy to his rescuer. +However, before his death, which occurred shortly afterwards, +he presented him with an ounce of the transmutative powder. +Sendivogius soon used up this powder, we are told, in effecting +transmutations and cures, and, being fond of expensive living, +he married Sethon's widow, in the hope that she was in the possession +of the transmutative secret. In this, however, he was disappointed; +she knew nothing of the matter, but she had the manuscript of an +alchemistic work written by her late husband. Shortly afterwards +Sendivogius printed at Prague a book entitled _The New Chemical Light_ +under the name of `Cosmopolita,' which is said to have been this +work of Sethon's, but which Sendivogius claimed for his own by the +insertion of his name on the title page, in the form of an anagram. +The tract _On Sulphur_ which was printed at the end of the book +in later editions, however, is said to have been the genuine +work of the Moravian. Whilst his powder lasted, Sendivogius +travelled about, performing, we are told, many transmutations. +He was twice imprisoned in order to extort the secrets of alchemy +from him, on one occasion escaping, and on the other occasion obtaining +his release from the Emperor Rudolph. Afterwards, he appears +to have degenerated into an impostor, but this is said to have been +a _finesse_ to hide his true character as an alchemistic adept. +He died in 1646." + +However, all the alchemists were not of the apparent character +of SENDIVOGIUS--many of them leading holy and serviceable lives. +The alchemist-physician J. B. VAN HELMONT (1577-1644), who was a man +of extraordinary benevolence, going about treating the sick poor freely, +may be particularly mentioned. He, too, claimed to have performed +the transmutation of "base" metal into gold, as did also HELVETIUS +(whom we have already met), physician to the Prince of Orange, +with a wonderful preparation given to him by a stranger. +The testimony of these two latter men is very difficult either to explain +or to explain away, but I cannot deal with this question here, but must +refer the reader to a paper on the subject by Mr GASTON DE MENGEL, +and the discussion thereon, published in vol. i. of _The Journal +of the Alchemical Society_. + +In conclusion, I will venture one remark dealing with a matter outside +of the present inquiry. Alchemy ended its days in failure and fraud; +charlatans and fools were attracted to it by purely mercenary objects, +who knew nothing of the high aims of the genuine alchemists, +and scientific men looked elsewhere for solutions of Nature's problems. +Why did alchemy fail? Was it because its fundamental theorems +were erroneous? I think not. I consider the failure of the alchemical +theory of Nature to be due rather to the misapplication of these +fundamental concepts, to the erroneous use of _a priori_ methods +of reasoning, to a lack of a sufficiently wide knowledge of natural +phenomena to which to apply these concepts, to a lack of adequate +apparatus with which to investigate such phenomena experimentally, +and to a lack of mathematical organons of thought with which to +interpret such experimental results had they been obtained. +As for the basic concepts of alchemy themselves, such as the fundamental +unity of the Cosmos and the evolution of the elements, in a word, +the applicability of the principles of mysticism to natural phenomena: +these seem to me to contain a very valuable element of truth-- +a statement which, I think, modern scientific research justifies me +in making,--though the alchemists distorted this truth and expressed +it in a fantastic form. I think, indeed, that in the modern theories +of energy and the all-pervading ether, the etheric and electrical +origin and nature of matter and the evolution of the elements, +we may witness the triumphs of mysticism as applied to the interpretation +of Nature. Whether or not we shall ever transmute lead into gold, +I believe there is a very true sense in which we may say that alchemy, +purified by its death, has been proved true, whilst the materialistic +view of Nature has been proved false. + + + +X + +THE PHALLIC ELEMENT IN ALCHEMICAL DOCTRINE + +THE problem of alchemy presents many aspects to our view, but, to my mind, +the most fundamental of these is psychological, or, perhaps I +should say, epistemological. It has been said that the proper study +of mankind is man; and to study man we must study the beliefs of man. +Now so long as we neglect great tracts of such beliefs, because they +have been, or appear to have been, superseded, so long will our +study be incomplete and ineffectual. And this, let me add, +is no mere excuse for the study of alchemy, no mere afterthought +put forward in justification of a predilection, but a plain +statement of fact that renders this study an imperative need. +There are other questions of interest--of very great interest-- +concerning alchemy: questions, for instance, as to the scope and +validity of its doctrines; but we ought not to allow their fascination +and promise to distract our attention from the fundamental problem, +whose solution is essential to their elucidation. + +In the preceding essay on "The Quest of the Philosopher's Stone," +which was written from the standpoint I have sketched in the foregoing words, +my thesis was "that the alchemists constructed their chemical theories +for the main part by means of _a priori_ reasoning, and that the premises +from which they started were (i.) the truth of mystical theology, +especially the doctrine of the soul's regeneration, and (ii.) the truth +of mystical philosophy, which asserts that the objects of nature are symbols +of spiritual verities." Now, I wish to treat my present thesis, which is +concerned with a further source from which the alchemists derived certain +of their views and modes of expression by means of _a priori_ reasoning, +in connection with, and, in a sense, as complementary to, my former thesis. +I propose in the first place, therefore, briefly to deal with certain +possible objections to this view of alchemy. + +It has, for instance, been maintained[1] that the assimilation +of alchemical doctrines concerning the metals to those of mysticism +concerning the soul was an event late in the history of alchemy, +and was undertaken in the interests of the latter doctrines. +Now we know that certain mystics of the sixteenth and seventeenth +centuries did borrow from the alchemists much of their +terminology with which to discourse of spiritual mysteries-- +JACOB BOEHME, HENRY KHUNRATH, and perhaps THOMAS VAUGHAN, +may be mentioned as the most prominent cases in point. +But how was this possible if it were not, as I have suggested, +the repayment, in a sense, of a sort of philological debt? +Transmutation was an admirable vehicle of language for describing +the soul's regeneration, just because the doctrine of transmutation +was the result of an attempt to apply the doctrine of regeneration +in the sphere of metallurgy; and similar remarks hold of the other +prominent doctrines of alchemy. + + +[1] See, for example, Mr A. E. WAITE'S paper, "The Canon +of Criticism in respect of Alchemical Literature," _The Journal +of the Alchemical Society_, vol. i. (1913), pp. 17-30. + + +The wonderful fabric of alchemical doctrine was not woven in a day, +and as it passed from loom to loom, from Byzantium to Syria, +from Syria to Arabia, from Arabia to Spain and Latin Europe, +so its pattern changed; but it was always woven _a priori_, +in the belief that that which is below is as that which is above. +In its final form, I think, it is distinctly Christian. + +In the _Turba Philosophorum_, the oldest known work of Latin alchemy-- +a work which, claiming to be of Greek origin, whilst not that, +is certainly Greek in spirit,--we frequently come across statements +of a decidedly mystical character. "The regimen," we read, +"is greater than is perceived by reason, except through divine +inspiration."[1] Copper, it is insisted upon again and again, +has a soul as well as a body; and the Art, we are told, is to be +defined as "the liquefaction of the body and the separation of +the soul from the body, seeing that copper, like a man, has a soul +and a body."[2] Moreover, other doctrines are here propounded which, +although not so obviously of a mystical character, have been +traced to mystical sources in the preceding excursion. There is, +for instance, the doctrine of purification by means of putrefaction, +this process being likened to that of the resurrection of man. +"These things being done," we read, "God will restore unto it +[the matter operated on] both the soul and the spirit thereof, +and the weakness being taken away, that matter will be made strong, +and after corruption will be improved, even as a man becomes stronger +after resurrection and younger than he was in this world."[1b] +The three stages in the alchemical work--black, white, and red-- +corresponding to, and, as I maintain, based on the three stages +in the life of the mystic, are also more than once mentioned. +"Cook them [the king and his wife], therefore, until they +become black, then white, afterwards red, and finally until +a tingeing venom is produced."[2b] + + +[1] _The Turba Philosophorum, or Assembly of the Sages_ +(trans. by A. E. WAITE, 1896), p. 128. + +[2] _Ibid_., p. 193, _cf_. pp. 102 and 152. + +[1b] _The Turba Philosophorum, or Assembly of the Sages_ +(trans. by A. E. WAITE), p. 101, _cf_. pp. 27 and 197. + +[2b] _Ibid_., p. 98, _cf_. p. 29. + + +In view of these quotations, the alliance (shall I say?) +between alchemy and mysticism cannot be asserted to be of late origin. +And we shall find similar statements if we go further back in time. +To give but one example: "Among the earliest authorities," +writes Mr WAITE, "the _Book of Crates_ says that copper, +like man, has a spirit, soul, and body," the term "copper" being +symbolical and applying to a stage in the alchemical work. +But nowhere in the _Turba_ do we meet with the concept of +the Philosopher's Stone as the medicine of the metals, a concept +characteristic of Latin alchemy, and, to quote Mr WAITE again, +"it does not appear that the conception of the Philosopher's Stone +as a medicine of metals and of men was familiar to Greek alchemy;"[3] + +[3] _Ibid_., p. 71. + +All this seems to me very strongly to support my view of the origin +of alchemy, which requires a specifically Christian mysticism only for this +specific concept of the Philosopher's Stone in its fully-fledged form. +At any rate, the development of alchemical doctrine can be seen +to have proceeded concomitantly with the development of mystical +philosophy and theology. Those who are not prepared here to see effect +and cause may be asked not only to formulate some other hypothesis +in explanation of the origin of alchemy, but also to explain this fact +of concomitant development. + +From the standpoint of the transcendental theory of alchemy it +has been urged "that the language of mystical theology seemed +to be hardly so suitable to the exposition [as I maintain] +or concealment of chemical theories, as the language of a +definite and generally credited branch of science was suited +to the expression of a veiled and symbolical process such +as the regeneration of man."[1] But such a statement is only +possible with respect to the latest days of alchemy, when there +WAS a science of chemistry, definite and generally credited. +The science of chemistry, it must be remembered, had no +growth separate from alchemy, but evolved therefrom. +Of the days before this evolution had been accomplished, +it would be in closer accord with the facts to say that theology, +including the doctrine of man's regeneration, was in the position +of "a definite and generally credited branch of science," +whereas chemical phenomena were veiled in deepest mystery +and tinged with the dangers appertaining to magic. +As concerns the origin of alchemy, therefore, the argument +as to suitability of language appears to support my own theory; +it being open to assume that after formulation--that is, +in alchemy's latter days--chemical nomenclature and theories were +employed by certain writers to veil heterodox religious doctrine. + + +[1] PHILIP S. WELLBY, M.A., in _The Journal of the +Alchemical Society_, vol. ii. (1914), p. 104. + + +Another recent writer on the subject, my friend the late +Mr ABDUL-ALI, has remarked that "he thought that, in the mind +of the alchemist at least, there was something more than analogy +between metallic and psychic transformations, and that the whole +subject might well be assigned to the doctrinal category of +ineffable and transcendent Oneness. This Oneness comprehended all-- +soul and body, spirit and matter, mystic visions and waking life-- +and the sharp metaphysical distinction between the mental and the +non-mental realms, so prominent during the history of philosophy, +was not regarded by these early investigators in the sphere of nature. +There was the sentiment, perhaps only dimly experienced, +that not only the law, but the substance of the Universe, was one; +that mind was everywhere in contact with its own kindred; +and that metallic transmutation would, somehow, so to speak, +signalise and seal a hidden transmutation of the soul."[1] + + +[1] SIJIL ABDUL-ALI, in _The Journal of the Alchemical Society_, vol. ii. +(1914), p. 102. + + +I am to a large extent in agreement with this view. +Mr ABDUL-ALI quarrels with the term "analogy," and, if it is held +to imply any merely superficial resemblance, it certainly is not +adequate to my own needs, though I know not what other word to use. +SWEDENBORG'S term "correspondence" would be better for my purpose, +as standing for an essential connection between spirit and matter, +arising out of the causal relationship of the one to the other. +But if SWEDENBORG believed that matter and spirit were most +intimately related, he nevertheless had a very precise idea +of their distinctness, which he formulated in his Doctrine +of Degrees--a very exact metaphysical doctrine indeed. +The alchemists, on the other hand, had no such clear ideas +on the subject. It would be even more absurd to attribute +to them a Cartesian dualism. To their ways of thinking, +it was by no means impossible to grasp the spiritual essences +of things by what we should now call chemical manipulations. +For them a gas was still a ghost and air a spirit. +One could quote pages in support of this, but I will content +myself with a few words from the _Turba_--the antiquity +of the book makes it of value, and anyway it is near at hand. +"Permanent water," whatever that may be, being pounded with the body, +we are told, "by the will of God it turns that body into spirit." +And in another place we read that "the Philosophers have said: +Except ye turn bodies into not-bodies, and incorporeal +things into bodies, ye have not yet discovered the rule of +operation."[1a] No one who could write like this, and believe it, +could hold matter and spirit as altogether distinct. +But it is equally obvious that the injunction to convert +body into spirit is meaningless if spirit and body are held +to be identical. I have been criticised for crediting +the alchemists "with the philosophic acumen of Hegel,"[1b] +but that is just what I think one ought to avoid doing. +At the same time, however, it is extremely difficult to give +a precise account of views which are very far from being +precise themselves. But I think it may be said, without fear +of error, that the alchemist who could say, "As above, +so below," _ipso facto_ recognised both a very close connection +between spirit and matter, and a distinction between them. +Moreover, the division thus implied corresponded, on the whole, +to that between the realms of the known (or what was thought +to be known) and the unknown. The Church, whether Christian +or pre-Christian, had very precise (comparatively speaking) +doctrine concerning the soul's origin, duties, and destiny, +backed up by tremendous authority, and speculative philosophy +had advanced very far by the time PLATO began to concern himself +with its problems. Nature, on the other hand, was a mysterious +world of magical happenings, and there was nothing deserving of +the name of natural science until alchemy was becoming decadent. +It is not surprising, therefore, that the alchemists-- +these men who wished to probe Nature's hidden mysteries-- +should reason from above to below; indeed, unless they had +started _de novo_--as babes knowing nothing,--there was no +other course open to them. And that they did adopt the obvious +course is all that my former thesis amounts to. In passing, +it is interesting to note that a sixteenth-century alchemist, +who had exceptional opportunities and leisure to study the works +of the old masters of alchemy, seems to have come to a similar +conclusion as to the nature of their reasoning. He writes: +"The Sages . . . after having conceived in their minds a Divine +idea of the relations of the whole universe . . . selected +from among the rest a certain substance, from which they +sought to elicit the elements, to separate and purify them, +and then again put them together in a manner suggested by a keen +and profound observation of Nature."[1c] + + +[1a] _op cit_., pp,. 65 and 110, _cf_. p. 154. + +[1b] _Vide_ a rather frivolous review of my _Alchemy: Ancient and Modern_ +in _The Outlook_ for 14th January 1911. + +[1c] EDWARD KELLY: _The Humid Path_. (See _The Alchemical Writings_ +of EDWARD KELLY, edited by A. E. WAITE, 1893, pp. 59-60.) + + +In describing the realm of spirit as _ex hypothesi_ known, that of +Nature unknown, to the alchemists, I have made one important omission, +and that, if I may use the name of a science to denominate a complex +of crude facts, is the realm of physiology, which, falling within +that of Nature, must yet be classed as _ex hypothesi_ known. +But to elucidate this point some further considerations +are necessary touching the general nature of knowledge. +Now, facts may be roughly classed, according to their +obviousness and frequency of occurrence, into four groups. +There are, first of all, facts which are so obvious, to put +it paradoxically, that they escape notice; and these facts +are the commonest and most frequent in their occurrence. +I think it is Mr CHESTERTON who has said that, looking at +a forest one cannot see the trees because of the forest; +and, in _The Innocence of Father Brown_, he has a good story +("The Invisible Man") illustrating the point, in which a man +renders himself invisible by dressing up in a postman's uniform. +At any rate, we know that when a phenomenon becomes persistent +it tends to escape observation; thus, continuous motion can +only be appreciated with reference to a stationary body, +and a noise, continually repeated, becomes at last inaudible. +The tendency of often-repeated actions to become habitual, +and at last automatic, that is to say, carried out +without consciousness, is a closely related phenomenon. +We can understand, therefore, why a knowledge of the existence of +the atmosphere, as distinct from the wind, came late in the history +of primitive man, as, also, many other curious gaps in his knowledge. +In the second group we may put those facts which are common, +that is, of frequent occurrence, and are classed as obvious. +Such facts are accepted at face-value by the primitive mind, +and are used as the basis of explanation of facts in the two +remaining groups, namely, those facts which, though common, +are apt to escape the attention owing to their inconspicuousness, +and those which are of infrequent occurrence. When the mind +takes the trouble to observe a fact of the third group, or is +confronted by one of the fourth, it feels a sense of surprise. +Such facts wear an air of strangeness, and the mind can +only rest satisfied when it has shown them to itself as in +some way cases of the second group of facts, or, at least, +brought them into relation therewith. That is what the mind-- +at least the primitive mind--means by "explanation". "It +is obvious," we say, commencing an argument, thereby proclaiming +our intention to bring that which is at first in the category +of the not-obvious, into the category of the obvious. +It remains for a more sceptical type of mind--a later product +of human evolution--to question obvious facts, to explain them, +either, as in science, by establishing deeper and more far-reaching +correlations between phenomena, or in philosophy, by seeking +for the source and purpose of such facts, or, better still, +by both methods. + +Of the second class of facts--those common and obvious facts +which the primitive mind accepts at face-value and uses as the basis +of its explanations of such things as seem to it to stand in need +of explanation--one could hardly find a better instance than sex. +The universality of sex, and the intermittent character of +its phenomena, are both responsible for this. Indeed, the attitude +of mind I have referred to is not restricted to primitive man; +how many people to-day, for instance, just accept sex as a fact, +pleasant or unpleasant according to their predilections, +never querying, or feeling the need to query, its why and wherefore? +It is by no means surprising, that when man first felt the need +of satisfying himself as to the origin of the universe, he should have +done so by a theory founded on what he knew of his own generation. +Indeed, as I queried on a former occasion, what other source of +explanation was open to him? Of what other form of origin was he aware? +Seeing Nature springing to life at the kiss of the sun, what more +natural than that she should be regarded as the divine Mother, +who bears fruits because impregnated by the Sun-God? It is not +difficult to understand, therefore, why primitive man paid divine +honours to the organs of sex in man and woman, or to such things +as he considered symbolical of them--that is to say, to understand +the extensiveness of those religions which are grouped under the term +"phallicism". Nor, to my mind, is the symbol of sex a wholly +inadequate one under which to conceive of the origin of things. +And, as I have said before, that phallicism usually appears to have +degenerated into immorality of a very pronounced type is to be deplored, +but an immoral view of human relations is by no means a necessary +corollary to a sexual theory of the universe.[1] + + +[1] "The reverence as well as the worship paid to the phallus, in early +and primitive days, had nothing in it which partook of indecency; +all ideas connected with it were of a reverential and religious kind.... + +"The indecent ideas attached to the representation of the phallus were, +though it seems a paradox to say so, the results of a more advanced +civilization verging towards its decline, as we have evidence at +Rome and Pompeii.... + +"To the primitive man [the reproductive force which pervades +all nature] was the most mysterious of all manifestations. +The visible physical powers of nature--the sun, the sky, the storm-- +naturally claimed his reverence, but to him the generative power +was the most mysterious of all powers. In the vegetable world, +the live seed placed in the ground, and hence germinating, sprouting up, +and becoming a beautiful and umbrageous tree, was a mystery. +In the animal world, as the cause of all life, by which all beings +came into existence, this power was a mystery. In the view +of primitive man generation was the action of the Deity itself. +It was the mode in which He brought all things into existence, +the sun, the moon, the stars, the world, man were generated +by Him. To the productive power man was deeply indebted, for to it +he owed the harvests and the flocks which supported his life; +hence it naturally became an object of reverence and worship. + +"Primitive man wants some object to worship, for an abstract +idea is beyond his comprehension, hence a visible representation +of the generative Deity was made, with the organs contributing +to generation most prominent, and hence the organ itself became +a symbol of the power."--H, M. WESTROPP: _Primitive Symbolism +as Illustrated in Phallic Worship, or the Reproductive Principle_ +(1885), pp. 47, 48, and 57. {End of long footnote} + + +The Aruntas of Australia, I believe, when discovered by Europeans, +had not yet observed the connection between sexual intercourse and birth. +They believed that conception was occasioned by the woman passing +near a _churinga_--a peculiarly shaped piece of wood or stone, +in which a spirit-child was concealed, which entered into her. +But archaeological research having established the fact that phallicism has, +at one time or another, been common to nearly all races, it seems +probable that the Arunta tribe represents a deviation from the normal +line of mental evolution. At any rate, an isolated phenomenon, +such as this, cannot be held to controvert the view that regards +phallicism as in this normal line. Nor was the attitude of mind +that not only accepts sex at face-value as an obvious fact, but uses +the concept of it to explain other facts, a merely transitory one. +We may, indeed, not difficultly trace it throughout the history +of alchemy, giving rise to what I may term "The Phallic Element +in Alchemical Doctrine". + +In aiming to establish this, I may be thought to be endeavouring +to establish a counter-thesis to that of the preceding essay +on alchemy, but, in virtue of the alchemists' belief in the mystical +unity of all things, in the analogical or correspondential relationship +of all parts of the universe to each other, the mystical and the phallic +views of the origin of alchemy are complementary, not antagonistic. +Indeed, the assumption that the metals are the symbols of man almost +necessitates the working out of physiological as well as mystical analogies, +and these two series of analogies are themselves connected, because the +principle "As above, so below" was held to be true of man himself. +We might, therefore, expect to find a more or less complete harmony +between the two series of symbols, though, as a matter of fact, +contradictions will be encountered when we come to consider points of detail. +The undoubtable antiquity of the phallic element in alchemical doctrine +precludes the idea that this element was an adventitious one, that it +was in any sense an afterthought; notwithstanding, however, the evidence, +as will, I hope, become apparent as we proceed, indicates that mystical +ideas played a much more fundamental part in the genesis of alchemical +doctrine than purely phallic ones--mystical interpretations fit alchemical +processes and theories far better than do sexual interpretations; +in fact, sex has to be interpreted somewhat mystically in order to work +out the analogies fully and satisfactorily. + +As concerns Greek alchemy, I shall content myself with a passage +from a work _On the Sacred Art_, attributed to OLYMPIODORUS +(sixth century A.D.), followed by some quotations from and references +to the _Turba_. In the former work it is stated on the authority +of HORUS that "The proper end of the whole art is to obtain the semen +of the male secretly, seeing that all things are male and female. +Hence [we read further] Horus says in a certain place: +Join the male and the female, and you will find that which is sought; +as a fact, without this process of re-union, nothing can succeed, +for Nature charms Nature," _etc_. The _Turba_ insistently +commands those who would succeed in the Art, to conjoin the male +with the female,[1] and, in one place, the male is said to be +lead and the female orpiment.[2] We also find the alchemical +work symbolised by the growth of the embryo in the womb. +"Know," we are told, ". . . that out of the elect things +nothing becomes useful without conjunction and regimen, +because sperma is generated out of blood and desire. +For the man mingling with the woman, the sperm is nourished +by the humour of the womb, and by the moistening blood, +and by heat, and when forty nights have elapsed the sperm +is formed.... God has constituted that heat and blood for +the nourishment of the sperm until the foetus is brought forth. +So long as it is little, it is nourished with milk, and in proportion +as the vital heat is maintained, the bones are strengthened. +Thus it behoves you also to act in this Art."[3] + + +[1] _Vide_ pp. 60 92, 96 97, 134, 135 and elsewhere in +Mr WAITE'S translation. + +[2] _Ibid_., p. 57 + +[3] _Ibid_., pp. 179-181 (second recension); _cf_. pp. 103-104. + + +The use of the mystical symbols of death (putrefaction) and resurrection +or rebirth to represent the consummation of the alchemical work, +and that of the phallic symbols of the conjunction of the sexes +and the development of the foetus, both of which we have found +in the _Turba_, are current throughout the course of Latin alchemy. +In _The Chymical Marriage of Christian Rosencreutz_, that extraordinary +document of what is called "Rosicrucianism"--a symbolic +romance of considerable ability, whoever its author was,[1]-- +an attempt is made to weld the two sets of symbols--the one +of marriage, the other of death and resurrection unto glory-- +into one allegorical narrative; and it is to this fusion of seemingly +disparate concepts that much of its fantasticality is due. +Yet the concepts are not really disparate; for not only is +the second birth like unto the first, and not only is the +resurrection unto glory described as the Bridal Feast of the Lamb, +but marriage is, in a manner, a form of death and rebirth. +To justify this in a crude sense, I might say that, from the male +standpoint at least, it is a giving of the life-substance +to the beloved that life may be born anew and increase. +But in a deeper sense it is, or rather should be, as an ideal, +a mutual sacrifice of self for each other's good--a death +of the self that it may arise with an enriched personality. + + +[1] See Mr WAITE'S _The Real History of the Rosicrucians_ +(1887) for translation and discussion as to origin and significance. +The work was first published (in German) at Strassburg in 1616. + + +It is when we come to an examination of the ideas at the root of, +and associated with, the alchemical concept of "principles," that we +find some difficulty in harmonising the two series of symbols-- +the mystical and the phallic. In one place in the _Turba_ we +are directed "to take quicksilver, in which is the male potency +or strength";[2a] and this concept of mercury as male is quite +in accord with the mystical origin I have assigned in the preceding +excursion to the doctrine of the alchemical principles. +I have shown, I think, that salt, sulphur, and mercury are +the analogues _ex hypothesi_ of the body, soul (affection and +volition), and spirit (intelligence or understanding) +in man; and the affections are invariably regarded as +especially feminine, the understanding as especially masculine. +But it seems that the more common opinion, amongst Latin alchemists +at any rate, was that sulphur was male and mercury female. +Writes BERNARD of TREVISAN: "For the Matter suffereth, +and the Form acteth assimulating the Matter to itself, and according +to this manner the Matter naturally thirsteth after a Form, +as a Woman desireth an Husband, and a Vile thing a precious one, +and an impure a pure one, so also _Argent-vive_ coveteth a Sulphur, +as that which should make perfect which is imperfect: +So also a Body freely desireth a Spirit, whereby it may at length +arrive at its perfection."[1b] At the same time, however, Mercury was +regarded as containing in itself both male and female potencies-- +it was the product of male and female, and, thus, the seed +of all the metals. "Nothing in the World can be generated," +to repeat a quotation from BERNARD, without these two Substances, +to wit a Male and Female: From whence it appeareth, that although +these two substances are not of one and the same species, +yet one Stone cloth thence arise, and although they appear +and are said to be two Substances, yet in truth it is but one, +to wit, _Argent-vive_. But of this _Argent-vive_ a certain part +is fixed and digested, Masculine, hot, dry and secretly informing. +But the other, which is the Female, is volatile, crude, cold, +and moyst."[2b] EDWARD KELLY (1555-1595), who is valuable because +he summarises authoritative opinion, says somewhat the same thing, +though in clearer words: "The active elements . . . these are +water and fire . . . may be called male, while the passive +elements . . . earth and air . . . represent the female +principle.... Only two elements, water and earth, are visible, +and earth is called the hiding-place of fire, water the abode of air. +In these two elements we have the broad law of limitation which +divides the male from the female. . . . The first matter of minerals +is a kind of viscous water, mingled with pure and impure earth. +. . . Of this viscous water and fusible earth, or sulphur, is composed +that which is called quicksilver, the first matter of the metals. +Metals are nothing but Mercury digested by different degrees of +heat."[1c] There is one difference, however, between these two writers, +inasmuch as BERNARD says that "the Male and Female abide together +in closed Natures; the Female truly as it were Earth and Water, +the Male as Air and Fire." Mercury for him arises from the two +former elements, sulphur from the two latter.[2c] And the difference +is important as showing beyond question the _a priori_ nature +of alchemical reasoning. The idea at the back of the alchemists' +minds was undoubtedly that of the ardour of the male in the act +of coition and the alleged, or perhaps I should say apparent, +passivity of the female. Consequently, sulphur, the fiery principle +of combustion, and such elements as were reckoned to be active, +were denominated "male," whilst mercury, the principle acted +on by sulphur, and such elements as were reckoned to be passive, +were denominated "female". As to the question of origin, +I do not think that the palm can be denied to the mystical +as distinguished from the phallic theory. And in its final form +the doctrine of principles is incapable of a sexual interpretation. +Mystically understood, man is capable of analysis into two principles-- +since "body" may be neglected as unimportant (a false view, I think, +by the way) or "soul" and "spirit" may be united under one head-- +OR into three; whereas the postulation of THREE principles on a sexual +basis is impossible. JOANNES ISAACUS HOLLANDUS (fifteenth century) +is the earliest author in whose works I have observed explicit +mention of THREE principles, though he refers to them in a manner +seeming to indicate that the doctrine was no new one in his day. +I have only read one little tract of his; there is nothing sexual in it, +and the author's mental character may be judged from his remarks +concerning "the three flying spirits"--taste, smell, and colour. +These, he writes, "are the life, soule, and quintessence +of every thing, neither can these three spirits be one without +the other, as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are one, +yet three Persons, and one is not without the other."[1d] + + +[2a] Mr WAITE's translation, p. 79. + +[1b] BERNARD, Earl of TREVISAN: _A Treatise of the +Philosopher's Stone_, 1683. (See _Collectanea Chymica: A Collection +of Ten Several Treatises in Chymistry_, 1684, p. 92.) + +[2b] _Ibid_., p. 91. + +[1c] EDWARD KELLY: _The Stone of the Philosophers_. +(See _The Alchemical Writings of_ EDWARD KELLY, edited by +A. E. WAITE, 1893, pp. 9 and 11 to 13.) + +[2c] _The Answer of_ BERNARDUS TREVISANUS, _to the Epistle +of Thomas of Bononira, Physician to K. Charles the 8th_. +(See JOHN FREDERICK HOUPREGHT: _Aurifontina Chymica_, 1680, p. 208.) + +[1d] _One Hundred and Fourteen Experiments and Cures of +the Famous Physitian_ THEOPHRASTUS PARACELSUS. _Whereunto is +added . . . certain Secrets of_ ISAAC HOLLANDUS, +_concerning the Vegetall and Animall Work_ (1652), pp. +29 and 30. + +When the alchemists described an element or principle as male or female, +they meant what they said, as I have already intimated, to the extent, +at least, of firmly believing that seed was produced by the two +metallic sexes. By their union metals were thought to be produced +in the womb of the earth; and mines were shut in order that by the birth +and growth of new metal the impoverished veins might be replenished. +In this way, too, was the _magnum opus_, the generation of the +Philosopher's Stone--in species gold, but purer than the purest-- +to be accomplished. To conjoin that which Nature supplied, to foster +the growth and development of that which was thereby produced; +such was the task of the alchemist. "For there are Vegetables," +says BERNARD of TREVISAN in his _Answer to Thomas of Bononia_, +"but Sensitives more especially, which for the most part beget their like, +by the Seeds of the Male and Female for the most part concurring +and conmixt by copulation; which work of Nature the Philosophick Art +imitates in the generation of gold."[1] + + +[1] _Op. cit_., p. 216. + + +Mercury, as I have said, was commonly regarded as the seed of the metals, +or as especially the female seed, there being two seeds, one the male, +according to BERNARD, more ripe, perfect and active, the other the female. +"more immature and in a sort passive[2] ". . . our Philosophick Art," +he says in another place, following a description of the generation of man, +" . . . is like this procreation of Man; for as in _Mercury_ (of which Gold +is by Nature generated in Mineral Vessels) a natural conjunction + + +[2] _Ibid_., p. 217; _cf_. p. 236 is made of both the Seeds, Male +and Female, so by our artifice, an artificial and like conjunction +is made of Agents and Patients."[1] "All teaching," says KELLY, +"that changes Mercury is false and vain, for this is the original sperm +of metals, and its moisture must not be dried up, for otherwise it +will not dissolve,"[2] and quotes ARNOLD (_ob. c_. 1310) to a similar +effect.[3] One wonders how far the fact that human and animal seed +is fluid influenced the alchemists in their choice of mercury, the only +metal liquid at ordinary temperatures, as the seed of the metals. +There are, indeed, other good reasons for this choice, but that this +idea played some part in it, and, at least, was present at the back +of the alchemists' minds, I have little doubt. + +The most philosophic account of metallic seed is that, perhaps, +of the mysterious adept "EIRENAEUS PHILALETHES," who distinguishes +between it and mercury in a rather interesting manner. +He writes: "Seed is the means of generic propagation given to all +perfect things here below; it is the perfection of each body; +and anybody that has no seed must be regarded as imperfect. +Hence there can be no doubt that there is such a thing +as metallic seed.... All metallic seed is the seed of gold; +for gold is the intention of Nature in regard to all metals. +If the base metals are not gold, it is only through some +accidental hindrance; they are-all potentially gold. +But, of course, this seed of gold is most easily obtainable +from well-matured gold itself.... Remember that I am now speaking +of metallic seed, and not of Mercury.... The seed of metals is +hidden out of sight still more completely than that of animals; +nevertheless, it is within the compass of our Art to extract it. +The seed of animals and vegetables is something separate, +and may be cut out, or otherwise separately exhibited; but metallic +seed is diffused throughout the metal, and contained in all its +smallest parts; neither can it be discerned from its body: +its extraction is therefore a task which may well tax the ingenuity +of the most experienced philosopher; the virtues of the whole +metal have to be intensified, so as to convert it into the sperm +of our seed, which, by circulation, receives the virtues of superiors +and inferiors, then next becomes wholly form, or heavenly virtue, +which can communicate this to others related to it by homogeneity +of matter. . . . The place in which the seed resides is-- +approximately speaking--water; for, to speak properly and exactly, +the seed is the smallest part of the metal, and is invisible; +but as this invisible presence is diffused throughout +the water of its kind, and exerts its virtue therein, +nothing being visible to the eye but water, we are left +to conclude from rational induction that this inward agent +(which is, properly speaking, the seed) is really there. +Hence we call the whole of the water seed, just as we call +the whole of the grain seed, though the germ of life is only +a smallest particle of the grain."[1b] + + + +[1] _The Answer of_ BERNARDUS TREVISANUS, _etc_. _Op. cit_. p. 218. + +[2] _op. cit_., p. 22. + +[3] _Ibid_., p. 16. + +[1b] EIRENAEUS PHILALETHES: _The Metamorphosis of Metals_. +(See _The Hermetic Museum_, vol. ii. pp. 238-240.) + + +To say that "PHILALETHES' " seed resembles the modern electron is, +perhaps, to draw a rather fanciful analogy, since the electron is +a very precise idea, the result of the mathematical interpretation +of the results of exact experimentation. But though it would be +absurd to speak of this concept of the one seed of all metals as an +anticipation of the electron, to apply the expression "metallic seed" +to the electron, now that the concept of it has been reached, +does not seem so absurd. + +According to "PHILALETHES," the extraction of the seed +is a very difficult process, accomplishable, however, +by the aid of mercury--the water homogeneous therewith. +Mercury, again, is the form of the seed thereby obtained. +He writes: "When the sperm hidden in the body of gold is brought +out by means of our Art, it appears under the form of Mercury, +whence it is exalted into the quintessence which is first white, +and then, by means of continuous coction, becomes red." And again: +"There is a womb into which the gold (if placed therein) +will, of its own accord, emit its seed, until it is debilitated +and dies, and by its death is renewed into a most glorious King, +who thenceforward receives power to deliver all his brethren +from the fear of death."[1] + + +[1] EIRENAEUS PHILALETHES: _The Metamorphosis of Metals_. +(See _The Hermetic Museum_, vol. ii. pp. 241 and 244.) + + +The fifteenth-century alchemist THOMAS NORTON was peculiar +in his views, inasmuch as he denied that metals have seed. +He writes: "Nature never multiplies anything, except in +either one or the other of these two ways: either by decay, +which we call putrefaction, or, in the case of animate creatures, +by propagation. In the case of metals there can be no propagation, +though our Stone exhibits something like it.... Nothing +can be multiplied by inward action unless it belong to +the vegetable kingdom, or the family of sensitive creatures. +But the metals are elementary objects, and possess neither +seed nor sensation."[1] + + +[1] THOMAS NORTON: _The Ordinal of Alchemy_. (See _The Hermetic Museum_, +vol. ii. pp. 15 and 16.) + + +His theory of the origin of the metals is astral rather than phallic. +"The only efficient cause of metals," he says, "is the mineral virtue, +which is not found in every kind of earth, but only in certain places and +chosen mines, into which the celestial sphere pours its rays in a straight +direction year by year, and according to the arrangement of the metallic +substance in these places, this or that metal is gradually formed."[2] + + +[2] _Ibid_., pp. 15 and 16. + + +In view of the astrological symbolism of these metals, that gold +should be masculine, silver feminine, does not surprise us, +because the idea of the masculinity of the sun and the femininity +of the moon is a bit of phallicism that still remains with us. +It was by the marriage of gold and silver that very many +alchemists considered that the _magnum opus_ was to be achieved. +Writes BERNARD of TREVISAN: "The subject of this admired Science +[alchemy] is _Sol_ and _Luna_, or rather Male and Female, +the Male is hot and dry, the Female cold and moyst." +The aim of the work, he tells us, is the extraction of the spirit +of gold, which alone can enter into bodies and tinge them. +Both _Sol_ and _Luna_ are absolutely necessary, and "whoever . . . +shall think that a Tincture can be made without these two Bodyes, +. . . he proceedeth to the Practice like one that is blind."[1] + + +[1] BERNARD, Earl of TREVISAN: _A Treatise, etc., Op. cit_. pp. 83 and 87. + + +KELLY has teaching to the same effect, the Mercury of the +Philosophers being for him the menstruum or medium wherein +the copulation of Gold with Silver is to be accomplished. +Mercury, in fact, seems to have been everything and to +have been capable of effecting everything in the eyes of +the alchemists. Concerning gold and silver, KELLY writes: +"Only one metal, viz. gold, is absolutely perfect and mature. +Hence it is called the perfect male body. . . Silver is less +bounded by aqueous immaturity than the rest of the metals, +though it may indeed be regarded as to a certain extent impure, +still its water is already covered with the congealing +vesture of its earth, and it thus tends to perfection. +This condition is the reason why silver is everywhere called +by the Sages the perfect female body." And later he writes: +"In short, our whole Magistery consists in the union of the male +and female, or active and passive, elements through the mediation +of our metallic water and a proper degree of heat. Now, the male +and female are two metallic bodies, and this I will again prove +by irrefragable quotations from the Sages." Some of the quotations +will be given: "Avicenna: `Purify husband and wife separately, +in order that they may unite more intimately; for if you do not +purify them, they cannot love each other. By conjunction of the two +natures you get a clear and lucid nature, which, when it ascends, +becomes bright and serviceable.' . . . Senior: `I, the Sun, +am hot and dry, and thou, the Moon, are cold and moist; +when we are wedded together in a closed chamber, I will +gently steal away thy soul.' . . . Rosinus: `When the Sun, +my brother, for the love of me (silver) pours his sperm +(_i.e_. his solar fatness) into the chamber (_i.e_. my Lunar +body), namely, when we become one in a strong and complete +complexion and union, the child of our wedded love will be born.' +. . . `Rosary': `The ferment of the Sun is the sperm of the man, +the ferment of the Moon, the sperm of the woman. Of both we get +a chaste union and a true generation.' . . . Aristotle: `Take your +beloved son, and wed him to his sister, his white sister, +in equal marriage, and give them the cup of love, for it +is a food which prompts to union.' "[1a] KELLY, of course, +accepts the traditional authorship of the works from which +he quotes, though in many cases such authorship is doubtful, +to say the least. The alchemical works ascribed to ARISTOTLE +(384-322 B.C.), for instance, are beyond question forgeries. +Indeed, the symbol of a union between brother and sister, +here quoted, could hardly be held as acceptable to Greek thought, +to which incest was the most abominable and unforgiveable sin. +It seems likelier that it originated with the Egyptians, +to whom such unions were tolerable in fact. The symbol is often +met with in Latin alchemy. MICHAEL MAIER (1568-1622) also says: +"_conjunge fratrem cum sorore et propina illis poculum amoris_," +the words forming a motto to a picture of a man and woman clasped +in each other's arms, to whom an older man offers a goblet. +This symbolic picture occurs in his _Atalanta Fugiens, +hoc est, Emblemata nova de Secretis Naturae Chymica, etc_. +(Oppenheim, 1617). This work is an exceedingly curious one. +It consists of a number of carefully executed pictures, +each accompanied by a motto, a verse of poetry set to music, +with a prose text. Many of the pictures are phallic in conception, +and practically all of them are anthropomorphic. Not only the primary +function of sex, but especially its secondary one of lactation, +is made use of. The most curious of these emblematic pictures, +perhaps, is one symbolising the conjunction of gold and silver. +It shows on the right a man and woman, representing the sun and moon, +in the act of coition, standing up to the thighs in a lake. +On the left, on a hill above the lake, a woman (with the moon as halo) +gives birth to a child. A boy is coming out of the water +towards her. The verse informs us that: "The bath glows +red at the conception of the boy, the air at his birth." +We learn also that "there is a stone, and yet there is not, +which is the noble gift of God. If God grants it, fortunate will +be he who shall receive it."[1] + + +[1a] EDWARD KELLY: _The Stone of the Philosophers, Op. +cit_., pp 13, 14, 33, 35, 36, 38-40, and 47. + +[1] _Op. Cit_., p. 145 + + +Concerning the nature of gold, there is a discussion in _The Answer of_ +BERNARDUS TREVISANUS _to the Epistle of Thomas of Bononia_, with which I +shall close my consideration of the present aspect of the subject. +Its interest for us lies in the arguments which are used and held +to be valid. "Besides, you say that Gold, as most think, is nothing +else than _Quick-silver_ coagulated naturally by the force of _Sulphur_; +yet so, that nothing of the _Sulphur_ which generated the Gold, +cloth remain in the substance of the Gold: as in an humane _Embryo_, +when it is conceived in the Womb, there remains nothing of the +Father's Seed, according to _Aristotle's_ opinion, but the Seed +of the Man cloth only coagulate the _menstrual_ blood of the Woman: +in the same manner you say, that after _Quick-silver_ is so coagulated, +the form of Gold is perfected in it, by virtue of the Heavenly Bodies, +and especially of the Sun.[1] BERNARD, however, decides against this view, +holding that gold contains both mercury and sulphur, for "we must not imagine, +according to their mistake who say, that the Male Agent himself approaches +the Female in the coagulation, and departs afterwards; because, as is +known in every generation, the conception is active and passive: +Both the active and the passive, that is, all the four Elements, +must always abide together, otherwise there would be no mixture, +and the hope of generating an off-spring would be extinguished."[2] + + +[1] _Op. cit_., pp. 206 and 207. + +[2] _Ibid_., pp. 212 and 213. + + +In conclusion, I wish to say something of the role of sex +in spiritual alchemy. But in doing this I am venturing +outside the original field of inquiry of this essay +and making a by no means necessary addition to my thesis; +and I am anxious that what follows should be understood as such, +so that no confusion as to the issues may arise. + +In the great alchemical collection of J. J. MANGET, there is a +curious work (originally published in 1677), entitled _Mutus Liber_, +which consists entirely of plates, without letterpress. +Its interest for us in our present concern is that the alchemist, +from the commencement of the work until its achievement, is shown +working in conjunction with a woman. We are reminded of NICOLAS FLAMEL +(1330-1418), who is reputed to have achieved the _magnum opus_ +together with his wife PERNELLE, as well as of the many other women +workers in the Art of whom we read. It would be of interest in this +connection to know exactly what association of ideas was present +in the mind of MICHAEL MAIER when he commanded the alchemist: +"Perform a work of women on the molten white lead, that is, cook,"[1a] and +illustrated his behest with a picture of a pregnant woman watching +a fire over which is suspended a cauldron and on which are three jars. +There is a cat in the background, and a tub containing two fish in +the foreground, the whole forming a very curious collection of emblems. +Mr WAITE, who has dealt with some of these matters, luminously, +though briefly, says: "The evidences with which we have been dealing +concern solely the physical work of alchemy and there is nothing of its +mystical aspects. The _Mutus Liber_ is undoubtedly on the literal +side of metallic transmutation; the memorials of Nicholas Flamel are +also on that side," _etc_. He adds, however, that "It is on record +that an unknown master testified to his possession of the mystery, +but he added that he had not proceeded to the work because he had +failed to meet with an elect woman who was necessary thereto"; +and proceeds to say: "I suppose that the statement will awaken +in most minds only a vague sense of wonder, and I can merely +indicate in a few general words that which I see behind it. +Those Hermetic texts which bear a spiritual interpretation and are +as if a record of spiritual experience present, like the literature +of physical alchemy, the following aspects of symbolism: +(_a_) the marriage of sun and moon; (_b_) of a mystical king and queen; +(_c_) an union between natures which are one at the root but diverse +in manifestation; (_d_) a transmutation which follows this union +and an abiding glory therein. It is ever a conjunction between male +and female in a mystical sense; it is ever the bringing together +by art of things separated by an imperfect order of things; +it is ever the perfection of natures by means of this conjunction. +But if the mystical work of alchemy is an inward work in consciousness, +then the union between male and female is an union in consciousness; +and if we remember the traditions of a state when male and female had +not as yet been divided, it may dawn upon us that the higher alchemy +was a practice for the return into this ineffable mode of being. +The traditional doctrine is set forth in the _Zohar_ and it is found +in writers like Jacob Boehme; it is intimated in the early chapters +of Genesis and, according to an apocryphal saying of Christ, +the kingdom of heaven will be manifested when two shall be as one, +or when that state has been once again attained. In the light +of this construction we can understand why the mystical adept went +in search of a wise woman with whom the work could be performed; +but few there be that find her, and he confessed to his own failure. +The part of woman in the physical practice of alchemy is +like a reflection at a distance of this more exalted process, +and there is evidence that those who worked in metals and sought +for a material elixir knew that there were other and greater aspects +of the Hermetic mystery."[1b] + + +[1a] MICHAEL MATER: _Atalanta Fugiens_ (1617), p. 97. + +[1b] A E. WAITE: "Woman and the Hermetic Mystery," _The Occult Review_ (June +1912), vol. xv. pp. 325 and 326. + + +So far Mr WAITE, whose impressive words I have quoted at some length; +and he has given us a fuller account of the theory as found in +the _Zohar_ in his valuable work on _The Secret Doctrine in Israel_ +(1913). The _Zohar_ regards marriage and the performance of the sexual +function in marriage as of supreme importance, and this not merely +because marriage symbolises a divine union, unless that expression +is held to include all that logically follows from the fact, +but because, as it seems, the sexual act in marriage may, in fact, +become a ritual of transcendental magic. + +At least three varieties of opinion can be traced from the view of sex +we have under consideration, as to the nature of the perfect man, +and hence of the most adequate symbol for transmutation. +According to one, and this appears to have been JACOB BOEHME'S view, +the perfect man is conceived of as non-sexual, the male and female +elements united in him having, as it were, neutralised each other. +According to another, he is pictured as a hermaphroditic being, +a concept we frequently come across in alchemical literature. +It plays a prominent part in MAIER'S book _Atalanta Fugiens_, +to which reference has already been made. MAIER'S hermaphrodite +has two heads, one male, one female, but only one body, one pair +of arms, and one pair of legs. The two sexual organs, which are +placed side by side, are delineated in the illustrations with +considerable care, showing the importance MAIER attached to the idea. +This concept seems to me not only crude, but unnatural and repellent. +But it may be said of both the opinions I have mentioned, +that they confuse between union and identity. It is the old mistake, +with respect to a lesser goal, of those who hope for absorption +in the Divine Nature and consequent loss of personality. +It seems to be forgotten that a certain degree of distinction is +necessary to the joy of union. "Distinction" and "separation," it +should be remembered, have different connotations. If the supreme +joy is that of self-sacrifice, then the self must be such that it can +be continually sacrificed, else the joy is a purely transitory one, +or rather, is destroyed at the moment of its consummation. +Hence, though sacrificed, the self must still remain itself. + +The third view of perfection, to which these remarks naturally lead, +is that which sees it typified in marriage. The mystic-philosopher +SWEDENBORG has some exceedingly suggestive things to say on the matter +in his extraordinary work on _Conjugial Love_, which, curiously enough, +seem largely to have escaped the notice of students of these high mysteries. + +SWEDENBORG'S heaven is a sexual heaven, because for him sex is primarily +a spiritual fact, and only secondarily, and because of what it is primarily, +a physical fact; and salvation is hardly possible, according to him, +apart from a genuine marriage (whether achieved here or hereafter). Man +and woman are considered as complementary beings, and it is only through +the union of one man with one woman that the perfect angel results. +The altruistic tendency of such a theory as contrasted with +the egotism of one in which perfection is regarded as obtainable +by each personality of itself alone, is a point worth emphasising. +As to the nature of this union, it is, to use SWEDENBORG'S own terms, +a conjunction of the will of the wife with the understanding of the man, +and reciprocally of the understanding of the man with the will of the wife. +It is thus a manifestation of that fundamental marriage between +the good and the true which is at the root of all existence; +and it is because of this fundamental marriage that all men and women +are born into the desire to complete themselves by conjunction. +The symbol of sexual intercourse is a legitimate one to use in speaking +of this heavenly union; indeed, we may describe the highest bliss +attainable by the soul, or conceivable by the mind, as a spiritual orgasm. +Into conjugal love "are collected," says SWEDENBORG, +"all the blessednesses, blissfulnesses, delightsomenesses, +pleasantnesses, and pleasures, which could possibly be conferred +upon man by the Lord the Creator."[1] In another place he writes: +"Married partners [in heaven] enjoy similar intercourse with +each other as in the world, but more delightful and blessed; +yet without prolification, for which, or in place of which, +they have spiritual prolification, which is that of love and wisdom." +"The reason," he adds, "why the intercourse then is more delightful +and blessed is, that when conjugial love becomes of the spirit, +it becomes more interior and pure, and consequently more perceptible; +and every delightsomeness grows according to the perception, and grows +even until its blessedness is discernible in its delightsomeness."[1b] +Such love, however, he says, is rarely to be found on earth. + + +[1] EMANUEL SWEDENBORG: _The Delights of Wisdom relating to Conjugial Love_ +(trans. by A. H. SEARLE, 1891), SE 68. + +[1b] EMANUEL SWEDENBORG: _Op. cit_., SE 51. + + +A learned Japanese speaks with approval of Idealism as a +"dream where sensuousness and spirituality find themselves +to be blood brothers or sisters."[2] It is a statement +which involves either the grossest and most dangerous error, +or the profoundest truth, according to the understanding of it. +Woman is a road whereby man travels either to God or the devil. +The problem of sex is a far deeper problem than appears at +first sight, involving mysteries both the direst and most holy. +It is by no means a fantastic hypothesis that the inmost mystery +of what a certain school of mystics calls "the Secret Tradition" +was a sexual one. At any rate, the fact that some of those, +at least, to whom alchemy connoted a mystical process, +were alive to the profound spiritual significance of sex, +renders of double interest what they have to intimate of +the achievement of the _Magnum Opus_ in man. + + +[2] YONE NOGUCHI: _The Spirit of Japanese Art_ (1915), p. 37. + + + +XI + +ROGER BACON: AN APPRECIATION + +IT has been said that "a prophet is not without honour, +save in his own country." Thereto might be added, "and in +his own time"; for, whilst there is continuity in time, +there is also evolution, and England of to-day, for instance, +is not the same country as England of the Middle Ages. In his own +day ROGER BACON was accounted a magician, whose heretical views +called for suppression by the Church. And for many a long day +afterwards was he mainly remembered as a co-worker in the black +art with Friar BUNGAY, who together with him constructed, +by the aid of the devil and diabolical rites, a brazen head which +should possess the power of speech--the experiment only failing +through the negligence of an assistant.[1] Such was ROGER BACON +in the memory of the later Middle Ages and many succeeding years; +he was the typical alchemist, where that term carries with it +the depth of disrepute, though indeed alchemy was for him but one, +and that not the greatest, of many interests. + + +[1] The story, of course, is entirely fictitious. For further particulars +see Sir J. E. SANDYS' essay on "Roger Bacon in English Literature," +in _Roger Bacon Essays_ (1914), referred to below. + + +Ilchester, in Somerset, claims the honour of being the place of ROGER BACON'S +birth, which interesting and important event occurred, probably, in 1214. +Young BACON studied theology, philosophy, and what then passed under +the name of "science," first at Oxford, then the centre of liberal thought, +and afterwards at Paris, in the rigid orthodoxy of whose professors +he found more to criticise than to admire. Whilst at Oxford he joined +the Franciscan Order, and at Paris he is said, though this is probably +an error, to have graduated as Doctor of Theology. During 1250-1256 +we find him back in England, no doubt engaged in study and teaching. +About the latter year, however, he is said to have been banished-- +on a charge of holding heterodox views and indulging in magical practices-- +to Paris, where he was kept in close confinement and forbidden to write. +Mr LITTLE,[1] however, believes this to be an error, based on a misreading +of a passage in one of BACON'S works, and that ROGER was not imprisoned, +but stricken with sickness. At any rate it is not improbable that some +restrictions as to his writing were placed on him by his superiors of +the Franciscan Order. In 1266 BACON received a letter from Pope CLEMENT +asking him to send His Holiness his works in writing without delay. +This letter came as a most pleasant surprise to BACON; but he had nothing +of importance written, and in great haste and excite-ment, therefore, +he composed three works explicating his philosophy, the _Opus Majus_, +the _Opus Minus_, and the _Opus Tertium_, which were completed and dispatched +to the Pope by the end of the following year. This, as Mr ROWBOTTOM remarks, +is "surely one of the literary feats of history, perhaps only surpassed +by Swedenborg when he wrote six theological and philosophical treatises +in one year."[1b] + + +[1] See his contribution, "On Roger Bacon's Life and Works," +to _Roger Bacon Essays_. + +[1b] B. R. ROWBOTTOM: "Roger Bacon," _The Journal of the +Alchemical Society_, vol. ii. (1914), p. 77. + + + +The works appear to have been well received. We next find +BACON at Oxford writing his _Compendium Studii Philosophiae_, +in which work he indulged in some by no means unjust criticisms +of the clergy, for which he fell under the condemnation of his order, +and was imprisoned in 1277 on a charge of teaching "suspected +novelties". In those days any knowledge of natural phenomena beyond +that of the quasi-science of the times was regarded as magic, +and no doubt some of ROGER BACON'S "suspected novelties" +were of this nature; his recognition of the value of the writings +of non-Christian moralists was, no doubt, another "suspected novelty". +Appeals for his release directed to the Pope proved fruitless, +being frustrated by JEROME D'ASCOLI, General of the Franciscan Order, +who shortly afterwards succeeded to the Holy See under the title +of NICHOLAS IV. The latter died in 1292, whereupon RAYMOND GAUFREDI, +who had been elected General of the Franciscan Order, and who, +it is thought, was well disposed towards BACON, because of certain +alchemical secrets the latter had revealed to him, ordered his release. +BACON returned to Oxford, where he wrote his last work, +the _Compendium Studii Theologiae_. He died either in this year +or in 1294.[1] + + +[1] For further details concerning BACON'S life, EMILE CHARLES: _Roger Bacon, +sa Vie, ses Ouvrages, ses Doctrines_ (1861); J. H. BRIDGES: _The Life +& Work of Roger Bacon, an Introduction to the Opus Majus_ (edited by +H. G. JONES, 1914); and Mr A. G. LITTLE'S essay in _Roger Bacon Essays_, +may be consulted. + + +It was not until the publication by Dr SAMUEL JEBB, in 1733, +of the greater part of BACON'S _Opus Majus_, nearly four +and a half centuries after his death, that anything like his +rightful position in the history of philosophy began to be +assigned to him. But let his spirit be no longer troubled, +if it were ever troubled by neglect or slander, for the world, +and first and foremost his own country, has paid him due honour. +His septcentenary was duly celebrated in 1914 at his _alma +mater_, Oxford, his statue has there been raised as a memorial +to his greatness, and savants have meted out praise to him +in no grudging tones.[2] Indeed, a voice has here and there +been heard depreciating his better-known namesake FRANCIS,[3] +so that the later luminary should not, standing in the way, +obscure the light of the earlier; though, for my part, +I would suggest that one need not be so one-eyed as to fail +to see both lights at once. + +[2] See _Roger Bacon, Essays contributed by various Writers on the Occasion +of the Commemoration of the Seventh Centenary of his Birth_. Collected and +edited by A. G. LITTLE (1914); also Sir J. E. SANDYS' _Roger Bacon_ +(from _The Proceedings of the British Association_, vol. vi., 1914). + +[3] For example, that of ERNST DUHRING. See an article entitled +"The Two Bacons," translated from his _Kritische Geschichte der +Philosophie_ in _The Open Court_ for August 1914. + + +To those who like to observe coincidences, it may be of interest that +the septcentenary of the discoverer of gunpowder should have coincided +with the outbreak of the greatest war under which the world has yet groaned, +even though gunpowder is no longer employed as a military propellant. + +BACON'S reference to gunpowder occurs in his _Epistola de +Secretis Operibus Artis et Naturae, et de Nullitate Magiae_ (Hamburg, 1618) +a little tract written against magic, in which he endeavours to show, +and succeeds very well in the first eight chapters, that Nature +and art can perform far more extraordinary feats than are claimed +by the workers in the black art. The last three chapters are written +in an alchemical jargon of which even one versed in the symbolic +language of alchemy can make no sense. They are evidently cryptogramic, +and probably deal with the preparation and purification of saltpetre, +which had only recently been discovered as a distinct body.[1] In +chapter xi. there is reference to an explosive body, which can +only be gunpowder; by means of it, says BACON, you may, "if you +know the trick, produce a bright flash and a thundering noise." +He mentions two of the ingredients, saltpetre and sulphur, +but conceals the third (_i.e_. charcoal) under an anagram. +Claims have, indeed, been put forth for the Greek, Arab, Hindu, and Chinese +origins of gunpowder, but a close examination of the original ancient +accounts purporting to contain references to gunpowder, shows that +only incendiary and not explosive bodies are really dealt with. +But whilst ROGER BACON knew of the explosive property of a mixture +in right proportions of sulphur, charcoal, and pure saltpetre +(which he no doubt accidentally hit upon whilst experimenting +with the last-named body), he was unaware of its projective power. +That discovery, so detrimental to the happiness of man ever since, +was, in all probability, due to BERTHOLD SCHWARZ about 1330. + + +[1] For an attempted explanation of this cryptogram, +and evidence that BACON was the discoverer of gunpowder, +see Lieut.-Col. H. W. L. HIME'S _Gunpowder and Ammunition: +their Origin and Progress_ (1904). + + +ROGER BACON has been credited[1] with many other discoveries. +In the work already referred to he allows his imagination freely +to speculate as to the wonders that might be accomplished by a +scientific utilisation of Nature's forces--marvellous things +with lenses, in bringing distant objects near and so forth, +carriages propelled by mechanical means, flying machines . . .-- +but in no case is the word "discovery" in any sense applicable, +for not even in the case of the telescope does BACON describe +means by which his speculations might be realised. + +[1] For instance by Mr M. M. P. MUIR. See his contribution, +on "Roger Bacon: His Relations to Alchemy and Chemistry," +to _Roger Bacon Essays_. + + +On the other hand, ROGER BACON has often been maligned for his +beliefs in astrology and alchemy, but, as the late Dr BRIDGES +(who was quite sceptical of the claims of both) pointed out, +not to have believed in them in BACON'S day would have been +rather an evidence of mental weakness than otherwise. +What relevant facts were known supported alchemical and +astrological hypotheses. Astrology, Dr BRIDGES writes, +"conformed to the first law of Comte's _philosophia prima_, +as being the best hypothesis of which ascertained phenomena +admitted."[1] And in his alchemical speculations BACON was much +in advance of his contemporaries, and stated problems which are +amongst those of modern chemistry. + + +[1] _Op. cit_., p.84. + + +ROGER BACON'S greatness does not lie in the fact that he discovered +gunpowder, nor in the further fact that his speculations have been +validated by other men. His greatness lies in his secure grip +of scientific method as a combination of mathematical reasoning +and experiment. Men before him had experimented, but none seemed +to have realised the importance of the experimental method. +Nor was he, of course, by any means the first mathematician-- +there was a long line of Greek and Arabian mathematicians behind him, +men whose knowledge of the science was in many cases much greater +than his--or the most learned mathematician of his day; but none +realised the importance of mathematics as an organon of scientific +research as he did; and he was assuredly the priest who joined +mathematics to experiment in the bonds of sacred matrimony. +We must not, indeed, look for precise rules of inductive reasoning +in the works of this pioneer writer on scientific method. +Nor do we find really satisfactory rules of induction even in the works +of FRANCIS BACON. Moreover, the latter despised mathematics, +and it was not until in quite recent years that the scientific +world came to realise that ROGER'S method is the more fruitful-- +witness the modern revolution in chemistry produced by the adoption +of mathematical methods. + +ROGER BACON, it may be said, was many centuries in advance of his time; +but it is equally true that he was the child of his time; +this may account for his defects judged by modern standards. +He owed not a little to his contemporaries: for his knowledge +and high estimate of philosophy he was largely indebted to his Oxford +master GROSSETESTE (_c_. 1175--1253), whilst PETER PEREGRINUS, +his friend at Paris, fostered his love of experiment, +and the Arab mathematicians, whose works he knew, inclined his mind +to mathematical studies. He was violently opposed to the scholastic +views current in Paris at his time, and attacked great thinkers +like THOMAS AQUINAS (_c_. 1225-1274) and ALBERTUS MAGNUS +(1193-1280), as well as obscurantists, such as ALEXANDER of HALES +(_ob_. 1245). But he himself was a scholastic philosopher, +though of no servile type, taking part in scholastic arguments. +If he declared that he would have all the works of ARISTOTLE burned, +it was not because he hated the Peripatetic's philosophy-- +though he could criticise as well as appreciate at times,-- +but because of the rottenness of the translations that were then used. +It seems commonplace now, but it was a truly wonderful thing then: +ROGER BACON believed in accuracy, and was by no means destitute +of literary ethics. He believed in correct translation, +correct quotation, and the acknowledgment of the sources +of one's quotations--unheard-of things, almost, in those days. +But even he was not free from all the vices of his age: +in spite of his insistence upon experimental verification of the +conclusions of deductive reasoning, in one place, at least, he adopts +a view concerning lenses from another writer, of which the simplest +attempt at such verification would have revealed the falsity. +For such lapses, however, we can make allowances. + +Another and undeniable claim to greatness rests on ROGER BACON'S +broad-mindedness. He could actually value at their true worth +the moral philosophies of non-Christian writers--SENECA (_c_. 5 +B.C.- A.D. 65) and AL GHAZZALI (1058--1111), for instance. +But if he was catholic in the original meaning of that term, +he was also catholic in its restricted sense. He was no heretic: +the Pope for him was the Vicar of CHRIST, whom he wished +to see reign over the whole world, not by force of arms, +but by the assimilation of all that was worthy in that world. +To his mind--and here he was certainly a child of his age, in its +best sense, perhaps--all other sciences were handmaidens to theology, +queen of them all. All were to be subservient to her aims: +the Church he called "Catholic" was to embrace in her arms +all that was worthy in the works of "profane" writers-- +true prophets of God, he held, in so far as writing worthily +they unconsciously bore testimony to the truth of Christianity,-- +and all that Nature might yield by patient experiment and +speculation guided by mathematics. Some minds see in this a defect +in his system, which limited his aims and outlook; others see +it as the unifying principle giving coherence to the whole. +At any rate, the Church, as we have seen, regarded his views +as dangerous, and restrained his pen for at least a considerable +portion of his life. + +ROGER BACON may seem egotistic in argument, but his mind was humble +to learn. He was not superstitious, but he would listen to common +folk who worked with their hands, to astrologers, and even magicians, +denying nothing which seemed to him to have some evidence in experience: +if he denied much of magical belief, it was because he found it +lacking in such evidence. He often went astray in his views; +he sometimes failed to apply his own method, and that method was, +in any case, primitive and crude. But it was the RIGHT method, +in embryo at least, and ROGER BACON, in spite of tremendous opposition, +greater than that under which any man of science may now suffer, +persisted in that method to the end, calling upon his contemporaries +to adopt it as the only one which results in right knowledge. +Across the centuries--or, rather, across the gulf that divides this +world from the next--let us salute this great and noble spirit. + + + +XII + +THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS + +THERE is an opinion, unfortunately very common, that religious +mysticism is a product of the emotional temperament, +and is diametrically opposed to the spirit of rationalism. +No doubt this opinion is not without some element of justification, +and one could quote the works of not a few religious mystics +to the effect that self-surrender to God implies, not merely +a giving up of will, but also of reason. But that this teaching +is not an essential element in mysticism, that it is, indeed, +rather its perversion, there is adequate evidence to demonstrate. +SWEDENBORG is, I suppose, the outstanding instance of an +intellectual mystic; but the essential unity of mysticism +and rationalism is almost as forcibly made evident in the case +of the Cambridge Platonists. That little band of "Latitude men," +as their contemporaries called them, constitutes one of +the finest schools of philosophy that England has produced; +yet their works are rarely read, I am afraid, save by specialists. +Possibly, however, if it were more commonly known what a wealth +of sound philosophy and true spiritual teaching they contain, +the case would be otherwise. + +The Cambridge Platonists--BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE, JOHN SMITH, NATHANAEL CULVERWEL, +RALPH CUDWORTH, and HENRY MORE are the more outstanding names--were educated +as Puritans; but they clearly realised the fundamental error of Puritanism, +which tended to make a man's eternal salvation depend upon the accuracy +and extent of his beliefs; nor could they approve of the exaggerated +import given by the High Church party to matters of Church polity. +The term "Cambridge Platonists" is, perhaps, less appropriate than that +of "Latitudinarians," which latter name emphasises their broad-mindedness +(even if it carries with it something of disapproval). For although they +owed much to PTATO, and, perhaps, more to PLOTINUS (_c_. A.D. 203-262), they +were Christians first and Platonists afterwards, and, with the exception, +perhaps, of MORE, they took nothing from these philosophers which was not +conformable to the Scriptures. + +BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE was born in 1609, at Whichcote Hall, in the parish +of Stoke, Shropshire. In 1626 he entered Emmanuel College, Cambridge, +then regarded as the chief Puritan college of the University. Here his +college tutor was ANTHONY TUCKNEY (1599-1670), a man of rare character, +combining learning, wit, and piety. Between WHICHCOTE and TUCKNEY there +grew up a firm friendship, founded on mutual affection and esteem. +But TUCKNEY was unable to agree with all WHICHCOTE'S broad-minded views +concerning reason and authority; and in later years this gave rise +to a controversy between them, in which TUCKNEY sought to controvert +WHICHCOTE'S opinions: it was, however, carried on without acrimony, +and did not destroy their friendship. + +WHICHCOTE became M.A., and was elected a fellow of his college, +in 1633, having obtained his B.A. four years previously. +He was ordained by JOHN WILLIAMS in 1636, and received +the important appointment of Sunday afternoon lecturer at +Trinity Church. His lectures, which he gave with the object +of turning men's minds from polemics to the great moral and +spiritual realities at the basis of the Christian religion, +from mere formal discussions to a true searching into the reason +of things, were well attended and highly appreciated; +and he held the appointment for twenty years. In 1634 he became +college tutor at Emmanuel. He possessed all the characteristics +that go to make up an efficient and well-beloved tutor, +and his personal influence was such as to inspire all his pupils, +amongst whom were both JOHN SMITH and NATHANAEL CULVERWEL, +who considerably amplified his philosophical and religious doctrines. +In 1640 he became B.D., and nine years after was created +D.D. The college living of North Cadbury, in Somerset, +was presented to him in 1643, and shortly afterwards he married. +In the next year, however, he was recalled to Cambridge, +and installed as Provost of King's College in place of the ejected +Dr SAMUEL COLLINS. But it was greatly against his wish that +he received the appointment, and he only consented to do so on +the condition that part of his stipend should be paid to COLLINS-- +an act which gives us a good insight into the character of the man. +In 1650 he resigned North Cadbury, and the living was presented +to CUDWORTH (see below), and towards the end of this year +he was elected Vice-Chancellor of the University in succession +to TUCKNEY. It was during his Vice-Chancellorship that he preached +the sermon that gave rise to the controversy with the latter. +About this time also he was presented with the living of Milton, +in Cambridgeshire. At the Restoration he was ejected from +the Provostship, but, having complied with the Act of Uniformity, +he was, in 1662, appointed to the cure of St Anne's, Blackfriars. +This church being destroyed in the Great Fire, WHICHCOTE retired +to Milton, where he showed great kindness to the poor. +But some years later he returned to London, having received +the vicarage of St Lawrence, Jewry. His friends at Cambridge, +however, still saw him on occasional visits, and it was on +one such visit to CUDWORTH, in 1683, that he caught the cold +which caused his death. + +JOHN SMITH was born at Achurch, near Oundle, in 1618. +He entered Emmanuel College in 1636, became B.A. in 1640, +and proceeded to M.A. in 1644, in which year he was +appointed a fellow of Queen's College. Here he lectured on +arithmetic with considerable success. He was noted for his +great learning, especially in theology and Oriental languages, +as well as for his justness, uprightness, and humility. +He died of consumption in 1652. + +NATHANAEL CULVERWEL was probably born about the same year +as SMITH. He entered Emmanuel College in 1633, gained his +B.A. in 1636, and became M.A. in 1640. Soon afterwards +he was elected a fellow of his college. He died about 1651. +Beyond these scant details, nothing is known of his life. +He was a man of very great erudition, as his posthumous treatise +on _The Light of Nature_ makes evident. + +HENRY MORE was born at Grantham in 1614. From his earliest days he was +interested in theological problems, and his precociousness in this +respect appears to have brought down on him the wrath of an uncle. +His early education was conducted at Eton. In 1631 he entered +Christ's College, Cambridge, graduated B.A. in 1635, and received his M.A. +in 1639. In the latter year he was elected a fellow of Christ's and received +Holy Orders. He lived a very retired life, refusing all preferment, +though many valuable and honourable appointments were offered to him. +Indeed, he rarely left Christ's, except to visit his "heroine pupil," +Lady CONWAY, whose country seat, Ragley, was in Warwickshire. Lady CONWAY +(_ob_. 1679) appears to be remembered only for the fact that, dying whilst +her husband was away, her physician, F. M. VAN HELMONT (1618-1699) (son of +the famous alchemist, J. B. VAN HELMONT, whom we have met already on +these excursions), preserved her body in spirits of wine, so that he could +have the pleasure of beholding it on his return. She seems to have been +a woman of considerable learning, though not free from fantastic ideas. +Her ultimate conversion to Quakerism was a severe blow to MORE, who, +whilst admiring the holy lives of the Friends, regarded them as enthusiasts. +MORE died in 1687. + +MORE'S earliest works were in verse, and exhibit fine feeling. +The following lines, quoted from a poem on "Charitie and Humilitie," +are full of charm, and well exhibit MORE'S character:-- + + "Farre have I clambred in my mind + But nought so great as love I find: + Deep-searching wit, mount-moving might, + Are nought compar'd to that great spright. + Life of Delight and soul of blisse! + Sure source of lasting happinesse! + Higher than Heaven! lower than hell! + What is thy tent? Where maist thou dwell? + My mansion highs humilitie, + Heaven's vastest capabilitie + The further it cloth downward tend + The higher up it cloth ascend; + If it go down to utmost nought + It shall return with that it sought."[1] + + +[1] See _The Life of the Learned and Pious Dr Henry More . . . by_ +RICHARD WARD, A.M., _to which are annexed Divers Philosophical Poems +and Hymns_. Edited by M. F. HOWARD (1911), pp. 250 and 251. + + + +Later he took to prose, and it must be confessed that he wrote +too much and frequently descended to polemics (for example, +his controversy with the alchemist THOMAS VAUGHAN, in which both +combatants freely used abuse). + +Although in his main views MORE is thoroughly characteristic +of the school to which he belonged, many of his less important +opinions are more or less peculiar to himself. + +The relation between MORE's and DESCARTES' (1596-1650) theories as to +the nature of spirit is interesting. When MORE first read DESCARTES' +works he was favourably impressed with his views, though without entirely +agreeing with him on all points; but later the difference became accentuated. +DESCARTES regarded extension as the chief characteristic of matter, +and asserted that spirit was extra-spatial. To MORE this seemed like denying +the existence of spirit, which he regarded as extended, and he postulated +divisibility and impenetrability as the chief characteristics of matter. +In order, however, to get over some of the inherent difficulties of this view, +he put forward the suggestion that spirit is extended in four dimensions: +thus, its apparent (_i.e_. three-dimensional) extension can change, +whilst its true (_i.e_. four-dimensional) extension remains constant; +just as the surface of a piece of metal can be increased by hammering it out, +without increasing the volume of the metal. Here, I think, we have a +not wholly inadequate symbol of the truth; but it remained for BERKELEY +(1685-1753) to show the essential validity of DESCARTES' position, by +demonstrating that, since space and extension are perceptions of the mind, +and thus exist only in the mind as ideas, space exists in spirit: +not spirit in space. + +MORE was a keen believer in witchcraft, and eagerly investigated +all cases of these and like marvels that came under his notice. +In this he was largely influenced by JOSEPH GLANVIL (1636-1680), whose +book on witchcraft, the well-known _Saducismus Triumphatus_, MORE +largely contributed to, and probably edited. MORE was wholly +unsuited for psychical research; free from guile himself, +he was too inclined to judge others to be of this nature also. +But his common sense and critical attitude towards enthusiasm +saved him, no doubt, from many falls into the mire of fantasy. + +As Principal TULLOCH has pointed out, whilst MORE is the most +interesting personality amongst the Cambridge Platonists, +his works are the least interesting of those of his school. +They are dull and scholastic, and MORE'S retired existence prevented +him from grasping in their fulness some of the more acute problems +of life. His attempt to harmonise catastrophes with Providence, +on the ground that the evil of certain parts may be necessary +for the good of the whole, just as dark colours, as well as bright, +are essential to the beauty of a picture--a theory which is practically +the same as that of modern Absolutism,[1]--is a case in point. +No doubt this harmony may be accomplished, but in another key. + + +[1] Cf. BERNARD BOSANQUET, LL.D., D.C.L.: _The Principle of Individuality +and Value_ (1912). + + +RALPH CUDWORTH was born at Aller, in Somersetshire, in 1617. +He entered Emmanuel College in 1632, three years afterwards gained +his B.A., and became M.A. in 1639. In the latter year he was elected +a fellow of his college. Later he obtained the B.D. degree. +In 1645 he was appointed Master of Clare Hall, in place of the ejected +Dr PASHE, and was elected Regius Professor of Hebrew. On 31st March 1647 +he preached a sermon of remarkable eloquence and power before the House +of Commons, which admirably expresses the attitude of his school as +concerns the nature of true religion. I shall refer to it again later. +In 1650 CUDWORTH was presented with the college living of North Cadbury, +which WHICHCOTE had resigned, and was made D.D. in the following year. +In 1654 he was elected Master of Christ's College, with an improvement +in his financial position, there having been some difficulty +in obtaining his stipend at Clare Hall. In this year he married. +In 1662 Bishop SHELDON presented him with the rectory of Ashwell, +in Hertfordshire. He died in 1688. He was a pious man of fine intellect; +but his character was marred by a certain suspiciousness which caused +him wrongfully to accuse MORE, in 1665, of attempting to forestall +him in writing a work on ethics, which should demonstrate that +the principles of Christian morality are not based on any arbitrary +decrees of God, but are inherent in the nature and reason of things. +CUDWORTH'S great work--or, at least, the first part, which alone was +completed,--_The Intellectual System of the World_, appeared in 1678. +In it CUDWORTH deals with atheism on the ground of reason, +demonstrating its irrationality. The book is remarkable for +the fairness and fulness with which CUDWORTH states the arguments +in favour of atheism. + +So much for the lives and individual characteristics of +the Cambridge Platonists: what were the great principles that +animated both their lives and their philosophy? These, I think, +were two: first, the essential unity of religion and morality; +second, the essential unity of revelation and reason. + +With clearer perception of ethical truth than either Puritan +or High Churchman, the Cambridge Platonists saw that true +Christianity is neither a matter of mere belief, nor consists +in the mere performance of good works; but is rather a matter +of character. To them Christianity connoted regeneration. +"Religion," says WHICHCOTE, "is the Frame and TEMPER of our Minds, +and the RULE of our Lives"; and again, "Heaven is FIRST a Temper, +and THEN a Place."[1] To the man of heavenly temper, they taught, +the performance of good works would be no irksome matter imposed merely +by a sense of duty, but would be done spontaneously as a delight. +To drudge in religion may very well be necessary as an initial stage, +but it is not its perfection. + + +[1] My quotations from WHICHCOTE and SMITH are taken from the selection +of their discourses edited by E. T. CAMPAGNAC, M.A. (1901). + + +In his sermon before the House of Commons, CUDWORTH well exposes +the error of those who made the mere holding of certain beliefs +the essential element in Christianity. There are many passages I +should like to quote from this eloquent discourse, but the following +must suffice: "We must not judge of our knowing of Christ, by our +skill in Books and Papers, but by our keeping of his Commandments. +. . . He is the best Christian, whose heart beats with the truest pulse +towards heaven; not he whose head spinneth out the finest cobwebs. +He that endeavours really to mortifie his lusts, and to comply +with that truth in his life, which his Conscience is convinced of; +is neerer a Christian, though he never heard of Christ; +then he that believes all the vulgar Articles of the Christian faith, +and plainly denyeth Christ in his life.... The great Mysterie +of the Gospel, it doth not lie only in CHRIST WITHOUT US, +(though we must know also what he hath done for us) but the very Pith +and Kernel of it, consists in _*Christ inwardly formed_ in our hearts. +Nothing is truly Ours, but what lives in our Spirits. SALVATION it +self cannot SAVE us, as long as it is onely without us; +no more then HEALTH can cure us, and make us sound, when it is not +within us, but somewhere at distance from us; no more than _Arts +and Sciences_, whilst they lie onely in Books and Papers without us; +can make us learned."[1] + + +[1] RALPH CUDWORTH, B.D.: _A Sermon Preached before the Honourable House +of Commons at Westminster, Mar_. 31, 1647 (1st edn.), pp. +3, 14, 42, and 43. + + +The Cambridge Platonists were not ascetics; their moral doctrine was one +of temperance. Their sound wisdom on this point is well evident in the +following passage from WHICHCOTE: "What can be alledged for Intemperance; +since Nature is content with very few things? Why should any one over-do +in this kind? A Man is better in Health and Strength, if he be temperate. +We enjoy ourselves more in a sober and temperate Use of ourselves."[2] + + +[2] BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE: _The Venerable Nature and Transcendant Benefit +of Christian Religion. Op. cit_., p. 40. + + +The other great principle animating their philosophy was, +as I have said, the essential unity of reason and revelation. +To those who argued that self-surrender implied a giving up of reason, +they replied that "To go against REASON, is to go against GOD: +it is the self same thing, to do that which the Reason of +the Case doth require; and that which God Himself doth appoint: +Reason is the DIVINE Governor of Man's Life; it is the very +Voice of God."[3] Reason, Conscience, and the Scriptures, +these, taught the Cambridge Platonists, testify of one another +and are the true guides which alone a man should follow. +All other authority they repudiated. But true reason is not +merely sensuous, and the only way whereby it may be gained +is by the purification of the self from the desires that draw +it away from the Source of all Reason. "God," writes MORE, +"reserves His choicest secrets for the purest Minds," adding his +conviction that "true Holiness [is] the only safe Entrance +into Divine Knowledge." Or as SMITH, who speaks of "a GOOD LIFE +as the PROLEPSIS and Fundamental principle of DIVINE SCIENCE," +puts it, ". . . if . . . KNOWLEDGE be not attended with HUMILITY +and a deep sense of SELF-PENURY and _*Self-emptiness_, we +may easily fall short of that True Knowledge of God which we +seem to aspire after."[1b] Right Reason, however, they taught, +is the product of the sight of the soul, the true mystic vision. + + +[3] BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE: _Moral and Religious Aphorisms OP. +cit_., p. 67. + +[1b] JOHN SMITH: _A Discourse concerning the true Way +or Method of attaining to Divine Knowledge. Op. cit_., pp. +80 and 96. + + +In what respects, it may be asked in conclusion, is the +philosophy of the Cambridge Platonists open to criticism? +They lacked, perhaps, a sufficiently clear concept of the Church +as a unity, and although they clearly realised that Nature is a +symbol which it is the function of reason to interpret spiritually, +they failed, I think, to appreciate the value of symbols. +Thus they have little to teach with respect to the Sacraments +of the Church, though, indeed, the highest view, perhaps, +is that which regards every act as potentially a sacrament; +and, whilst admiring his morality, they criticised BOEHME as +an enthusiast. But, although he spoke in a very different language, +spiritually he had much in common with them. Compared with what +is of positive value in their philosophy, however, the defects +of the Cambridge Platonists are but comparatively slight. +I commend their works to lovers of spiritual wisdom. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg Etext of Bygone Beliefs, by H. Stanley Redgrove + diff --git a/old/old/byblf10.zip b/old/old/byblf10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7f43667 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/old/byblf10.zip diff --git a/old/old/byblf11.txt b/old/old/byblf11.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e390319 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/old/byblf11.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6286 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Bygone Beliefs, by H. Stanley Redgrove + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. 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Stanley Redgrove + +Release Date: April, 1998 [EBook #1271] +[This file was last updated on October 7, 2003] + +Edition: 11 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BYGONE BELIEFS *** + + + + +Scanned by Charles Keller with OmniPage Professional OCR software + + + + + + + +<.> = coordinate covalent bond. +<#s> = subscripted #. +<#S> = superscripted #. +{} mark non-ascii characters. +"Emphasis" _italics_ have a * mark. +@@@ marks a reference to internal page numbers. +Comments and guessed at characters in {braces} need stripped/fixed. +Footnotes have not been re-numbered, however, [#] are moved to EOParagraph. +The footnotes that have duplicate numbers across 2 pages are "a" and "b". +"Protected" indentations have a space before the [Tab]. +EOL- have been converted to ([Soft Hyphen]). +Greek letters are encoded in <gr > brackets, and the letters are +based on Adobe's Symbol font. +Hebrew letters are encoded in <hb > brackets. + + + + + + + + + + +BYGONE BELIEFS +BEING A SERIES OF +EXCURSIONS IN THE BYWAYS +OF THOUGHT + +BY +H. STANLEY REDGROVE + + +_Alle Erfahrung ist Magic, und nur magisch erklarbar_. + NOVALIS (Friedrich von Hardenberg). + +Everything possible to be believ'd is an image of truth. + WILLIAM BLAKE. + + + +TO +MY WIFE + + + +PREFACE + +THESE Excursions in the Byways of Thought were undertaken at +different times and on different occasions; consequently, the reader +may be able to detect in them inequalities of treatment. He may +feel that I have lingered too long in some byways and hurried +too rapidly through others, taking, as it were, but a general +view of the road in the latter case, whilst examining everything +that could be seen in the former with, perhaps, undue care. +As a matter of fact, how ever, all these excursions have been +undertaken with one and the same object in view, that, namely, +of understanding aright and appreciating at their true worth some +of the more curious byways along which human thought has travelled. +It is easy for the superficial thinker to dismiss much of the thought +of the past (and, indeed, of the present) as _mere_ superstition, +not worth the trouble of investigation: but it is not scientific. +There is a reason for every belief, even the most fantastic, +and it should be our object to discover this reason. How far, +if at all, the reason in any case justifies us in holding a similar +belief is, of course, another question. Some of the beliefs I +have dealt with I have treated at greater length than others, because +it seems to me that the truths of which they are the images--vague +and distorted in many cases though they be--are truths which we +have either forgotten nowadays, or are in danger of forgetting. +We moderns may, indeed, learn something from the thought of the past, +even in its most fantastic aspects. In one excursion at least, +namely, the essay on "The Cambridge Platonists," I have ventured to +deal with a higher phase--perhaps I should say the highest phase--of +the thought of a bygone age, to which the modern world may be +completely debtor. + +"Some Characteristics of Mediaeval Thought," and the two essays on +Alchemy, have appeared in _The Journal of the Alchemical Society_. In +others I have utilised material I have contributed to _The Occult Review_, +to the editor of which journal my thanks are due for permission so to do. +I have also to express my gratitude to the Rev. A. H. COLLINS, and others +to be referred to in due course, for permission here to reproduce +illustrations of which they are the copyright holders. I have further +to offer my hearty thanks to Mr B. R. ROWBOTTOM and my wife for valuable +assistance in reading the proofs. +H. S. R. + +BLETCHLEY, BUCKS, _December_ 1919. + + + +CONTENTS PAGE + PREFACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix + LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii +1. SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF MEDIAEVAL THOUGHT . . . . . . . . . 1 +2. PYTHAGORAS AND HIS PHILOSOPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 +3. MEDICINE AND MAGIC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 +4. SUPERSTITIONS CONCERNING BIRDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 +5. THE POWDER OF SYMPATHY: A CURIOUS MEDICAL SUPERSTITION . . 47 +6. THE BELIEF IN TALISMANS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 +7. CEREMONIAL MAGIC IN THEORY AND PRACTICE . . . . . . . . . . 87 +8. ARCHITECTURAL SYMBOLISM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .111 +9. THE QUEST OF THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE. . . . . . . . . . . .121 +10. THE PHALLIC ELEMENT IN ALCHEMICAL DOCTRINE. . . . . . . . .149 +11. ROGER BACON: AN APPRECIATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .183 +12. THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .193 + + +{the LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS are incomplete and raw OCR output!} + +PAGE 46. Symbolic Alchemical Design from Mutus Liber (1677) . +PLATE: 25, to face p.176 +47. Symbolic Alchemical Design illustrating the Work of Woman, + from MAIER's Atalanta Fugiens . . . ,, 26, ,, 178 +48. Symbolic Alchemica Design, Hermaphrodite, + from MAIER's Atalanta Fugiens. . ,, 27, ,, 180 +49. ROGER BACON presenting a Book to a King, from a Fifteenth Century + Miniature in the Bodleian Library, Oxford . . .,, 28, ,, 184 +50. ROGER BACON, from a Portrait in Knole Castle . . ,, 29, ,, 188 +51. BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE, from an engraved Portrait + by ROBERT WHITE ....30...194 +52. HENRY MORE, from a Portrait by DAVID LOGGAN, engraved ad vivum, 1679 + . . . ,, 31, ,, 198 +53. RALPH CUDWORTH, from an engraved Portrait by VERTUE, after LOGGAN, + forming the Frontispiece to CUDWORTH's Treatise Concerning Morality + (1731) ,, 32, ,, 3~ + + + +BYGONE BELIEFS + +I + +SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF MEDAEVAL THOUGHT + +IN the earliest days of his upward evolution man was satisfied with a +very crude explanation of natural phenomena--that to which the name +"animism" has been given. In this stage of mental development all +the various forces of Nature are personified: the rushing torrent, the +devastating fire, the wind rustling the forest leaves--in the mind of +the animistic savage all these are personalities, spirits, like himself, +but animated by motives more or less antagonistic to him. + +I suppose that no possible exception could be taken to the statement +that modern science renders animism impossible. But let us inquire in +exactly what sense this is true. It is not true that science robs +natural phenomena of their spiritual significance. The mistake is +often made of supposing that science explains, or endeavours to +explain, phenomena. But that is the business of philosophy. The task +science attempts is the simpler one of the correlation of natural +phenomena, and in this effort leaves the ultimate problems of +metaphysics untouched. A universe, however, whose phenomena are not +only capable of some degree of correlation, but present the +extraordinary degree of harmony and unity which science makes manifest +in Nature, cannot be, as in animism, the product of a vast number of +inco-ordinated and antagonistic wills, but must either be the product of +one Will, or not the product of will at all. + +The latter alternative means that the Cosmos is inexplicable, which +not only man's growing experience, but the fact that man and the +universe form essentially a unity, forbid us to believe. The term +"anthropomorphic" is too easily applied to philosophical systems, as +if it constituted a criticism of their validity. For if it be true, +as all must admit, that the unknown can only be explained in terms of +the known, then the universe must either be explained in terms of +man--_i.e_. in terms of will or desire--or remain incomprehensible. +That is to say, a philosophy must either be anthropomorphic, or no +philosophy at all. + +Thus a metaphysical scrutiny of the results of modern science leads us +to a belief in God. But man felt the need of unity, and crude animism, +though a step in the right direction, failed to satisfy his thought, +long before the days of modern science. The spirits of animism, however, +were not discarded, but were modified, co-ordinated, and worked into a +system as servants of the Most High. Polytheism may mark a stage in +this process; or, perhaps, it was a result of mental degeneracy. + +What I may term systematised as distinguished from crude animism +persisted throughout the Middle Ages. The work of systematisation +had already been accomplished, to a large extent, by the Neo-Platonists +and whoever were responsible for the Kabala. It is true that these +main sources of magical or animistic philosophy remained hidden during +the greater part of the Middle Ages; but at about their close the +youthful and enthusiastic CORNELIUS AGRIPPA (1486-1535)[1] slaked his +thirst thereat and produced his own attempt at the systematisation of +magical belief in the famous _Three Books of Occult Philosophy_. But +the waters of magical philosophy reached the mediaeval mind through +various devious channels, traditional on the one hand and literary on +the other. And of the latter, the works of pseudo-DIONYSIUS,[2] whose +immense influence upon mediaeval thought has sometimes been neglected, +must certainly be noted. + + +[1] The story of his life has been admirably told by HENRY MORLEY +(2 vols., 1856). + +[2] These writings were first heard of in the early part of +the sixth century, and were probably the work of a Syrian monk +of that date, who fathered them on to DIONYSIUS the Areopagite +as a pious fraud. See Dean INGE'S _Christian Mysticism_ +(1899), pp. 104--122, and VAUGHAN'S _Hours with the Mystics_ +(7th ed., 1895), vol. i. pp. 111-124. The books have been +translated into English by the Rev. JOHN PARKER (2 vols.1897-1899), +who believes in the genuineness of their alleged authorship. + + +The most obvious example of a mediaeval animistic belief is +that in "elementals"--the spirits which personify the primordial +forces of Nature, and are symbolised by the four elements, +immanent in which they were supposed to exist, and through +which they were held to manifest their powers. And astrology, +it must be remembered, is essentially a systematised animism. +The stars, to the ancients, were not material bodies like the earth, +but spiritual beings. PLATO (427-347 B.C.) speaks of them as +"gods". Mediaeval thought did not regard them in quite this way. +But for those who believed in astrology, and few, I think, did not, +the stars were still symbols of spiritual forces operative on man. +Evidences of the wide extent of astrological belief in those days +are abundant, many instances of which we shall doubtless encounter +in our excursions. + +It has been said that the theological and philosophical atmosphere of +the Middle Ages was "scholastic," not mystical. No doubt "mysticism," +as a mode of life aiming at the realisation of the presence of God, +is as distinct from scholasticism as empiricism is from rationalism, +or "tough-minded" philosophy (to use JAMES' happy phrase) is from +"tender-minded". But no philosophy can be absolutely and purely +deductive. It must start from certain empirically determined facts. +A man might be an extreme empiricist in religion (_i.e_. a mystic), +and yet might attempt to deduce all other forms of knowledge from the +results of his religious experiences, never caring to gather experience +in any other realm. Hence the breach between mysticism and +scholasticism is not really so wide as may appear at first sight. Indeed, +scholasticism officially recognised three branches of theology, of which +the MYSTICAL was one. I think that mysticism and scholasticism both +had a profound influence on the mediaeval mind, sometimes acting as +opposing forces, sometimes operating harmoniously with one another. As +Professor WINDELBAND puts it: "We no longer onesidedly characterise +the philosophy of the middle ages as scholasticism, but rather place +mysticism beside it as of equal rank, and even as being the more +fruitful and promising movement."[1] + + +[1] Professor WILHELM WINDELBAND, Ph.D.: "Present-Day Mysticism," +_The Quest_, vol. iv. (1913), P. 205. + + +Alchemy, with its four Aristotelian or scholastic elements and its +three mystical principles--sulphur, mercury, salt,--must be cited as +the outstanding product of the combined influence of mysticism and +scholasticism: of mysticism, which postulated the unity of the Cosmos, +and hence taught that everything natural is the expressive image and +type of some supernatural reality; of scholasticism, which taught men +to rely upon deduction and to restrict experimentation to the smallest +possible limits. + +The mind naturally proceeds from the known, or from what is supposed +to be known, to the unknown. Indeed, as I have already indicated, +it must so proceed if truth is to be gained. Now what did the men +of the Middle Ages regard as falling into the category of the known? +Why, surely, the truths of revealed religion, whether accepted upon +authority or upon the evidence of their own experience. The realm +of spiritual and moral reality: there, they felt, they were on firm +ground. Nature was a realm unknown; but they had analogy to guide, +or, rather, misguide them. Nevertheless if, as we know, it misguided, +this was not, I think, because the mystical doctrine of the +correspondence between the spiritual and the natural is unsound, but +because these ancient seekers into Nature's secrets knew so little, +and so frequently misapplied what they did know. So alchemical +philosophy arose and became systematised, with its wonderful +endeavour to perfect the base metals by the Philosopher's Stone--the +concentrated Essence of Nature,--as man's soul is perfected through +the life-giving power of JESUS CHRIST. + +I want, in conclusion to these brief introductory remarks, to say +a few words concerning phallicism in connection with my topic. +For some "tender-minded"[1] and, to my thought, obscure, +reason the subject is tabooed. Even the British Museum +does not include works on phallicism in its catalogue, +and special permission has to be obtained to consult them. +Yet the subject is of vast importance as concerns the origin +and development of religion and philosophy, and the extent +of phallic worship may be gathered from the widespread occurrence +of obelisks and similar objects amongst ancient relics. +Our own maypole dances may be instanced as one survival +of the ancient worship of the male generative principle. + + +[1] I here use the term with the extended meaning Mr H. G. WELLS +has given to it. See _The New Machiavelli_. + + +What could be more easy to understand than that, when man first +questioned as to the creation of the earth, he should suppose it +to have been generated by some process analogous to that which he saw +held in the case of man? How else could he account for its origin, +if knowledge must proceed from the known to the unknown? +No one questions at all that the worship of the human generative +organs as symbols of the dual generative principle of Nature +degenerated into orgies of the most frightful character, +but the view of Nature which thus degenerated is not, I think, +an altogether unsound one, and very interesting remnants of it +are to be found in mediaeval philosophy. + +These remnants are very marked in alchemy. The metals, as I have +suggested, are there regarded as types of man; hence they are +produced from seed, through the combination of male and female +principles--mercury and sulphur, which on the spiritual plane are +intelligence and love. The same is true of that Stone which is +perfect Man. As BERNARD of TREVISAN (1406-1490) wrote in the +fifteenth century: "This Stone then is compounded of a Body and +Spirit, or of a volatile and fixed Substance, and that is therefore +done, because nothing in the World can be generated and brought to +light without these two Substances, to wit, a Male and Female: From +whence it appeareth, that although these two Substances are not of +one and the same species, yet one Stone doth thence arise, +and although they appear and are said to be two Substances, +yet in truth it is but one, to wit, _Argent-vive_."[1] No +doubt this sounds fantastic; but with all their seeming +intellectual follies these old thinkers were no fools. +The fact of sex is the most fundamental fact of the universe, +and is a spiritual and physical as well as a physiological fact. +I shall deal with the subject as concerns the speculations +of the alchemists in some detail in a later excursion. + + +[1] BERNARD, Earl of TREVISAN: _A Treatise of the +Philosopher's Stone_, 1683. (See _Collectanea Chymica: A Collection +of Ten Several Treatises in Chemistry_, 1684, p. 91.) + + + +II + +PYTHAGORAS AND HIS PHILOSOPHY + +IT is a matter for enduring regret that so little is known to us +concerning PYTHAGORAS. What little we do know serves but to enhance +for us the interest of the man and his philosophy, to make him, +in many ways, the most attractive of Greek thinkers; and, basing our +estimate on the extent of his influence on the thought of succeeding ages, +we recognise in him one of the world's master-minds. + +PYTHAGORAS was born about 582 B.C. at Samos, one of the Grecian isles. +In his youth he came in contact with THALES--the Father of Geometry, +as he is well called,--and though he did not become a member of THALES' +school, his contact with the latter no doubt helped to turn his mind +towards the study of geometry. This interest found the right ground +for its development in Egypt, which he visited when still young. +Egypt is generally regarded as the birthplace of geometry, +the subject having, it is supposed, been forced on the minds +of the Egyptians by the necessity of fixing the boundaries of lands +against the annual overflowing of the Nile. But the Egyptians +were what is called an essentially practical people, and their +geometrical knowledge did not extend beyond a few empirical rules +useful for fixing these boundaries and in constructing their temples. +Striking evidence of this fact is supplied by the AHMES papyrus, +compiled some little time before 1700 B.C. from an older work dating +from about 3400 B.C.,[1] a papyrus which almost certainly represents +the highest mathematical knowledge reached by the Egyptians of that day. +Geometry is treated very superficially and as of subsidiary interest +to arithmetic; there is no ordered series of reasoned geometrical +propositions given--nothing, indeed, beyond isolated rules, +and of these some are wanting in accuracy. + + +[1] See AUGUST EISENLOHR: _Ein mathematisches Handbuch der +alten Aegypter_ (1877); J. Gow: _A Short History of Greek Mathematics_ +(1884); and V. E. JOHNSON: _Egyptian Science from the Monuments +and Ancient Books_ (1891). + + +One geometrical fact known to the Egyptians was that if a triangle +be constructed having its sides 3, 4, and 5 units long respectively, +then the angle opposite the longest side is exactly a right angle; and the +Egyptian builders used this rule for constructing walls perpendicular +to each other, employing a cord graduated in the required manner. +The Greek mind was not, however, satisfied with the bald statement +of mere facts--it cared little for practical applications, +but sought above all for the underlying REASON of everything. +Nowadays we are beginning to realise that the results achieved by this +type of mind, the general laws of Nature's behaviour formulated +by its endeavours, are frequently of immense practical importance-- +of far more importance than the mere rules-of-thumb beyond which +so-called practical minds never advance. The classic example +of the utility of seemingly useless knowledge is afforded by +Sir WILLIAM HAMILTON'S discovery, or, rather, invention of Quarternions, +but no better example of the utilitarian triumph of the theoretical +over the so-called practical mind can be adduced than that afforded +by PYTHAGORAS. Given this rule for constructing a right angle, +about whose reason the Egyptian who used it never bothered himself, +and the mind of PYTHAGORAS, searching for its full significance, +made that gigantic geometrical discovery which is to this day known +as the Theorem of PYTHAGORAS--the law that in every right-angled +triangle the square on the side opposite the right angle is equal +in area to the sum of the squares on the other two sides.[1] +The importance of this discovery can hardly be overestimated. +It is of fundamental importance in most branches of geometry, +and the basis of the whole of trigonometry--the special branch +of geometry that deals with the practical mensuration of triangles. +EUCLID devoted the whole of the first book of his _Elements of +Geometry_ to establishing the truth of this theorem; how PYTHAGORAS +demonstrated it we unfortunately do not know. + + +[1] Fig. 3 affords an interesting practical demonstration of +the truth of this theorem. If the reader will copy this figure, +cut out the squares on the two shorter sides of the triangle +and divide them along the lines AD, BE, EF, he will find +that the five pieces so obtained can be made exactly to fit +the square on the longest side as shown by the dotted lines. +The size and shape of the triangle ABC, so long as it has +a right angle at C, is immaterial. The lines AD, BE are +obtained by continuing the sides of the square on the side AB, +_i.e_. the side opposite the right angle, and EF is drawn +at right angles to BE. + +After absorbing what knowledge was to be gained in Egypt, PYTHAGORAS +journeyed to Babylon, where he probably came into contact with even +greater traditions and more potent influences and sources of knowledge +than in Egypt, for there is reason for believing that the ancient +Chaldeans were the builders of the Pyramids and in many ways the +intellectual superiors of the Egyptians. + +At last, after having travelled still further East, probably as far as +India, PYTHAGORAS returned to his birthplace to teach the men of his +native land the knowledge he had gained. But CROESUS was tyrant over +Samos, and so oppressive was his rule that none had leisure in which to +learn. Not a student came to PYTHAGORAS, until, in despair, so the +story runs, he offered to pay an artisan if he would but learn geometry. +The man accepted, and later, when PYTHAGORAS pretended inability +any longer to continue the payments, he offered, so fascinating did +he find the subject, to pay his teacher instead if the lessons might +only be continued. PYTHAGORAS no doubt was much gratified at this; +and the motto he adopted for his great Brotherhood, of which we shall make +the acquaintance in a moment, was in all likelihood based on this event. +It ran, "Honour a figure and a step before a figure and a tribolus"; +or, as a freer translation renders it:-- + +"A figure and a step onward Not a figure and a florin." + + +"At all events, as Mr FRANKLAND remarks, "the motto is a lasting witness +to a very singular devotion to knowledge for its own sake."[1] + + +[1] W. B. FRANKLAND, M.A.: _The Story of Euclid_ (1902), p. 33 + +But PYTHAGORAS needed a greater audience than one man, however +enthusiastic a pupil he might be, and he left Samos for Southern Italy, +the rich inhabitants of whose cities had both the leisure +and inclination to study. Delphi, far-famed for its Oracles, +was visited _en route_, and PYTHAGORAS, after a sojourn at Tarentum, +settled at Croton, where he gathered about him a great band +of pupils, mainly young people of the aristocratic class. +By consent of the Senate of Croton, he formed out of these a +great philosophical brotherhood, whose members lived apart from +the ordinary people, forming, as it were, a separate community. +They were bound to PYTHAGORAS by the closest ties of admiration +and reverence, and, for years after his death, discoveries made +by Pythagoreans were invariably attributed to the Master, a fact +which makes it very difficult exactly to gauge the extent of +PYTHAGORAS' own knowledge and achievements. The regime of the +Brotherhood, or Pythagorean Order, was a strict one, entailing "high +thinking and low living" at all times. A restricted diet, the exact +nature of which is in dispute, was observed by all members, and long +periods of silence, as conducive to deep thinking, were imposed on +novices. Women were admitted to the Order, and PYTHAGORAS' asceticism +did not prohibit romance, for we read that one of his fair pupils won +her way to his heart, and, declaring her affection for him, found it +reciprocated and became his wife. + +SCHURE writes: "By his marriage with Theano, Pythagoras affixed +_the seal of realization_ to his work. The union and fusion of +the two lives was complete. One day when the master's wife was asked +what length of time elapsed before a woman could become pure after +intercourse with a man, she replied: `If it is with her husband, she +is pure all the time; if with another man, she is never pure.'" +"Many women," adds the writer, "would smilingly remark that to give +such a reply one must be the wife of Pythagoras, and love him as +Theano did. And they would be in the right, for it is not marriage +that sanctifies love, it is love which justifies marriage."[1] + + +[1] EDOUARD SCHURE: _Pythagoras and the Delphic Mysteries_, trans. +by F. ROTHWELL, B.A. (1906), pp. 164 and 165. + + +PYTHAGORAS was not merely a mathematician. he was first and foremost +a philosopher, whose philosophy found in number the basis of all things, +because number, for him, alone possessed stability of relationship. +As I have remarked on a former occasion, "The theory that the Cosmos +has its origin and explanation in Number . . . is one for which it +is not difficult to account if we take into consideration the nature +of the times in which it was formulated. The Greek of the period, +looking upon Nature, beheld no picture of harmony, uniformity and +fundamental unity. The outer world appeared to him rather +as a discordant chaos, the mere sport and plaything of the gods. +The theory of the uniformity of Nature--that Nature is ever +like to herself--the very essence of the modern scientific spirit, +had yet to be born of years of unwearied labour and unceasing +delving into Nature's innermost secrets. Only in Mathematics--in +the properties of geometrical figures, and of numbers--was the reign +of law, the principle of harmony, perceivable. Even at this present +day when the marvellous has become commonplace, that property of +right-angled triangles . . . already discussed . . . comes to the mind +as a remarkable and notable fact: it must have seemed a stupendous +marvel to its discoverer, to whom, it appears, the regular alternation +of the odd and even numbers, a fact so obvious to us that we are +inclined to attach no importance to it, seemed, itself, to be something +wonderful. Here in Geometry and Arithmetic, here was order and harmony +unsurpassed and unsurpassable. What wonder then that Pythagoras concluded +that the solution of the mighty riddle of the Universe was contained in +the mysteries of Geometry? What wonder that he read mystic meanings into +the laws of Arithmetic, and believed Number to be the explanation and +origin of all that is?"[1] + + +[1] _A Mathematical Theory of Spirit_ (1912), pp. 64-65. + + +No doubt the Pythagorean theory suffers from a defect similar +to that of the Kabalistic doctrine, which, starting from the fact +that all words are composed of letters, representing the primary +sounds of language, maintained that all the things represented +by these words were created by God by means of the twenty-two letters +of the Hebrew alphabet. But at the same time the Pythagorean +theory certainly embodies a considerable element of truth. +Modern science demonstrates nothing more clearly than the importance +of numerical relationships. Indeed, "the history of science shows us +the gradual transformation of crude facts of experience into increasingly +exact generalisations by the application to them of mathematics. +The enormous advances that have been made in recent years in +physics and chemistry are very largely due to mathematical methods +of interpreting and co-ordinating facts experimentally revealed, +whereby further experiments have been suggested, the results of +which have themselves been mathematically interpreted. Both physics +and chemistry, especially the former, are now highly mathematical. +In the biological sciences and especially in psychology it is true +that mathematical methods are, as yet, not so largely employed. +But these sciences are far less highly developed, far less exact +and systematic, that is to say, far less scientific, at present, +than is either physics or chemistry. However, the application of +statistical methods promises good results, and there are not wanting +generalisations already arrived at which are expressible mathematically; +Weber's Law in psychology, and the law concerning the arrangement +of the leaves about the stems of plants in biology, may be instanced +as cases in point."[1] + + +[1] Quoted from a lecture by the present writer on "The Law of +Correspondences Mathematically Considered," delivered before The +Theological and Philosophical Society on 26th April 1912, and +published in _Morning Light_, vol. xxxv (1912), p. 434 _et seq_. + + +The Pythagorean doctrine of the Cosmos, in its most reasonable form, +however, is confronted with one great difficulty which it seems incapable +of overcoming, namely, that of continuity. Modern science, with its +atomic theories of matter and electricity, does, indeed, show us that +the apparent continuity of material things is spurious, that all material +things consist of discrete particles, and are hence measurable in +numerical terms. But modern science is also obliged to postulate an +ether behind these atoms, an ether which is wholly continuous, and hence +transcends the domain of number.[1] It is true that, in quite recent +times, a certain school of thought has argued that the ether is also +atomic in constitution--that all things, indeed, have a grained structure, +even forces being made up of a large number of quantums or indivisible +units of force. But this view has not gained general acceptance, and it +seems to necessitate the postulation of an ether beyond the ether, +filling the interspaces between its atoms, to obviate the difficulty of +conceiving of action at a distance. + + +[1] Cf. chap. iii., "On Nature as the Embodiment of Number," of my +_A Mathematical Theory of Spirit_, to which reference has already been +made. + + +According to BERGSON, life--the reality that can only be lived, +not understood--is absolutely continuous (_i.e_. not amenable to +numerical treatment). It is because life is absolutely continuous that +we cannot, he says, understand it; for reason acts discontinuously, +grasping only, so to speak, a cinematographic view of life, +made up of an immense number of instantaneous glimpses. +All that passes between the glimpses is lost, and so the true whole, +reason can never synthesise from that which it possesses. +On the other hand, one might also argue--extending, in a way, +the teaching of the physical sciences of the period between +the postulation of DALTON'S atomic theory and the discovery +of the significance of the ether of space--that reality is +essentially discontinuous, our idea that it is continuous being +a mere illusion arising from the coarseness of our senses. +That might provide a complete vindication of the Pythagorean view; +but a better vindication, if not of that theory, at any rate +of PYTHAGORAS' philosophical attitude, is forthcoming, I think, +in the fact that modern mathematics has transcended the shackles +of number, and has enlarged her kingdom, so as to include +quantities other than numerical. PYTHAGORAS, had he been +born in these latter centuries, would surely have rejoiced +in this, enlargement, whereby the continuous as well as +the discontinuous is brought, if not under the rule of number, +under the rule of mathematics indeed. + +PYTHAGORAS' foremost achievement in mathematics I have already mentioned. +Another notable piece of work in the same department was the discovery +of a method of constructing a parallelogram having a side equal +to a given line, an angle equal to a given angle, and its area equal +to that of a given triangle. PYTHAGORAS is said to have celebrated +this discovery by the sacrifice of a whole ox. The problem appears +in the first book of EUCLID'S _Elements of Geometry_ as proposition 44. +In fact, many of the propositions of EUCLID'S first, second, fourth, +and sixth books were worked out by PYTHAGORAS and the Pythagoreans; +but, curiously enough, they seem greatly to have neglected the geometry +of the circle. + +The symmetrical solids were regarded by PYTHAGORAS, and by +the Greek thinkers after him, as of the greatest importance. +To be perfectly symmetrical or regular, a solid must have an equal +number of faces meeting at each of its angles, and these faces +must be equal regular polygons, _i.e_. figures whose sides +and angles are all equal. PYTHAGORAS, perhaps, may be credited +with the great discovery that there are only five such solids. +These are as follows:-- + +The Tetrahedron, having four equilateral triangles as faces. + +The Cube, having six squares as faces. + +The Octahedron, having eight equilateral triangles as faces. + +The Dodecahedron, having twelve regular pentagons +(or five-sided figures) as faces. + +The Icosahedron, having twenty equilateral triangles as faces.[1] + + +[1] If the reader will copy figs. 4 to 8 on cardboard or stiff paper, +bend each along the dotted lines so as to form a solid, fastening together +the free edges with gummed paper, he will be in possession of models +of the five solids in question. + + +Now, the Greeks believed the world to be composed of four +elements--earth, air, fire, water,--and to the Greek mind the +conclusion was inevitable[2a] that the shapes of the particles of +the elements were those of the regular solids. Earth-particles were +cubical, the cube being the regular solid possessed of greatest +stability; fire-particles were tetrahedral, the tetrahedron being the +simplest and, hence, lightest solid. Water-particles were icosahedral +for exactly the reverse reason, whilst air-particles, as intermediate +between the two latter, were octahedral. The dodecahedron was, to these +ancient mathematicians, the most mysterious of the solids: it was by +far the most difficult to construct, the accurate drawing of the +regular pentagon necessitating a rather elaborate application of +PYTHAGORAS' great theorem.[1] Hence the conclusion, as PLATO put it, +that "this [the regular dodecahedron] the Deity employed in tracing +the plan of the Universe."[2b] Hence also the high esteem in which +the pentagon was held by the Pythagoreans. By producing each side of +this latter figure the five-pointed star (fig. 9), known as the +pentagram, is obtained. This was adopted by the Pythagoreans as the +badge of their Society, and for many ages was held as a symbol +possessed of magic powers. The mediaeval magicians made use of it in +their evocations, and as a talisman it was held in the highest esteem. + + +[2a] _Cf_. PLATO: The Timaeus, SESE xxviii--xxx. + +[1] In reference to this matter FRANKLAND remarks: "In those early days +the innermost secrets of nature lay in the lap of geometry, and the +extraordinary inference follows that Euclid's _Elements_, which are +devoted to the investigation of the regular solids, are therefore in +reality and at bottom an attempt to `solve the universe.' Euclid, in +fact, made this goal of the Pythagoreans the aim of his _Elements_."--_Op. +cit_., p. 35. + +[2b] _Op. cit_., SE xxix. + + +Music played an important part in the curriculum of the Pythagorean +Brotherhood, and the important discovery that the relations between +the notes of musical scales can be expressed by means of numbers is +a Pythagorean one. It must have seemed to its discoverer--as, in a +sense, it indeed is--a striking confirmation of the numerical theory +of the Cosmos. The Pythagoreans held that the positions of the +heavenly bodies were governed by similar numerical relations, and that +in consequence their motion was productive of celestial music. This +concept of "the harmony of the spheres" is among the most celebrated +of the Pythagorean doctrines, and has found ready acceptance in many +mystically-speculative minds. "Look how the floor of heaven," says +Lorenzo in SHAKESPEARE'S _The Merchant of Venice_-- + + " . . . Look how the floor of heaven + Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold: + There's not the smallest orb which thou behold's" + But in his motion like an angel sings, + Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins; + Such harmony is in immortal souls; + But whilst this muddy vesture of decay + Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it."[1] + + +[1] Act v. scene i. + +Or, as KINGSLEY writes in one of his letters, "When I walk the fields +I am oppressed every now and then with an innate feeling that +everything I see has a meaning, if I could but understand it. And +this feeling of being surrounded with truths which I cannot grasp, +amounts to an indescribable awe sometimes! Everything seems to be +full of God's reflex, if we could but see it. Oh! how I have prayed to +have the mystery unfolded, at least hereafter. To see, if but for a +moment, the whole harmony of the great system! To hear once the music +which the whole universe makes as it performs His bidding!"[1] In this +connection may be mentioned the very significant fact that the +Pythagoreans did not consider the earth, in accordance with current +opinion, to be a stationary body, but believed that it and the other +planets revolved about a central point, or fire, as they called it. + + +[1] CHARLES KINGSLEY: _His Letters and Memories of His Life_, +edited by his wife (1883), p. 28. + + +As concerns PYTHAGORAS' ethical teaching, judging from the so-called +_Golden Verses_ attributed to him, and no doubt written by one of +his disciples,[2] this would appear to be in some respects similar +to that of the Stoics who came later, but free from the materialism +of the Stoic doctrines. Due regard for oneself is blended with regard +for the gods and for other men, the atmosphere of the whole being at +once rational and austere. One verse--"Thou shalt likewise know, +according to Justice, that the nature of this Universe is in all +things alike"[3]--is of particular interest, as showing PYTHAGORAS' +belief in that principle of analogy--that "What is below is as that +which is above, what is above is as that which is below"--which held +so dominant a sway over the minds of ancient and mediaeval philosophers, +leading them--in spite, I suggest, of its fundamental truth--into so +many fantastic errors, as we shall see in future excursions. +Metempsychosis was another of the Pythagorean tenets, a fact which is +interesting in view of the modern revival of this doctrine. PYTHAGORAS, +no doubt, derived it from the East, apparently introducing it for the +first time to Western thought. + + +[2] It seems probable, though not certain, that PYTHAGORAS wrote +nothing himself, but taught always by the oral method. + +[3] Cf. the remarks of HIEROCLES on this verse in his _Commentary_. + + +Such, in brief, were the outstanding doctrines of the Pythagorean +Brotherhood. Their teachings included, as we have seen, what may justly +be called scientific discoveries of the first importance, as well as +doctrines which, though we may feel compelled--perhaps rightly--to regard +them as fantastic now, had an immense influence on the thought of +succeeding ages, especially on Greek philosophy as represented by PLATO +and the Neo-Platonists, and the more speculative minds--the occult +philosophers, shall I say?--of the latter mediaeval period and succeeding +centuries. The Brotherhood, however, was not destined to continue its +days in peace. As I have indicated, it was a philosophical, not a +political, association; but naturally PYTHAGORAS' philosophy included +political doctrines. At any rate, the Brotherhood acquired a considerable +share in the government of Croton, a fact which was greatly resented by +the members of the democratic party, who feared the loss of their rights; +and, urged thereto, it is said, by a rejected applicant for membership of +the Order, the mob made an onslaught on the Brotherhood's place of +assembly and burnt it to the ground. One account has it that PYTHAGORAS +himself died in the conflagration, a sacrifice to the mad fury of the mob. +According to another account--and we like to believe that this is the +true one--he escaped to Tarentum, from which he was banished, to find an +asylum in Metapontum, where he lived his last years in peace. + +The Pythagorean Order was broken up, but the bonds of brotherhood +still existed between its members. "One of them who had fallen upon +sickness and poverty was kindly taken in by an innkeeper.Before dying +he traced a few mysterious signs [the pentagram, no doubt] on the door +of the inn and said to the host: `Do not be uneasy, one of my brothers +will pay my debts.' A year afterwards, as a stranger was passing by +this inn he saw the signs and said to the host: `I am a Pythagorean; +one of my brothers died here; tell me what I owe you on his account.' "[1] + + + +[1] EDOUARD SCHURE: _Op. cit_., p. 174. + + +In endeavouring to estimate the worth of PYTHAGORAS' discoveries and +teaching, Mr FRANKLAND writes, with reference to his achievements in +geometry: "Even after making a considerable allowance for his pupils' +share, the Master's geometrical work calls for much admiration"; and, +". . . it cannot be far wrong to suppose that it was Pythagoras' wont +to insist upon proofs, and so to secure that rigour which gives to +mathematics its honourable position amongst the sciences." And of his +work in arithmetic, music, and astronomy, the same author writes: +". . . everywhere he appears to have inaugurated genuinely scientific +methods, and to have laid the foundations of a high and liberal +education"; adding, "For nearly a score of centuries, to the very close +of the Middle Ages, the four Pythagorean subjects of study--arithmetic, +geometry, astronomy, music--were the staple educational course, and +were bound together into a fourfold way of knowledge--the Quadrivium."[1] +With these words of due praise, our present excursion may fittingly close. + + +[1] _Op. cit_., pp. 35, 37, and 38. + + + + +III + +MEDICINE AND MAGIC + +THERE are few tasks at once so instructive and so fascinating as the +tracing of the development of the human mind as manifested in the +evolution of scientific and philosophical theories. And this is, +perhaps, especially true when, as in the case of medicine, this +evolution has followed paths so tortuous, intersected by so many +fantastic byways, that one is not infrequently doubtful as to the true +road. The history of medicine is at once the history of human wisdom +and the history of human credulity and folly, and the romantic element +(to use the expression in its popular acceptation) thus introduced, +whilst making the subject more entertaining, by no means detracts +from its importance considered psychologically. + +To whom the honour of having first invented medicines is due is unknown, +the origins of pharmacy being lost in the twilight of myth. OSIRIS and +ISIS, BACCHUS, APOLLO father of the famous physician AESCULAPIUS, +and CHIRON the Centaur, tutor of the latter, are among the many +mythological personages who have been accredited with the invention +of physic. It is certain that the art of compounding medicines is +extraordinarily ancient. There is a papyrus in the British Museum +containing medical prescriptions which was written about 1200 B.C.; +and the famous EBERS papyrus, which is devoted to medical matters, +is reckoned to date from about the year 1550 B.C. It is interesting +to note that in the prescriptions given in this latter papyrus, +as seems to have been the case throughout the history of medicine, +the principle that the efficacy of a medicine is in proportion to its +nastiness appears to have been the main idea. Indeed, many old medicines +contained ingredients of the most disgusting nature imaginable: +a mediaeval remedy known as oil of puppies, made by cutting up two +newly-born puppies and boiling them with one pound of live earthworms, +may be cited as a comparatively pleasant example of the remedies (?) used +in the days when all sorts of excreta were prescribed as medicines.[1] + + +[1] See the late Mr A. C. WOOTTON'S excellent work, _Chronicles of +Pharmacy_ (2 vols, 1910), to which I gladly acknowledge my indebtedness. + + +Presumably the oldest theory concerning the causation of disease +is that which attributes all the ills of mankind to the malignant +operations of evil spirits, a theory which someone has rather +fancifully suggested is not so erroneous after all, if we may +be allowed to apply the term "evil spirits" to the microbes +of modern bacteriology. Remnants of this theory (which does-- +shall I say?--conceal a transcendental truth), that is, +in its original form, still survive to the present day in various +superstitious customs, whose absurdity does not need emphasising: +for example, the use of red flannel by old-fashioned folk +with which to tie up sore throats--red having once been +supposed to be a colour very angatonistic to evil spirits; +so much so that at one time red cloth hung in the patient's +room was much employed as a cure for smallpox! + +Medicine and magic have always been closely associated. +Indeed, the greatest name in the history of pharmacy is also what is +probably the greatest name in the history of magic--the reference, +of course, being to PARACELSUS (1493-1541). Until PARACELSUS, +partly by his vigorous invective and partly by his remarkable +cures of various diseases, demolished the old school of medicine, +no one dared contest the authority of GALEN (130-_circa_ 205) +and AVICENNA (980--1037). GALEN'S theory of disease was largely +based upon that of the four humours in man--bile, blood, phlegm, +and black bile,--which were regarded as related to (but not +identical with) the four elements--fire, air, water, and earth,-- +being supposed to have characters similar to these. Thus, to bile, +as to fire, were attributed the properties of hotness and dryness; +to blood and air those of hotness and moistness; to phlegm and +water those of coldness and moistness; and, finally, black bile, +like earth, was said to be cold and dry. GALEN supposed +that an alteration in the due proportion of these humours gives +rise to disease, though he did not consider this to be its +only cause; thus, cancer, it was thought, might result from an +excess of black bile, and rheumatism from an excess of phlegm. +Drugs, GALEN argued, are of efficiency in the curing of disease, +according as they possess one or more of these so-called +fundamental properties, hotness, dryness, coldness, and moistness, +whereby it was considered that an excess of any humour might +be counteracted; moreover, it was further assumed that four degrees +of each property exist, and that only those drugs are of use in +curing a disease which contain the necessary property or properties +in the degree proportionate to that in which the opposite humour +or humours are in excess in the patient's system. + +PARACELSUS' views were based upon his theory (undoubtedly true +in a sense) that man is a microcosm, a world in miniature.[1] Now, +all things material, taught PARACELSUS, contain the three principles +termed in alchemistic phraseology salt, sulphur, and mercury. +This is true, therefore, of man: the healthy body, he argued, +is a sort of chemical compound in which these three principles +are harmoniously blended (as in the Macrocosm) in due proportion, +whilst disease is due to a preponderance of one principle, +fevers, for example, being the result of an excess of sulphur +(_i.e_. the fiery principle), _etc_. PARACELSUS, although his theory +was not so different from that of GALEN, whose views he denounced, +was thus led to seek for CHEMICAL remedies, containing these principles +in varying proportions; he was not content with medicinal herbs +and minerals in their crude state, but attempted to extract their +effective essences; indeed, he maintained that the preparation +of new and better drugs is the chief business of chemistry. + + +[1] See the "Note on the Paracelsian Doctrine of the Microcosm" below. + + +This theory of disease and of the efficacy of drugs was complicated +by many fantastic additions;[1] thus there is the "Archaeus," a sort of +benevolent demon, supposed by PARACELSUS to look after all the unconscious +functions of the bodily organism, who has to be taken into account. +PARACELSUS also held the Doctrine of Signatures, according to which the +medicinal value of plants and minerals is indicated by their external form, +or by some sign impressed upon them by the operation of the stars. +A very old example of this belief is to be found in the use of mandrake +(whose roots resemble the human form) by the Hebrews and Greeks as a cure +for sterility; or, to give an instance which is still accredited by some, +the use of eye-bright (_Euphrasia officinalis_, L., a plant with a black +pupil-like spot in its corolla) for complaints of the eyes.[2] Allied +to this doctrine are such beliefs, once held, as that the lungs of foxes +are good for bronchial troubles, or that the heart of a lion will endow +one with courage; as CORNELIUS AGRIPPA put it, "It is well known amongst +physicians that brain helps the brain, and lungs the lungs."[3] + + +[1] The question of PARACELSUS' pharmacy is further complicated +by the fact that this eccentric genius coined many new words +(without regard to the principles of etymology) as names for his medicines, +and often used the same term to stand for quite different bodies. +Some of his disciples maintained that he must not always be understood +in a literal sense, in which probably there is an element of truth. +See, for instance, _A Golden and Blessed Casket of Nature's Marvels_, +by BENEDICTUS FIGULUS (trans. by A. E. WAITE, 1893). + +[2] See Dr ALFRED C. HADDON'S _Magic and Fetishism_ (1906), p. 15. + +[3] HENRY CORNELIUS AGRIPPA: _Occult Philosophy_, bk. i. chap. xv. +(WHITEHEAD'S edition, Chicago, 1898, P. 72). + + +In modern times homoeopathy--according to which a drug is a cure, if +administered in small doses, for that disease whose symptoms it produces, +if given in large doses to a healthy person---seems to bear some +resemblance to these old medical theories concerning the curing of like +by like. That the system of HAHNEMANN (1755--1843), the founder of +homoeopathy, is free from error could be scarcely maintained, but certain +recent discoveries in connection with serum-therapy appear to indicate +that the last word has not yet been said on the subject, and the formula +"like cures like" may still have another lease of life to run. + +To return to PARACELSUS, however. It may be thought that his views were +not so great an advance on those of GALEN; but whether or not this be the +case, his union of chemistry and medicine was of immense benefit to each +science, and marked a new era in pharmacy. Even if his theories were +highly fantastic, it was he who freed medicine from the shackles of +traditionalism, and rendered progress in medical science possible. + +I must not conclude these brief notes without some reference +to the medical theory of the medicinal efficacy of words. +The EBERS papyrus already mentioned gives various formulas which +must be pronounced when preparing and when administering a drug; +and there is a draught used by the Eastern Jews as a cure +for bronchial complaints prepared by writing certain words +on a plate, washing them off with wine, and adding three grains +of a citron which has been used at the Tabernacle festival. +But enough for our present excursion; we must hie us back to +the modern world, with its alkaloids, serums, and anti-toxins-- +another day we will, perhaps, wander again down the by-paths +of Medicinal Magic. + + +NOTE ON THE PARACELSIAN DOCTRINE OF THE MICROCOSM + + +"Man's nature," writes CORNELIUS AGRIPPA, "_is the most complete +Image of the whole Universe_."[1] This theory, especially connected +with the name of PARACELSUS, is worthy of more than passing reference; +but as the consideration of it leads us from medicine to metaphysics, +I have thought it preferable to deal with the subject in a note. + + +[1] H. C. AGRIPPA: _Occult Philosophy_, bk. i. chap. xxxiii. +(WHITEHEAD'S edition, p. 111). + + +Man, taught the old mystical philosophers, is threefold in nature, +consisting of spirit, soul, and body. The Paracelsian mercury, +sulphur, and salt were the mineral analogues of these. "As to the +Spirit," writes VALENTINE WEIGEL (1533--1588), a disciple of PARACELSUS, +"we are of God, move in God, and live in God, and are nourished of God. +Hence God is in us and we are in God; God hath put and placed Himself +in us, and we are put and placed in God. As to the Soul, we are from +the Firmament and Stars, we live and move therein, and are nourished +thereof. Hence the Firmament with its astralic virtues and operations +is in us, and we in it. The Firmament is put and placed in us, and we +are put and placed in the Firmament. As to the Body, we are of the +elements, we move and live therein, and are nourished of them:--hence +the elements are in us, and we in them. The elements, by the slime, +are put and placed in us, and we are put and placed in them."[1] Or, +to quote from PARACELSUS himself, in his _Hermetic Astronomy_ he +writes: "God took the body out of which He built up man from those +things which He created from nothingness into something . . . Hence +man is now a microcosm, or a little world, because he is an extract +from all the stars and planets of the whole firmament, from the earth +and the elements, and so he is their quintessence.... But between the +macrocosm and the microcosm this difference occurs, that the form, +image, species, and substance of man are diverse therefrom. In man +the earth is flesh, the water is blood, fire is the heat thereof, and +air is the balsam. These properties have not been changed but only +the substance of the body. So man is man, not a world, yet made from +the world, made in the likeness, not of the world, but of God. Yet +man comprises in himself all the qualities of the world.... His body +is from the world, and therefore must be fed and nourished by that +world from which he has sprung.... He has been taken from the earth and +from the elements, and therefore, must be nourished by these.... Now, +man is not only flesh and blood, but there is within the intellect +which does not, like the complexion, come from the elements, but from +the stars. And the condition of the stars is this, that all the wisdom, +intelligence, industry of the animal, and all the arts peculiar to man +are contained in them. From the stars man has these same things, and +that is called the light of Nature; in fact, it is whatever man has +found by the light of Nature.... Such, then, is the condition of man, +that, out of the great universe he needs both elements and stars, +seeing that he himself is constituted in that way."[1b] + + +[1] VALENTINE WEIGEL: "_Astrology Theologised": The Spiritual Hermeneutics +of Astrology and Holy Writ_, ed. by ANNA BONUS KINGSFORD (1886), p. 59. + +[1b] _The Hermetic and Alchemical Writings of_ PARACELSUS, ed. by A. E. +WAITE (1894), vol. ii. pp. 289-291. + + + +It is not difficult to discern a certain truth in all this, making +allowances for modes of thought which are not those of the present day. +The Swedish philosopher SWEDENBORG (1688-1772) reaffirmed +the theory in later years; but, as he points out,[2] the reason +that man is a microcosm lies deeper than in the facts that his +body is of the elements of this earth and is nourished thereby. +According to this profound thinker, FORM, spiritually understood, +is the expression of USE, the uses of things being indicated +by their forms. Now, the human form is the highest of all forms, +because it subserves the highest of all uses. Hence, both the world +of matter and the world of spirit are in the human form, because there +is a correspondence in use between man and the Cosmos. We may, +therefore, call man as to his body a microcosm, or little world; +as to his soul a micro-uranos, or little heaven. Or we may speak +of the macrocosm, or great world, as the Grand Man, and we may say +that the Soul of this Grand Man, the self-existent, substantial, +and efficient cause of all things, at once immanent within yet +transcending all things, is God. + +[2] See especially his _Divine Love and Wisdom_, SESE 251 and 319. + + + +IV + +SUPERSTITIONS CONCERNING BIRDS + +AMONGST the most remarkable of natural occurrences must be included +many of the phenomena connected with the behaviour of birds. Undoubtedly +numerous species of birds are susceptible to atmospheric changes (of an +electrical and barometric nature) too slight to be observed by man's +unaided senses; thus only is to be explained the phenomenon of migration +and also the many other peculiarities in the behaviour of birds whereby +approaching changes in the weather may be foretold. Probably, also, +this fact has much to do with the extraordinary homing instinct of +pigeons. But, of course, in the days when meteorological science had +yet to be born, no such explanation as this could be known. The +ancients observed that birds by their migrations or by other +peculiarities in their behaviour prognosticated coming changes in the +seasons of the year and other changes connected with the weather (such +as storms, _etc_.); they saw, too, in the homing instincts of pigeons +an apparent exhibition of intelligence exceeding that of man. What +more natural, then, for them to attribute foresight to birds, and to +suppose that all sorts of coming events (other than those of an +atmospheric nature) might be foretold by careful observation of their +flight and song? + +Augury--that is, the art of divination by observing the behaviour +of birds--was extensively cultivated by the Etrurians and Romans.[1] +It is still used, I believe, by the natives of Samoa. The Romans had +an official college of augurs, the members of which were originally +three patricians. About 300 B.C. the number of patrician augurs was +increased by one, and five plebeian augurs were added. Later the number +was again increased to fifteen. The object of augury was not so much +to foretell the future as to indicate what line of action should be +followed, in any given circumstances, by the nation. The augurs were +consulted on all matters of importance, and the position of augur was +thus one of great consequence. In what appears to be the oldest method, +the augur, arrayed in a special costume, and carrying a staff with which +to mark out the visible heavens into houses, proceeded to an elevated +piece of ground, where a sacrifice was made and a prayer repeated. +Then, gazing towards the sky, he waited until a bird appeared. The +point in the heavens where it first made its appearance was carefully +noted, also the manner and direction of its flight, and the point where +it was lost sight of. From these particulars an augury was derived, but, +in order to be of effect, it had to be confirmed by a further one. + + +[1] This is not quite an accurate definition, as "auguries" were +also obtained from other animals and from celestial phenomena +(_e.g_. lightning), _etc_. + +Auguries were also drawn from the notes of birds, birds being +divided by the augurs into two classes: (i) _oscines_, +"those which give omens by their note," and (ii) _alites_, +"those which afford presages by their flight."[1] Another method +of augury was performed by the feeding of chickens specially +kept for this purpose. This was done just before sunrise +by the _pullarius_ or feeder, strict silence being observed. +If the birds manifested no desire for their food, the omen +was of a most direful nature. On the other hand, if from +the greediness of the chickens the grain fell from their beaks +and rebounded from the ground, the augury was most favourable. +This latter augury was known as _tripudium solistimum_. +"Any fraud practiced by the `pullarius'," writes +the Rev. EDWARD SMEDLEY, "reverted to his own head. +Of this we have a memorable instance in the great battle between +Papirius Cursor and the Samnites in the year of Rome 459. +So anxious were the troops for battle, that the `pullarius' +dared to announce to the consul a `tripudium solistimum,' +although the chickens refused to eat. Papirius unhesitatingly +gave the signal for fight, when his son, having discovered +the false augury, hastened to communicate it to his father. +`Do thy part well,' was his reply, `and let the deceit of the augur +fall on himself. The "tripudium" has been announced to me, +and no omen could be better for the Roman army and people!' +As the troops advanced, a javelin thrown at random struck +the `pullatius' dead. `The hand of heaven is in the battle,' +cried Papirius; `the guilty is punished!' and he advanced and +conquered."[1b] A coincidence of this sort, if it really occurred, +would very greatly strengthen the popular belief in auguries. + + +[1] PLINY: _Natural History_, bk. x. chap. xxii. (BOSTOCK and RILEY'S +trans., vol. ii., 1855, p. 495). + +[1b] Rev. EDWARD SMEDLEY, M.A.: _The Occult Sciences_ +(_Encyclopaedia Metropolitana_), ed. by ELIHU RICH +(1855), p. 144. + + +The _cock_ has always been reckoned a bird possessed of magic power. +At its crowing, we are told, all unquiet spirits who roam the earth depart +to their dismal abodes, and the orgies of the Witches' Sabbath terminate. +A cock is the favourite sacrifice offered to evil spirits in Ceylon +and elsewhere. Alectromancy[2] was an ancient and peculiarly senseless +method of divination (so called) in which a cock was employed. The bird +had to be young and quite white. Its feet were cut off and crammed +down its throat with a piece of parchment on which were written certain +Hebrew words. The cock, after the repetition of a prayer by the operator, +was placed in a circle divided into parts corresponding to the letters +of the alphabet, in each of which a grain of wheat was placed. +A certain psalm was recited, and then the letters were noted from +which the cock picked up the grains, a fresh grain being put down +for each one picked up. These letters, properly arranged, were said +to give the answer to the inquiry for which divination was made. +I am not sure what one was supposed to do if, as seems likely, +the cock refused to act in the required manner. + + +[2] Cf. ARTHUR EDWARD WAITE: _The Occult Sciences_ (1891), pp. +124 and 125. + + +The _owl_ was reckoned a bird of evil omen with the Romans, +who derived this opinion from the Etrurians, along with much +else of their so-called science of augury. It was particularly +dreaded if seen in a city, or, indeed, anywhere by day. +PLINY (Caius Plinius Secundus, A.D. 61-before 115) informs us +that on one occasion "a horned owl entered the very sanctuary +of the Capitol; . . . in consequence of which, Rome was purified +on the nones of March in that year."[1] + + +[1] PLINY: _Natural History_, bk. x. chap. xvi. (BOSTOCK and RILEY'S +trans., vol. ii., 1855, p. 492). + + +The folk-lore of the British Isles abounds with quaint beliefs and stories +concerning birds. There is a charming Welsh legend concerning the _robin_, +which the Rev. T. F. T. DYER quotes from _Notes and Queries_:--"Far, far +away, is a land of woe, darkness, spirits of evil, and fire. Day by day +does this little bird bear in his bill a drop of water to quench the flame. +So near the burning stream does he fly, that his dear little feathers are +SCORCHED; and hence he is named Brou-rhuddyn (Breast-burnt). To serve +little children, the robin dares approach the infernal pit. No good child +will hurt the devoted benefactor of man. The robin returns from the land +of fire, and therefore he feels the cold of winter far more than his +brother birds. He shivers in the brumal blast; hungry, he chirps before +your door."[2] + + +[2] T. F. THISELTON DYER, M.A.: _English Folk-Lore_ (1878), pp. +65 and 66. + + +Another legend accounts for the robin's red breast by supposing this +bird to have tried to pluck a thorn from the crown encircling the brow +of the crucified CHRIST, in order to alleviate His sufferings. +No doubt it is on account of these legends that it is considered a crime, +which will be punished with great misfortune, to kill a robin. +In some places the same prohibition extends to the _wren_, which is +popularly believed to be the wife of the robin. In other parts, however, +the wren is (or at least was) cruelly hunted on certain days. In the +Isle of Man the wren-hunt took place on Christmas Eve and St Stephen's +Day, and is accounted for by a legend concerning an evil fairy who lured +many men to destruction, but had to assume the form of a wren to escape +punishment at the hands of an ingenious knight-errant. + +For several centuries there was prevalent over the whole of +civilised Europe a most extraordinary superstition concerning +the small Arctic bird resembling, but not so large as, the common +wild goose, known as the _barnacle_ or _bernicle goose_. +MAX MUELLER[1] has suggested that this word was really derived +from _Hibernicula_, the name thus referring to Ireland, +where the birds were caught; but common opinion associated +the barnacle goose with the shell-fish known as the barnacle +(which is found on timber exposed to the sea), supposing +that the former was generated out of the latter. Thus in one old +medical writer we find: "There are founde in the north parts of +Scotland, and the Ilands adjacent, called Orchades [Orkney Islands], +certain trees, whereon doe growe certaine shell fishes, of a white +colour tending to russet; wherein are conteined little liuing +creatures: which shells in time of maturitie doe open, and out of +them grow those little living things; which falling into the water, +doe become foules, whom we call Barnakles . . . but the other that +do fall vpon the land, perish and come to nothing: this much by the +writings of others, and also from the mouths of the people of those +parts...."[1b] + + +[1] See F. MAX MUELLER'S _Lectures on the Science of Language_ +(1885), where a very full account of the tradition concerning +the origin of the barnacle goose will be found. + +[1b] JOHN GERARDE: _The Herball; or, Generall Historie +of Plantes_ (1597). 1391. + + +The writer, however, who was a well-known surgeon and botanist +of his day, adds that he had personally examined certain shell-fish +from Lancashire, and on opening the shells had observed within +birds in various stages of development. No doubt he was deceived +by some purely superficial resemblances--for example, the feet +of the barnacle fish resemble somewhat the feathers of a bird. +He gives an imaginative illustration of the barnacle fowl escaping +from its shell, which is reproduced in fig. 12. + +Turning now from superstitions concerning actual birds to legends of +those that are purely mythical, passing reference must be made to the +_roc_, a bird existing in Arabian legend, which we meet in the _Arabian +Nights_, and which is chiefly remarkable for its size and strength. + +The _phoenix_, perhaps, is of more interest. Of "that famous bird of +Arabia," PLINY writes as follows, prefixing his description of it with +the cautious remark, "I am not quite sure that its existence is not all +a fable." "It is said that there is only one in existence in the +whole world, and that that one has not been seen very often. We are +told that this bird is of the size of an eagle, and has a brilliant +golden plumage around the neck, while the rest of the body is of a +purple colour; except the tail, which is azure, with long feathers +intermingled of a roseate hue; the throat is adorned with a crest, and +the head with a tuft of feathers. The first Roman who described this +bird . . . was the senator Manilius.... He tells us that no person has +ever seen this bird eat, that in Arabia it is looked upon as sacred to +the sun, that it lives five hundred and forty years, that when it +becomes old it builds a nest of cassia and sprigs of incense, which it +fills with perfumes, and then lays its body down upon them to die; that +from its bones and marrow there springs at first a sort of small worm, +which in time changes into a little bird; that the first thing that it +does is to perform the obsequies of its predecessor, and to carry the +nest entire to the city of the Sun near Panchaia, and there deposit it +upon the altar of that divinity. + +"The same Manilius states also, that the revolution of the great year +is completed with the life of this bird, and that then a new cycle +comes round again with the same characteristics as the former one, +in the seasons and the appearance of the stars. . . . This bird was +brought to Rome in the censorship of the Emperor Claudius . . . and was +exposed to public view.... This fact is attested by the public Annals, +but there is no one that doubts that it was a fictitious phoenix only."[1] + + +[1] PLINY: _Natural History_, bk. x. chap. ii. (BOSTOCK and RILEY'S +trans., vol. ii., 1855, PP. 479-481). + + +The description of the plumage, _etc_., of this bird applies +fairly well, as CUVIER has pointed out,[2] to the golden pheasant, +and a specimen of the latter may have been the "fictitious phoenix" +referred to above. That this bird should have been credited +with the extraordinary and wholly fabulous properties related +by PLINY and others is not, however, easy to understand. +The phoenix was frequently used to illustrate the doctrine of +the immortality of the soul (_e.g_. in CLEMENT'S _First Epistle +to the Corinthians_), and it is not impossible that originally +it was nothing more than a symbol of immortality which in +time became to be believed in as a really existing bird. +The fact, however, that there was supposed to be only one phoenix, +and also that the length of each of its lives coincided with what +the ancients termed a "great year," may indicate that the phoenix +was a symbol of cosmological periodicity. On the other hand, +some ancient writers (e_.g_. TACITUS, A.D. 55-120) explicitly refer +to the phoenix as a symbol of the sun, and in the minds of the ancients +the sun was closely connected with the idea of immortality. +Certainly the accounts of the gorgeous colours of the plumage +of the phoenix might well be descriptions of the rising sun. +It appears, moreover, that the Egyptian hieroglyphic _benu_, +{glyph}, which is a figure of a heron or crane (and thus akin +to the phoenix), was employed to designate the rising sun. + + +[2] See CUVIER'S _The Animal Kingdom_, GRIFFITH'S trans., vol. viii. +(1829), p. 23. + + +There are some curious Jewish legends to account for the supposed +immortality of the phoenix. According to one, it was the sole +animal that refused to eat of the forbidden tree when tempted +by EVE. According to another, its immortality was conferred +on it by NOAH because of its considerate behaviour in the Ark, +the phoenix not clamouring for food like the other animals.[1] + + +[1] The existence of such fables as these shows how grossly the real +meanings of the Sacred Writings have been misunderstood. + + +There is a celebrated bird in Chinese tradition, the _Fung Hwang_, +which some sinologues identify with the phoenix of the West.[2] According +to a commentator on the '_Rh Ya_, this "felicitous and perfect bird has +a cock's head, a snake's neck, a swallow's beak, a tortoise's back, +is of five different colours and more than six feet high." + + +[2] Mr CHAS. GOULD, B.A., to whose book _Mythical Monsters_ +(1886) I am very largely indebted for my account of this bird, and from +which I have culled extracts from the Chinese, is not of this opinion. +Certainly the fact that we read of Fung Hwangs in the plural, +whilst tradition asserts that there is only one phoenix, seems to point +to a difference in origin. + + +Another account (that in the _Lun Yu Tseh Shwai Shing_) tells us +that "its head resembles heaven, its eye the sun, its back the moon, +its wings the wind, its foot the ground, and its tail the woof." +Furthermore, "its mouth contains commands, its heart is conformable +to regulations, its ear is thoroughly acute in hearing, its tongue +utters sincerity, its colour is luminous, its comb resembles uprightness, +its spur is sharp and curved, its voice is sonorous, and its belly is the +treasure of literature." Like the dragon, tortoise, and unicorn, it was +considered to be a spiritual creature; but, unlike the Western phoenix, +more than one Fung Hwang was, as I have pointed out, believed to exist. +The birds were not always to be seen, but, according to Chinese records, +they made their appearance during the reigns of certain sovereigns. +The Fung Hwang is regarded by the Chinese as an omen of great happiness +and prosperity, and its likeness is embroidered on the robes of empresses +to ensure success. Probably, if the bird is not to be regarded +as purely mythological and symbolic in origin, we have in the stories +of it no more than exaggerated accounts of some species of pheasant. +Japanese literature contains similar stories. + +Of other fabulous bird-forms mention may be made of the _griffin_ +and the _harpy_. The former was a creature half eagle, half lion, +popularly supposed to be the progeny of the union of these two latter. +It is described in the so-called _Voiage and Travaile of +Sir_ JOHN MAUNDEVILLE in the following terms[1]: "Sum men seyn, +that thei ben the Body upward, as an Egle, and benethe as a Lyoun: +and treuly thei seyn sothe, that thei ben of that schapp. +But o Griffoun hathe the body more gret and is more strong thanne +8 Lyouns, of suche Lyouns as ben o this half; and more gret +and strongere, than an 100 Egles, suche as we ben amonges us. +For o Griffoun there will bere, fleynge to his Nest, a gret Hors, +or 2 Oxen zoked to gidere, as thei gon at the Plowghe. For he hathe +his Talouns so longe and so large and grete, upon his Feet, +as thoughe thei weren Hornes of grete Oxen or of Bugles +or of Kyzn; so that men maken Cuppes of hem, to drynken of: +and of hire Ribbes and of the Pennes of hire Wenges, men maken Bowes +fulle strong, to schote with Arwes and Quarelle." The special +characteristic of the griffin was its watchfulness, its chief +function being thought to be that of guarding secret treasure. +This characteristic, no doubt, accounts for its frequent use +in heraldry as a supporter to the arms. It was sacred to APOLLO, +the sun-god, whose chariot was, according to early sculptures, +drawn by griffins. PLINY, who speaks of it as a bird having long +ears and a hooked beak, regarded it as fabulous. + + +[1] _The Voiage and Travaile of Sir_ JOHN MAUNDEVILLE, _Kt. Which treateth +of the Way to Hierusalem; and of Marvayles of Inde, with other +Ilands and Countryes. Now Publish'd entire from an Original MS. +in The Cotton Library_ (London, 1727), cap. xxvi. pp. 325 and 326. + +"This work is mainly a compilation from the writings +of William of Boldensele, Friar Odoric of Pordenone, Hetoum +of Armenia, Vincent de Beauvais, and other geographers. +It is probable that the name John de Mandeville should be regarded +as a pseudonym concealing the identity of Jean de Bourgogne, +a physician at Liege, mentioned under the name of Joannes ad +Barbam in the vulgate Latin version of the Travels." (Note in +British Museum Catalogue). The work, which was first published +in French during the latter part of the fourteenth century, +achieved an immense popularity, the marvels that it relates +being readily received by the credulous folk of that and many +a succeeding day. + + +The harpies (_i.e_. snatchers) in Greek mythology are creatures +like vultures as to their bodies, but with the faces of women, +and armed with sharp claws. + +"Of Monsters all, most Monstrous this; no greater Wrath God sends +'mongst Men; it comes from depth of pitchy Hell: And Virgin's Face, +but Womb like Gulf unsatiate hath, Her Hands are griping Claws, +her Colour pale and fell."[1] + + +[1] Quoted from VERGIL by JOHN GUILLIM in his _A Display of Heraldry_ +(sixth edition, 1724), p. 271. + + +We meet with the harpies in the story of PHINEUS, a son +of AGENOR, King of Thrace. At the bidding of his jealous wife, +IDAEA, daughter of DARDANUS, PHINEUS put out the sight of his +children by his former wife, CLEOPATRA, daughter of BOREAS. +To punish this cruelty, the gods caused him to become blind, +and the harpies were sent continually to harass and affright him, +and to snatch away his food or defile it by their presence. +They were afterwards driven away by his brothers-in-law, ZETES +and CALAIS. It has been suggested that originally the harpies +were nothing more than personifications of the swift storm-winds; +and few of the old naturalists, credulous as they were, +regarded them as real creatures, though this cannot be said of all. +Some other fabulous bird-forms are to be met with in Greek and Arabian +mythologies, _etc_., but they are not of any particular interest. +And it is time for us to conclude our present excursion, +and to seek for other byways. + + + +V + +THE POWDER OF SYMPATHY: A CURIOUS MEDICAL SUPERSTITION + +OUT of the superstitions of the past the science of the present +has gradually evolved. In the Middle Ages, what by courtesy we +may term medical science was, as we have seen, little better +than a heterogeneous collection of superstitions, and although +various reforms were instituted with the passing of time, +superstition still continued for long to play a prominent part +in medical practice. + +One of the most curious of these old medical (or perhaps I should say +surgical) superstitions was that relating to the Powder of Sympathy, a +remedy (?) chiefly remembered in connection with the name of Sir KENELM +DIGBY (1603-1665), though he was probably not the first to employ it. +The Powder itself, which was used as a cure for wounds, was, in fact, +nothing else than common vitriol,[1] though an improved and more +elegant form (if one may so describe it) was composed of vitriol +desiccated by the sun's rays, mixed with _gum tragacanth_. +It was in the application of the Powder that the remedy was peculiar. +It was not, as one might expect, applied to the wound itself, +but any article that might have blood from the wound upon it was either +sprinkled with the Powder or else placed in a basin of water in which +the Powder had been dissolved, and maintained at a temperate heat. +Meanwhile, the wound was kept clean and cool. + + +[1] Green vitriol, ferrous sulphate heptahydrate, a compound of iron, +sulphur, and oxygen, crystallised with seven molecules of water, +represented by the formula FeSO4<.>7H2O. On exposure to the air it +loses water, and is gradually converted into basic ferric sulphate. +For long, green vitriol was confused with blue vitriol, +which generally occurs as an impurity in crude green vitriol. +Blue vitriol is copper sulphate pentahydrate, CuSO4<.>5H2O. + + +Sir KENELM DIGBY appears to have delivered a discourse dealing with +the famous Powder before a learned assembly at Montpellier in France; +at least a work purporting to be a translation of such a discourse was +published in 1658,[1] and further editions appeared in 1660 and 1664. +KENELM was a son of the Sir EVERARD DIGBY (1578-1606) who was executed +for his share in the Gunpowder Plot. In spite of this fact, however, +JAMES I. appears to have regarded him with favour. He was a man of +romantic temperament, possessed of charming manners, considerable learning, +and even greater credulity. His contemporaries seem to have differed +in their opinions concerning him. EVELYN (1620-1706), the diarist, +after inspecting his chemical laboratory, rather harshly speaks of him +as "an errant mountebank". Elsewhere he well refers to him as "a teller +of strange things"--this was on the occasion of DIGBY'S relating a story +of a lady who had such an aversion to roses that one laid on her cheek +produced a blister! + +[1] _A late Discourse . . . by Sir_ KENELM DIGBY, _Kt.&c. Touching the +Cure of Wounds by the Powder of Sympathy . . .rendered . . . out of +French into English by_ R. WHITE, Gent. (1658). This is entitled the +second edition, but appears to have been the first. + + +To return to the _Late Discourse_: after some preliminary remarks, +Sir KENELM records a cure which he claims to have effected by means +of the Powder. It appears that JAMES HOWELL (1594-1666, afterwards +historiographer royal to CHARLES II.), had, in the attempt to separate +two friends engaged in a duel, received two serious wounds in the hand. +To proceed in the writer's own words:--"It was my chance to be lodged +hard by him; and four or five days after, as I was making myself ready, +he [Mr Howell] came to my House, and prayed me to view his wounds; +for I understand, said he, that you have extraordinary remedies upon +such occasions, and my Surgeons apprehend some fear, that it may grow +to a Gangrene, and so the hand must be cut off.... + +"I asked him then for any thing that had the blood upon it, so he +presently sent for his Garter, wherewith his hand was first bound: +and having called for a Bason of water, as if I would wash my hands; +I took an handfull of Powder of Vitrol, which I had in my study, and +presently dissolved it. As soon as the bloody garter was brought me, +I put it within the Bason, observing in the interim what Mr _Howel_ +did, who stood talking with a Gentleman in the corner of my Chamber, +not regarding at all what I was doing: but he started suddenly, as if +he had found some strange alteration in himself; I asked him what he +ailed? I know not what ailes me, but I find that I feel no more pain, +methinks that a pleasing kind of freshnesse, as it were a wet cold +Napkin did spread over my hand, which hath taken away the inflammation +that tormented me before; I replied, since that you feel already so +good an effect of my medicament, I advise you to cast away all your +Plaisters, onely keep the wound clean, and in a moderate temper 'twixt +heat and cold. This was presently reported to the Duke of _Buckingham_, +and a little after to the King [James I.], who were both very curious +to know the issue of the businesse, which was, that after dinner I took +the garter out of the water, and put it to dry before a great fire; it +was scarce dry, but Mr _Howels_ servant came running [and told me], +that his Master felt as much burning as ever he had done, if not more, +for the heat was such, as if his hand were betwixt coales of fire: +I answered, that although that had happened at present, yet he should +find ease in a short time; for I knew the reason of this new accident, +and I would provide accordingly, for his Master should be free from +that inflammation, it may be, before he could possibly return unto him: +but in case he found no ease, I wished him to come presently back again, +if not he might forbear coming. Thereupon he went, and at the instant +I did put again the garter into the water; thereupon he found his +Master without any pain at all. To be brief, there was no sense of pain +afterward: but within five or six dayes the wounds were cicatrized, +and entirely healed."[1] + + +[1] _Ibid_., pp. 7-11. + + +Sir KENELM proceeds, in this discourse, to relate that he obtained +the secret of the Powder from a Carmelite who had learnt it in the +East. Sir KENELM says that he told it only to King JAMES and his +celebrated physician, Sir THEODORE MAYERNE (1573-1655). The latter +disclosed it to the Duke of MAYERNE, whose surgeon sold the secret +to various persons, until ultimately, as Sir KENELM remarks, it +became known to every country barber. However, DIGBY'S real +connection with the Powder has been questioned. In an Appendix to +Dr NATHANAEL HIGHMORE'S (1613-1685) _The History of Generation_, +published in 1651, entitled _A Discourse of the Cure of Wounds by +Sympathy_, the Powder is referred to as Sir GILBERT TALBOT'S Powder; +nor does it appear to have been DIGBY who brought the claims of the +Sympathetic Powder before the notice of the then recently-formed Royal +Society, although he was a by no means inactive member of the Society. +HIGHMORE, however, in the Appendix to the work referred to above, does +refer to DIGBY'S reputed cure of HOWELL'S wounds already mentioned; +and after the publication of DIGBY'S _Discourse_ the Powder became +generally known as Sir KENELM DIGBY'S Sympathetic Powder. As such it +is referred to in an advertisement appended to _Wit and Drollery_ +(1661) by the bookseller, NATHANAEL BROOK.[1] + + +[1] This advertisement is as follows: "These are to give notice, that +Sir _Kenelme Digbies_ Sympathetical Powder prepar'd by Promethean fire, +curing all green wounds that come within the compass of a Remedy; and +likewise the Tooth-ache infallibly in a very short time: Is to be had +at Mr _Nathanael Brook's_ at the Angel in _Cornhil_." + +The belief in cure by sympathy, however, is much older than DIGBY'S +or TALBOT'S Sympathetic Powder. PARACELSUS described an ointment +consisting essentially of the moss on the skull of a man who had died +a violent death, combined with boar's and bear's fat, burnt worms, +dried boar's brain, red sandal-wood and mummy, which was used to cure +(?) wounds in a similar manner, being applied to the weapon with which +the hurt had been inflicted. With reference to this ointment, readers +will probably recall the passage in SCOTT'S _Lay of the Last Minstrel_ +(canto 3, stanza 23), respecting the magical cure of WILLIAM of +DELORAINE'S wound by "the Ladye of Branksome":-- + + "She drew the splinter from the wound + And with a charm she stanch'd the blood; + She bade the gash be cleans'd and bound: + No longer by his couch she stood; + But she had ta'en the broken lance, + And washed it from the clotted gore + And salved the splinter o'er and o'er. + William of Deloraine, in trance, + Whene'er she turned it round and round, + Twisted as if she gall'd his wound. + Then to her maidens she did say + That he should be whole man and sound + Within the course of a night and day. + Full long she toil'd; for she did rue + Mishap to friend so stout and true." + + +FRANCIS BACON (1561-1626) writes of sympathetic cures as follows:--"It +is constantly Received, and Avouched, that the _Anointing_ of +the _Weapon_, that maketh the _Wound_, wil heale the _Wound_ it selfe. +In this _Experiment_, upon the Relation of _Men of Credit_, +(though my selfe, as yet, am not fully inclined to beleeve it,) +you shal note the _Points_ following; First, the _Ointment_ . . . is made +of Divers _ingredients_; whereof the Strangest and Hardest to come by, +are the Mosse upon the _Skull_ of a _dead Man, Vnburied_; And the _Fats_ +of a _Boare_, and a _Beare_, killed in the _Act of Generation_. These Two +last I could easily suspect to be prescribed as a Starting Hole; That if +the _Experiment_ proved not, it mought be pretended, that the _Beasts_ +were not killed in due Time; For as for the _Mosse_, it is certain +there is great Quantity of it in _Ireland_, upon _Slain Bodies_, +laid on _Heaps, Vnburied_. The other _Ingredients_ are, the _Bloud-Stone_ +in _Powder_, and some other _Things_, which seeme to have a _Vertue_ +to _Stanch Bloud_; As also the _Mosse_ hath.... Secondly, the same +_kind_ of _Ointment_, applied to the Hurt it selfe, worketh not +the _Effect_; but onely applied to the _Weapon_..... Fourthly, +it may be applied to the _Weapon_, though the Party Hurt be at a +great Distance. Fifthly, it seemeth the _Imagination_ of the Party, +to be _Cured_, is not needfull to Concurre; For it may be done +without the knowledge of the _Party Wounded_; And thus much hath +been tried, that the _Ointment_ (for _Experiments_ sake,) hath been +wiped off the _Weapon_, without the knowledge of the _Party Hurt_, +and presently the _Party Hurt_, hath been in great _Rage of Paine_, +till the _Weapon_ was _Reannointed_. Sixthly, it is affirmed, +that if you cannot get the _Weapon_, yet if you put an _Instrument_ +of _Iron_, or _Wood_, resembling the _Weapon_, into the _Wound_, +whereby it bleedeth, the _Annointing_ of that _Instrument_ will serve, +and work the _Effect_. This I doubt should be a Device, to keep this +strange _Forme of Cure_, in Request, and Use; Because many times you +cannot come by the _Weapon_ it selve. Seventhly, the _Wound_ be at first +_Washed clean_ with _White Wine_ or the _Parties_ own _Water_; And then +bound up close in _Fine Linen_ and no more _Dressing_ renewed, +till it be _whole_."[1] + + +[1] FRANCIS BACON: _Sylva Sylvarum: or, A Natural History . . . +Published after the Authors death . . . The sixt Edition_ ù . . +(1651), p. 217. + + +Owing to the demand for making this ointment, quite a considerable +trade was done in skulls from Ireland upon which moss had grown +owing to their exposure to the atmosphere, high prices being +obtained for fine specimens. + +The idea underlying the belief in the efficacy of sympathetic +remedies, namely, that by acting on part of a thing or on a symbol of +it, one thereby acts magically on the whole or the thing symbolised, +is the root-idea of all magic, and is of extreme antiquity. +DIGBY and others, however, tried to give a natural explanation +to the supposed efficacy of the Powder. They argued that particles +of the blood would ascend from the bloody cloth or weapon, only +coming to rest when they had reached their natural home in the +wound from which they had originally issued. These particles would +carry with them the more volatile part of the vitriol, which would +effect a cure more readily than when combined with the grosser part +of the vitriol. In the days when there was hardly any knowledge of +chemistry and physics, this theory no doubt bore every semblance of +truth. In passing, however, it is interesting to note that DIGBY'S +_Discourse_ called forth a reply from J. F. HELVETIUS (or SCHWETTZER, +1625-1709), physician to the Prince of Orange, who afterwards became +celebrated as an alchemist who had achieved the magnum opus.[1] + + +[1] See my _Alchemy: Ancient and Modern_ (1911), SESE 63-67. + + +Writing of the Sympathetic Powder, Professor DE MORGAN wittily +argues that it must have been quite efficacious. He says: +"The directions were to keep the wound clean and cool, and to +take care of diet, rubbing the salve on the knife or sword. +If we remember the dreadful notions upon drugs which prevailed, +both as to quantity and quality, we shall readily see that +any way of NOT dressing the wound would have been useful. +If the physicians had taken the hint, had been careful of diet, +_etc_., and had poured the little barrels of medicine down the throat +of a practicable doll, THEY would have had their magical cures +as well as the surgeons."[2] As Dr PETTIGREW has pointed out,[3] +Nature exhibits very remarkable powers in effecting the healing +of wounds by adhesion, when her processes are not impeded. +In fact, many cases have been recorded in which noses, ears, +and fingers severed from the body have been rejoined thereto, +merely by washing the parts, placing them in close continuity, +and allowing the natural powers of the body to effect the healing. +Moreover, in spite of BACON'S remarks on this point, the effect +of the imagination of the patient, who was usually not ignorant +that a sympathetic cure was to be attempted, must be taken +into account; for, without going to the excesses of "Christian Science" +in this respect, the fact must be recognised that the state +of the mind exercises a powerful effect on the natural forces +of the body, and a firm faith is undoubtedly helpful in effecting +the cure of any sort of ill. + + +[2] Professor AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN: _A Budget of Paradoxes_ +(1872), p 66. + +[3] THOMAS JOSEPH PETTIGREW, F.R.S.: _On Superstitions connected +with the History and Practice of Medicine and Surgery_ (1844), +pp. 164-167. + + + +VI + +THE BELIEF IN TALISMANS + +THE word "talisman" is derived from the Arabic "tilsam," "a magical +image," through the plural form "tilsamen." This Arabic word is +itself probably derived from the Greek telesma in its late meaning +of "a religious mystery" or "consecrated object". The term is often +employed to designate amulets in general, but, correctly speaking, +it has a more restricted and special significance. A talisman may +be defined briefly as an astrological or other symbol expressive of +the influence and power of one of the planets, engraved on a sympathetic +stone or metal (or inscribed on specially prepared parchment) under +the auspices of this planet. + +Before proceeding to an account of the preparation of talismans proper, +it will not be out of place to notice some of the more interesting +and curious of other amulets. All sorts of substances have been +employed as charms, sometimes of a very unpleasant nature, such as +dried toads. Generally, however, amulets consist of stones, herbs, +or passages from Sacred Writings written on paper. This latter class +are sometimes called "characts," as an example of which may be +mentioned the Jewish phylacteries. + +Every precious stone was supposed to exercise its own peculiar virtue; +for instance, amber was regarded as a good remedy for throat troubles, +and agate was thought to preserve from snake-bites. ELIHU RICH[1] +gives a very full list of stones and their supposed virtues. +Each sign of the zodiac was supposed to have its own particular stone[2] +(as shown in the annexed table), and hence the superstitious though +not inartistic custom of wearing one's birth- + + . Month (com- +Astrological mencing 21st +Sign of the Zodiac. of preceding + Symbol. month). Stone. + + + Aries, the Ram . {} April Sardonyx. + Taurus the Bull . {} May Cornelian. + Gemini the Twins . {} June Topaz. + Cancer, the Crab . {} July Chalcedony. + Leo, the Lion . . {} August Jasper. + Virgo, the Virgin . {} September Emerald. + Libra, the Balance . {} October Beryl. + Scorpio, the Scorpion {} November Amethyst. + Sagittarius, the Archer {} December Hyacinth (=Sapphire). + Capricorn, the Goat . {} January Chrysoprase. + Aquarius, the Water- {} February Crystal. + bearer + Pisces, the Fishes . {} March Sapphire.(=Lapis lazuli). + +stone for "luck". The belief in the occult powers of certain stones is by +no means non-existent at the present day; for even in these enlightened +times there are not wanting those who fear the beautiful opal, and put +their faith in the virtues of New Zealand green-stone. + + +[1] ELIHU RICH: _The Occult Sciences (Encyclopaedia Metropolitana_, +1855), pp. 348 _et seq_. + +[2] With regard to these stones, however, there is much confusion +and difference of opinion. The arrangement adopted in the table +here given is that of CORNELIUS AGRIPPA (_Occult Philosophy_, bk. +ii.). A comparatively recent work, esteemed by modern occultists, +namely, _The Light of Egypt, or the Science of the Soul and the Stars_ +(1889), gives the following scheme:-- + +{}=Amethyst. {}=Emerald. {}=Diamond. {}=Onyx (Chalcedony). + +{}=Agate. {}=Ruby. {}=Topaz. {}=Sapphire (skyblue). + +{}=Beryl. {}=Jasper. {}=Carbuncle. {}=Chrysolite. + + +Common superstitious opinion regarding birth-stones, as reflected, +for example, in the "lucky birth charms" exhibited in the windows of +the jewellers' shops, considerably diverges in this matter from the +views of both these authorities. The usual scheme is as follows:-- + + Jan.=Garnet. May =Emerald. Sept.=Sapphire, + Feb.=Amethyst. June=Agate. Oct. =Opal. + Mar.=Bloodstone. July=Ruby. Nov. =Topaz. + Apr.=Diamond. Aug.=Sardonyx. Dec. =Turquoise. + + +The bloodstone is frequently assigned either to Aries or Scorpio, +owing to its symbolical connection with Mars; and the opal to Cancer, +which in astrology is the constellation of the moon. + +Confusion is rendered still worse by the fact that the ancients whilst +in some cases using the same names as ourselves, applied them to +different stones; thus their "hyacinth" is our "sapphire," whilst +their "sapphire" is our "lapis lazuli". + + +Certain herbs, culled at favourable conjunctions of the planets and +worn as amulets, were held to be very efficacious against various +diseases. Precious stones and metals were also taken internally for +the same purpose--"remedies" which in certain cases must have proved +exceedingly harmful. One theory put forward for the supposed medical +value of amulets was the Doctrine of Effluvia. This theory supposes +the amulets to give off vapours or effluvia which penetrate into the +body and effect a cure. It is, of course, true that certain herbs, +_etc_., might, under the heat of the body, give off such effluvia, +but the theory on the whole is manifestly absurd. The Doctrine of +Signatures, which we have already encountered in our excursions,[1] +may also be mentioned in this connection as a complementary and +equally untenable hypothesis. + +According to ELIHU RICH,[2] the following were the commonest Egyptian +amulets:-- + + +1. Those inscribed with the figure of _Serapis_, used to preserve +against evils inflicted by earth. + +2. Figure of _Canopus_, against evil by water. + +3. Figure of a _hawk_, against evil from the air. + +4. Figure of an _asp_, against evil by fire. + + +PARACELSUS believed there to be much occult virtue in an alloy of +the seven chief metals, which he called _Electrum_. Certain definite +proportions of these metals had to be taken, and each was +to be added during a favourable conjunction of the planets. +From this electrum he supposed that valuable amulets and magic +mirrors could be prepared. + + +[1] See "Medicine and Magic." +[2] _Op. Cit_., p. 343 + + +A curious and ancient amulet for the cure of various diseases, +particularly the ague, was a triangle formed of the letters of the word +"Abracadabra." The usual form was that shown in fig. 19, and that shown +in fig. 20 was also known. The origin of this magical word is lost in +obscurity. + +The belief in the horn as a powerful amulet, especially prevalent in +Italy, where is it the custom of the common people to make the sign of +the _mano cornuto_ to avoid the consequence of the dreaded _jettatore_ or +evil eye, can be traced to the fact that the horn was the symbol of the +Goddess of the Moon. Probably the belief in the powers of the horse-shoe +had a similar origin. Indeed, it seems likely that not only this, but +most other amulets, like talismans proper--as will appear below,--were +originally designed as appeals to gods and other powerful spiritual beings. + + +\ ABRACADABRA / \ ABRACADABRA | + \ ABRACADABR / \ BRACADABRA | + \ ABRACADAB / \ RACADABRA | + \ ABRACADA / \ ACADABRA | + \ ABRACAD / \ CADABRA | + \ ABRACA / \ ADABRA | + \ ABRAC / \ DABRA | + \ ABRA / \ ABRA | + \ ABR / \ BRA | + \ AB / \ RA | + \ A/ \ A | + \/ \ | + + +[1] See FREDERICK T. ELWORTHY'S _Horns of Honour_ (1900), especially pp. +56 _et seq_. + +To turn our attention, however, to the art of preparing talismans proper: +I may remark at the outset that it was necessary for the talisman +to be prepared by one's own self--a task by no means easy as a rule. +Indeed, the right mental attitude of the occultist was insisted upon +as essential to the operation. + +As to the various signs to be engraver on the talismans, various +authorities differ, though there are certain points connected with the +art of talismanic magic on which they all agree. It so happened that +the ancients were acquainted with seven metals and seven planets +(including the sun and moon as planets), and the days of the week are +also seven. It was concluded, therefore, that there was some occult +connection between the planets, metals, and days of the week. Each of +the seven days of the week was supposed to be under the auspices of the +spirits of one of the planets; so also was the generation in the womb of +Nature of each of the seven chief metals. + +In the following table are shown these particulars in detail:-- + + + Planet. Symbol. Day of Metal. Colour. + + Sun . {} Sunday Gold Gold or yellow. + Moon . {} Monday Silver Silver or white. + Mars . {} Tuesday Iron Red. + Mercury {} Wednesday [1]Mercury Mixed colours or purple. + Jupiter {} Thursday Tin Violet or blue. + Venus {} Friday Copper Turquoise or green. + Saturn. {} Saturday Lead Black. + +[1] Used in the form of a solid amalgam for talismans. + +Consequently, the metal of which a talisman was to be made, +and also the time of its preparation, had to be chosen with due +regard to the planet under which it was to be prepared.[1] The power +of such a talisman was thought to be due to the genie of this planet-- +a talisman, was, in fact, a silent evocation of an astral spirit. +Examples of the belief that a genie can be bound up in an amulet +in some way are afforded by the story of ALADDIN'S lamp and ring +and other stories in the _Thousand and One Nights_. Sometimes the +talismanic signs were engraved on precious stones, sometimes they were +inscribed on parchment; in both cases the same principle held good, +the nature of the stone chosen, or the colour of the ink employed, +being that in correspondence with the planet under whose auspices +the talisman was prepared. + + +[1] In this connection a rather surprising discovery made by Mr W. GORNOLD +(see his _A Manual of Occultism_, 1911, pp. 7 and 8) must be mentioned. +The ancient Chaldeans appear invariably to have enumerated the planets +in the following order: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon-- +which order was adopted by the mediaeval astrologers. Let us commence +with the Sun in the above sequence, and write down every third planet; +we then have-- + + Sun . . . . Sunday. + Moon . . . . Monday. + Mars . . . . Tuesday. + Mercury. . . . Wednesday. + Jupiter . . . . Thursday. + Venus . . . . Friday. + Saturn . . . . Saturday. + +That is to say, we have the planets in the order in which they +were supposed to rule over the days of the week. This is perhaps, +not so surprising, because it seems probable that, each day being +first divided into twenty-four hours, it was assumed that the planets +ruled for one hour in turn, in the order first mentioned above. +Each day was then named after the planet which ruled during its first hour. +It will be found that if we start with the Sun and write down every +twenty-fourth planet, the result is exactly the same as if we write +down every third. But Mr OLD points out further, doing so by means +of a diagram which seems to be rather cumbersome that if we start +with Saturn in the first place, and write down every fifth planet, +and then for each planet substitute the metal over which it was +supposed to rule, we then have these metals arranged in descending +order of atomic weights, thus:-- + + Saturn . . . Lead (=207). + Mercury . . . Mercury (=200). + Sun . . . . Gold (=197). + Jupiter . . . Tin (=119). + Moon . . . . Silver (=108). + Venus . . Copper (=64). + Mars . . . . Iron (=56). + + +Similarly we can, starting from any one of these orders, pass to the +other two. The fact is a very surprising one, because the ancients +could not possibly have been acquainted with the atomic weights of +the metals, and, it is important to note, the order of the densities +of these metals, which might possibly have been known to them, is by +no means the same as the order of their atomic weights. Whether the +fact indicates a real relationship between the planets and the metals, +or whether there is some other explanation, I am not prepared to say. +Certainly some explanation is needed: to say that the fact is +mere coincidence is unsatisfactory, seeing that the odds against, +not merely this, but any such regularity occurring by chance--as +calculated by the mathematical theory of probability--are 119 to 1. + + +All the instruments employed in the art had to be specially prepared +and consecrated. Special robes had to be worn, perfumes and +incense burnt, and invocations, conjurations, _etc_., recited, +all of which depended on the planet ruling the operation. +A description of a few typical talismans in detail will not here +be out of place. + +In _The Key of Solomon the King_ (translated by S. L. M. MATHERS, +1889)[1] are described five, six, or seven talismans for each planet. +Each of these was supposed to have its own peculiar virtues, and many +of them are stated to be of use in the evocation of spirits. The +majority of them consist of a central design encircled by a verse of +Hebrew Scripture. The central designs are of a varied character, +generally geometrical figures and Hebrew letters or words, or magical +characters. Five of these talismans are here portrayed, the first +three described differing from the above. The translations of the +Hebrew verses, _etc_., given below are due to Mr MATHERS. + + +[1] The _Clavicula Salomonis_, or _Key of Solomon the King_, consists +mainly of an elaborate ritual for the evocation of the various planetary +spirits, in which process the use of talismans or pentacles plays a +prominent part. It is claimed to be a work of white magic, but, inasmuch +as it, like other old books making the same claim, gives descriptions of +a pentacle for causing ruin, destruction, and death, and another for +causing earthquakes--to give only two examples,--the distinction between +black and white magic, which we shall no doubt encounter again in later +excursions, appears to be somewhat arbitrary. + +Regarding the authorship of the work, Mr MATHERS, translator and editor of +the first printed copy of the book, says, "I see no reason to doubt the +tradition which assigns the authorship of the `Key' to King Solomon." If +this view be accepted, however, it is abundantly evident that the _Key_ as +it stands at present (in which we find S. JOHN quoted, and mention made of +SS. PETER and PAUL) must have received some considerable alterations and +additions at the hands of later editors. But even if we are compelled to +assign the _Clavicula Salomonis_ in its present form to the fourteenth or +fifteenth century, we must, I think, allow that it was based upon +traditions of the past, and, of course, the possibility remains that it +might have been based upon some earlier work. With regard to the +antiquity of the planetary sigils, Mr MATHERS notes "that, among the +Gnostic talismans in the British Museum, there is a ring of copper with +the sigils of Venus, which are exactly the same as those given by +mediaeval writers on magic." + +In spite of the absurdity of its claims, viewed in the light of modern +knowledge, the _Clavicula Salomonis_ exercised a considerable influence +in the past, and is to be regarded as one of the chief sources of +mediaeval ceremonial magic. Historically speaking, therefore, it is a +book of no little importance. + + +_The First Pentacle of the Sun_.--"The Countenance of Shaddai the +Almighty, at Whose aspect all creatures obey, and the Angelic Spirits do +reverence on bended knees." About the face is the name "El Shaddai". +Around is written in Latin: "Behold His face and form by Whom all +things were made, and Whom all creatures obey" (see fig. 21). + + +_The Fifth Pentacle of Mars_.--"Write thou this Pentacle upon virgin +parchment or paper because it is terrible unto the Demons, and at its sight +and aspect they will obey thee, for they cannot resist its presence." +The design is a Scorpion,[1] around which the word Hvl is repeated. +The Hebrew versicle is from _Psalm_ xci. 13: "Thou shalt go upon the lion +and adder, the young lion and the dragon shalt thou tread under thy feet" +(see fig. 22). + + +[1] In astrology the zodiacal sign of the scorpion is the "night house" +of the planet Mars. + + +_The Third Pentacle of the Moon_.--"This being duly borne with thee +when upon a journey, if it be properly made, serveth against all +attacks by night, and against every kind of danger and peril by Water." +The design consists of a hand and sleeved forearm (this occurs on three +other moon talismans), together with the Hebrew names Aub and Vevaphel. +The versicle is from _Psalm_ xl. 13: "Be pleased O IHVH to deliver me, +O IHVH make haste to help me" (see fig 23) + +_The Third Pentacle of Venus_.--"This, if it be only shown unto any +person, serveth to attract love. Its Angel Monachiel should be invoked +in the day and hour of Venus, at one o'clock or at eight." The design +consists of two triangles joined at their apices, with the following +names--IHVH, Adonai, Ruach, Achides, AEgalmiel, Monachiel, and Degaliel. +The versicle is from _Genesis_ i. 28: "And the Elohim blessed them, and +the Elohim said unto them, Be ye fruitful, and multiply, and replenish +the earth, and subdue it" (see fig. 24). + +_The Third Pentacle of Mercury_.--"This serves to invoke the Spirits +subject unto Mercury; and especially those who are written in this +Pentacle." The design consists of crossed lines and magical characters +of Mercury. Around are the names of the angels, Kokaviel, Ghedoriah, +Savaniah, and Chokmahiel (see fig. 25). + + +CORNELIUS AGRIPPA, in his _Three Books of Occult Philosophy_, describes +another interesting system of talismans. FRANCIS BARRETT'S _Magus, or +Celestial Intelligencer_, a well-known occult work published in the +first year of the nineteenth century, I may mention, copies AGRIPPA'S +system of talismans, without acknowledgment, almost word for word. +To each of the planets is assigned a magic square or table, _i.e_. a +square composed of numbers so arranged that the sum of each row or +column is always the same. For example, the table for Mars is as +follows:-- + + 11 24 7 20 3 + 4 12 25 8 16 + 17 5 13 21 9 + 10 18 1 14 22 + 23 6 19 2 15 + + +It will be noticed that every number from 1 up to the highest possible +occurs once, and that no number occurs twice. It will also be seen +that the sum of each row and of each column is always 65. Similar +squares can be constructed containing any square number of figures, +and it is, indeed, by no means surprising that the remarkable +properties of such "magic squares," before these were explained +mathematically, gave rise to the belief that they had some occult +significance and virtue. From the magic squares can be obtained +certain numbers which are said to be the numbers of the planets; +their orderliness, we are told, reflects the order of the heavens, +and from a consideration of them the magical properties of the +planets which they represent can be arrived at. For example, in the +above table the number of rows of numbers is 5. The total number of +numbers in the table is the square of this number, namely, 25, which is +also the greatest number in the table. The sum of any row or column is +65. And, finally, the sum of all the numbers is the product of the +number of rows (namely, 5) and the sum of any row (namely, 65), _i.e_. +325. These numbers, namely, 5, 25, 65, and 325, are the numbers of Mars. +Sets of numbers for the other planets are obtained in exactly the same +manner.[1] + + +[1] Readers acquainted with mathematics will notice that if _n_ is +the number of rows in such a "magic square," the other numbers derived +as above will be n<2S>, 1/2_n_(_n_<2S> + 1), and 1/2_n_<2S>(_n_<2S> + 1). +This can readily be proved by the laws of arithmetical progressions. +Rather similar but more complicated and less uniform "magic squares" +are attributed to PARACELSUS. + + +Now to each planet is assigned an Intelligence or good spirit, and an +Evil Spirit or demon; and the names of these spirits are related to +certain of the numbers of the planets. The other numbers are also +connected with holy and magical Hebrew names. AGRIPPA, and BARRETT +copying him, gives the following table of "names answering to the +numbers of Mars":-- + + 5. He, the letter of the holy name. <hb > + 25. <hb ___> + 65. Adonai. <hb ____> + 325. Graphiel, the Intelligence of Mars. <hb _______> + 325. Barzabel, the Spirit of Mars. <hb _______> + +Similar tables are given for the other planets. The numbers can be +derived from the names by regarding the Hebrew letters of which they are +composed as numbers, in which case <hb > (Aleph) to <hb > (Teth) +represent the units 1 to 9 in order, <hb > (Jod) to <hb > (Tzade) the +tens 10 to 90 in order, <hb > (Koph) to <hb > (Tau) the hundreds 100 to +400, whilst the hundreds 500 to 900 are represented by special terminal +forms of certain of the Hebrew letters.[2] It is evident that no little +wasted ingenuity must have been employed in working all this out. + + +[2] It may be noticed that this makes <hb _______> equal to 326, +one unit too much. Possibly an Alelph should be omitted. + + +Each planet has its own seal or signature, as well as the signature of +its intelligence and the signature of its demon. These signatures were +supposed to represent the characters of the planets' intelligences and +demons respectively. The signature of Mars is shown in fig. 26, that of +its intelligence in fig. 27, and that of its demon in fig. 28. + +These various details were inscribed on the talismans each of which +was supposed to confer its own peculiar benefits--as follows: +On one side must be engraved the proper magic table and the astrological +sign of the planet, together with the highest planetary number, +the sacred names corresponding to the planet, and the name of +the intelligence of the planet, but not the name of its demon. +On the other side must be engraved the seals of the planet +and of its intelligence, and also the astrological sign. +BARRETT says, regarding the demons:[1] "It is to be understood +that the intelligences are the presiding good angels that are set +over the planets; but that the spirits or daemons, with their names, +seals, or characters, are never inscribed upon any Talisman, +except to execute any evil effect, and that they are subject +to the intelligences, or good spirits; and again, when the spirits +and their characters are used, it will be more conducive to the effect +to add some divine name appropriate to that effect which we desire." +Evil talismans can also be prepared, we are informed, by using a metal +antagonistic to the signs engraved thereon. The complete talisman of +Mars is shown in fig. 29. + + +[1] FRANCIS BARRETT: _The Magus, or Celestial Intelligencer_ +(1801), bk. i. p. 146. + + +ALPHONSE LOUIS CONSTANT,[1] a famous French occultist of the nineteenth +century, who wrote under the name of "ELIPHAS LEVI," describes yet +another system of talismans. He says: "The Pentagram must be always +engraved on one side of the talisman, with a circle for the Sun, a +crescent for the Moon, a winged caduceus for Mercury, a sword for Mars, +a G for Venus, a crown for Jupiter, and a scythe for Saturn. The other +side of the talisman should bear the sign of Solomon, that is, the +six-pointed star formed by two interlaced triangles; in the centre +there should be placed a human figure for the sun talismans, a cup for +those of the Moon, a dog's head for those of Jupiter, a lion for those +of Mars, a dove's for those of Venus, a bull's or goat's for those of +Saturn. The names of the seven angels should be added either in Hebrew, +Arabic, or magic characters similar to those of the alphabets of +Trimethius. The two triangles of Solomon may be replaced by the double +cross of Ezekiel's wheels, this being found on a great number of ancient +pentacles. All objects of this nature, whether in metals or in precious +stones, should be carefully wrapped in silk satchels of a colour +analogous to the spirit of the planet, perfumed with the perfumes of the +corresponding day, and preserved from all impure looks and touches."[2] + +[1] For a biographical and critical account of this extraordinary +personage and his views, see Mr A. E. WAITE'S _The Mysteries of Magic: +a Digest of the writings of_ ELIPHAS LEVI (1897). + +[2] _Op. cit_., p. 201. + + +ELIPHAS LEVI, following PYTHAGORAS and many of the mediaeval magicians, +regarded the pentagram, or five-pointed star, as an extremely +powerful pentacle. According to him, if with one horn in +the ascendant it is the sign of the microcosm--Man. With two +horns in the ascendant, however, it is the sign of the Devil, +"the accursed Goat of Mendes," and an instrument of black magic. +We can, indeed, trace some faint likeness between the pentagram +and the outline form of a man, or of a goat's head, according to +whether it has one or two horns in the ascendant respectively, +which resemblances may account for this idea. Fig. 30 shows +the pentagram embellished with other symbols according to ELIPHAS LEVI, +whilst fig. 31 shows his embellished form of the six-pointed star, +or Seal of SOLOMON. This, he says, is "the sign of the Macrocosmos, +but is less powerful than the Pentagram, the microcosmic sign," +thus contradicting PYTHAGORAS, who, as we have seen, regarded the pentagram +as the sign of the Macrocosm. ELIPHAS LEVI asserts that he attempted +the evocation of the spirit of APOLLONIUS of Tyana in London on 24th +July 1854, by the aid of a pentagram and other magical apparatus +and ritual, apparently with success, if we may believe his word. +But he sensibly suggests that probably the apparition which appeared +was due to the effect of the ceremonies on his own imagination, +and comes to the conclusion that such magical experiments are +injurious to health.[1] + + +[1] _Op cit_. pp. 446-450. + + +Magical rings were prepared on the same principle as were talismans. +Says CORNELIUS AGRIPPA: "The manner of making these kinds of Magical +Rings is this, viz.: When any Star ascends fortunately, with the +fortunate aspect or conjunction of the Moon, we must take a stone and +herb that is under that Star, and make a ring of the metal that is +suitable to this Star, and in it fasten the stone, putting the herb +or root under it--not omitting the inscriptions of images, names, and +characters, as also the proper suffumigations...."[1] SOLOMON'S ring +was supposed to have been possessed of remarkable occult virtue. +Says JOSEPHUS (_c_. A.D. 37-100): "God also enabled him [SOLOMON] to +learn that skill which expels demons, which is a science useful and +sanative to men. He composed such incantations also by which +distempers are alleviated. And he left behind him the manner of using +exorcisms, by which they drive away demons, so that they never return; +and this method of cure is of great force unto this day; for I have +seen a certain man of my own country, whose name was Eleazar, releasing +people that were demoniacal in the presence of Vespasian, and his sons, +and his captains, and the whole multitude of his soldiers. The manner +of the cure was this; he put a ring that had under the seal a root of +one of those sorts mentioned by Solomon, to the nostrils of the +demoniac, after which he drew out the demon through his nostrils: and +when the man fell down immediately, he abjured him to return unto him +no more, making still mention of Solomon, and reciting the incantations +which he composed."[2] + +[1] H. C. AGRIPPA: _Occult Philosophy_, bk. i. chap. xlvii. +(WHITEHEAD'S edition, pp. 141 and 142). + +[2] FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS: _The Antiquities of the Jews_ (trans. by +W. WHISTON), bk. viii. chap. ii., SE 5 (45) to (47). + +Enough has been said already to indicate the general nature +of talismanic magic. No one could maintain otherwise than +that much of it is pure nonsense; but the subject should not, +therefore, be dismissed as valueless, or lacking significance. +It is past belief that amulets and talismans should have been +believed in for so long unless they APPEARED to be productive +of some of the desired results, though these may have been due to +forces quite other than those which were supposed to be operative. +Indeed, it may be said that there has been no widely held superstition +which does not embody some truth, like some small specks of gold +hidden in an uninviting mass of quartz. As the poet BLAKE put it: +"Everything possible to be believ'd is an image of truth";[1] +and the attempt may here be made to extract the gold of truth +from the quartz of superstition concerning talismanic magic. +For this purpose the various theories regarding the supposed +efficacy of talismans must be examined. + + +[1] "Proverbs of Hell" (_The Marriage of Heaven and Hell_). + + +Two of these theories have already been noted, but the doctrine of effluvia +admittedly applied only to a certain class of amulets, and, I think, +need not be seriously considered. The "astral-spirit theory" +(as it may be called), in its ancient form at any rate, is equally +untenable to-day. The discoveries of new planets and new metals seem +destructive of the belief that there can be any occult connection +between planets, metals, and the days of the week, although the curious +fact discovered by Mr OLD, to which I have referred (footnote, p. +63@@@), assuredly demands an explanation, and a certain +validity may, perhaps, be allowed to astrological symbolism. +As concerns the belief in the existence of what may be called +(although the term is not a very happy one) "discarnate spirits," +however, the matter, in view of the modern investigation of spiritistic +and other abnormal psychical phenomena, stands in a different position. +There can, indeed, be little doubt that very many of the phenomena observed +at spiritistic seances come under the category of deliberate fraud, +and an even larger number, perhaps, can be explained on the theory +of the subconscious self. I think, however, that the evidence goes +to show that there is a residuum of phenomena which can only be +explained by the operation, in some way, of discarnate intelligences.[1] +Psychical research may be said to have supplied the modern world +with the evidence of the existence of discarnate personalities, +and of their operation on the material plane, which the ancient +world lacked. But so far as our present subject is concerned, +all the evidence obtainable goes to show that the phenomena in question +only take place in the presence of what is called "a medium"--a person +of peculiar nervous or psychical organisation. That this is the case, +moreover, appears to be the general belief of spiritists on the subject. +In the sense, then, in which "a talisman" connotes a material object of +such a nature that by its aid the powers of discarnate intelligences +may become operative on material things, we might apply the term +"talisman" to the nervous system of a medium: but then that would be the +only talisman. Consequently, even if one is prepared to admit the whole +of modern spiritistic theory, nothing is thereby gained towards a belief +in talismans, and no light is shed upon the subject. + + +[1] The publications of The Society for Psychical Research, +and FREDERICK MYERS' monumental work on _Human Personality and +its Survival of Bodily Death_, should be specially consulted. +I have attempted a brief discussion of modern spiritualism +and psychical research in my _Matter, Spirit, and the Cosmos_ +(1910), chap. ii. + + +Another theory concerning talismans which commended itself +to many of the old occult philosophers, PARACELSUS for instance, +is what may be called the "occult force" theory. This theory +assumes the existence of an occult mental force, a force +capable of being exerted by the human will, apart from its +usual mode of operation by means of the body. It was believed +to be possible to concentrate this mental energy and infuse it +into some suitable medium, with the production of a talisman, +which was thus regarded as a sort of accumulator for mental energy. +The theory seems a fantastic one to modern thought, though, in view +of the many startling phenomena brought to light by psychical research, +it is not advisable to be too positive regarding the limitations +of the powers of the human mind. However, I think we shall find +the element of truth in the otherwise absurd belief in talismans +by means of what may be called, not altogether fancifully perhaps, +a transcendental interpretation of this "occult force" theory. +I suggest, that is, that when a believer makes a talisman, +the transference of the occult energy is ideal, not actual; +that the power, believed to reside in the talisman itself, +is the power due to the reflex action of the believer's mind. +The power of what transcendentalists call "the imagination" +cannot be denied; for example, no one can deny that a man with +a firm conviction that such a success will be achieved by him, +or such a danger avoided, will be far more likely to gain his desire, +other conditions being equal, than one of a pessimistic turn of mind. +The mere conviction itself is a factor in success, or a factor +in failure, according to its nature; and it seems likely that +herein will be found a true explanation of the effects believed +to be due to the power of the talisman. + +On the other hand, however, we must beware of the exaggerations +into which certain schools of thought have fallen in their estimates +of the powers of the imagination. These exaggerations are +particularly marked in the views which are held by many nowadays +with regard to "faith-healing," although the "Christian Scientists" +get out of the difficulty--at least to their own satisfaction-- +by ascribing their alleged cures to the Power of the Divine Mind, +and not to the power of the individual mind. + +Of course the real question involved in this "transcendental theory +of talismans" as I may, perhaps, call it, is that of the operation +of incarnate spirit on the plane of matter. This operation takes +place only through the medium of the nervous system, and it has been +suggested,[1] to avoid any violation of the law of the conservation +of energy, that it is effected, not by the transference, as is +sometimes supposed, of energy from the spiritual to the material plane, +but merely by means of directive control over the expenditure of +energy derived by the body from purely physical sources, _e.g_. the +latent chemical energy bound up in the food eaten and the oxygen +breathed. + + +[1] _Cf_ Sir OLIVER LODGE: _Life and Matter_ (1907), especially chap. +ix.; and W. HIBBERT, F.I.C.: _Life and Energy_ (1904). + + +I am not sure that this theory really avoids the difficulty which it +is intended to obviate;[1] but it is at least an interesting one, +and at any rate there may be modes in which the body, under the +directive control of the spirit, may expend energy derived from the +material plane, of which we know little or nothing. We have the +testimony of many eminent authorities[2] to the phenomenon of the +movement of physical objects without contact at spiritistic seances. +It seems to me that the introduction of discarnate intelligences +to explain this phenomenon is somewhat gratuitous--the psychic +phenomena which yield evidence of the survival of human personality +after bodily death are of a different character. For if we suppose +this particular phenomenon to be due to discarnate spirits, we must, +in view of what has been said concerning "mediums," conclude that +the movements in question are not produced by these spirits DIRECTLY, +but through and by means of the nervous system of the medium present. +Evidently, therefore, the means for the production of the phenomenon +reside in the human nervous system (or, at any rate, in the peculiar +nervous system of "mediums"), and all that is lacking is intelligence +or initiative to use these means. This intelligence or initiative +can surely be as well supplied by the sub-consciousness as by a +discarnate intelligence. Consequently, it does not seem unreasonable +to suppose that equally remarkable phenomena may have been produced +by the aid of talismans in the days when these were believed in, +and may be produced to-day, if one has sufficient faith--that is +to say, produced by man when in the peculiar condition of mind +brought about by the intense belief in the power of a talisman. +And here it should be noted that the term "talisman" may be applied +to any object (or doctrine) that is believed to possess peculiar power +or efficacy. In this fact, I think, is to be found the peculiar +danger of erroneous doctrines which promise extraordinary benefits, +here and now on the material plane, to such as believe in them. +Remarkable results may follow an intense belief in such doctrines, +which, whilst having no connection whatever with their accuracy, +being proportional only to the intensity with which they are held, +cannot do otherwise than confirm the believer in the validity of his +beliefs, though these may be in every way highly fantastic and erroneous. +Both the Roman Catholic, therefore, and the Buddhist may admit +many of the marvels attributed to the relics of each other's saints; +though, in denying that these marvels prove the accuracy of each +other's religious doctrines, each should remember that the same is +true of his own. + + +[1] The subject is rather too technical to deal with here. I have +discussed it elsewhere; see "Thermo-Dynamical Objections to the +Mechanical Theory of Life," _The Chemical News_, vol. cxii. pp. +271 _et seq_. (3rd December 1915). + +[2] For instance, the well-known physicist, Sir W. F. BARRETT, F.R.S. +(late Professor of Experimental Physics in The Royal College of Science +for Ireland). See his _On the Threshold of a New World of Thought_ +(1908), SE 10. + + +In illustration of the real power of the imagination, I may instance +the Maori superstition of the Taboo. According to the Maories, +anyone who touches a tabooed object will assuredly die, the tabooed +object being a sort of "anti-talisman". Professor FRAZER[1] says: +"Cases have been known of Maories dying of sheer fright on learning +that they had unwittingly eaten the remains of a chief's dinner or +handled something that belonged to him," since such objects were, +_ipso facto_, tabooed. He gives the following case on good authority: +"A woman, having partaken of some fine peaches from a basket, was told +that they had come from a tabooed place. Immediately the basket dropped +from her hands and she cried out in agony that the atua or godhead of +the chief, whose divinity had been thus profaned, would kill her. That +happened in the afternoon, and next day by twelve o'clock she was dead." +For us the power of the taboo does not exist; for the Maori, who +implicitly believes in it, it is a very potent reality, but this power +of the taboo resides not in external objects but in his own mind. + + +[1] Professor J. G. FRAZER, D.C.L.: _Psyche's Task_ (1909), p. 7. + + +Dr HADDON[2] quotes a similar but still more remarkable story of a young +Congo negro which very strikingly shows the power of the imagination. +The young negro, "being on a journey, lodged at a friend's house; +the latter got a wild hen for his breakfast, and the young man asked +if it were a wild hen. His host answered `No.' Then he fell on heartily, +and afterwards proceeded on his journey. After four years these two met +together again, and his old friend asked him `if he would eat a wild hen,' +to which he answered that it was tabooed to him. Hereat the host +began immediately to laugh, inquiring of him, `What made him refuse +it now, when he had eaten one at his table about four years ago?' +At the hearing of this the negro immediately fell a-trembling, and +suffered himself to be so far possessed with the effects of imagination +that he died in less than twenty-four hours after." + + +[2] ALFRED C. HADDON, SC.D., F.R.S.: _Magic and Fetishism_ +(1906), p. 56. + + +There are, of course, many stories about amulets, _etc_., which cannot +be thus explained. For example, ELIHU RICH gives the following:-- + +"In 1568, we are told (Transl. of Salverte, p. 196) that the Prince +of Orange condemned a Spanish prisoner to be shot at Juliers. +The soldiers tied him to a tree and fired, but he was invulnerable. +They then stripped him to see what armour he wore, but they found only +an amulet bearing the figure of a lamb (the _Agnus Dei_, we presume). +This was taken from him, and he was then killed by the first shot. +De Baros relates that the Portuguese in like manner vainly attempted +to destroy a Malay, so long as he wore a bracelet containing a bone +set in gold, which rendered him proof against their swords. A similar +marvel is related in the travels of the veracious Marco Polo. `In an +attempt of Kublai Khan to make a conquest of the island of Zipangu, +a jealousy arose between the two commanders of the expedition, +which led to an order for putting the whole garrison to the sword. +In obedience to this order, the heads of all were cut off excepting +of eight persons, who by the efficacy of a diabolical charm, +consisting of a jewel or amulet introduced into the right arm, +between the skin and the flesh, were rendered secure from the effects +of iron, either to kill or wound. Upon this discovery being made, +they were beaten with a heavy wooden club, and presently died.'" + +[1] I think, however, that these, and many similar stories, must be taken +_cum grano salis_. + +In conclusion, mention must be made of a very interesting and +suggestive philosophical doctrine--the Law of Correspondences,--due +in its explicit form to the Swedish philosopher, who was both scientist +and mystic, EMANUEL SWEDENBORG. To deal in any way adequately with this +important topic is totally impossible within the confines of the present +discussion.[2] But, to put the matter as briefly as possible, it may be +said that SWEDENBORG maintains (and the conclusion, I think, is valid) +that all causation is from the spiritual world, physical causation being +but secondary, or apparent--that is to say, a mere reflection, as it were, +of the true process. He argues from this, thereby supplying a +philosophical basis for the unanimous belief of the nature-mystics, that +every natural object is the symbol (because the creation) of an idea or +spiritual verity in its widest sense. Thus, there are symbols which are +inherent in the nature of things, and symbols which are not. +The former are genuine, the latter merely artificial. Writing from +the transcendental point of view, ELIPHAS LEVI says: "Ceremonies, +vestments, perfumes, characters and figures being . . .necessary to +enlist the imagination in the education of the will, the success of +magical works depends upon the faithful observance of all the rites, +which are in no sense fantastic or arbitrary, having been transmitted +to us by antiquity, and permanently subsisting by the essential laws of +analogical realisation and of the correspondence which inevitably +connects ideas and forms."[1b] Some scepticism, perhaps, may be +permitted as to the validity of the latter part of this statement, and +the former may be qualified by the proviso that such things are only +of value in the right education of the will, if they are, indeed, genuine, +and not merely artificial, symbols. But the writer, as I think will be +admitted, has grasped the essential point, and, to conclude our excursion, +as we began it, with a definition, I will say that _the power of the +talisman is the power of the mind (or imagination) brought into activity +by means of a suitable symbol_. + + +[1] ELIHU RICH: _The Occult Sciences_, p. 346. + +[2] I may refer the reader to my _A Mathematical Theory of Spirit_ +(1912), chap. i., for a more adequate statement. + +[1b] ELIPHAS LEVI: _Transcendental Magic: its Doctrine and Ritual_ +(trans. by A. E. WAITE, 1896), p. 234. + + + +VII + +CEREMONIAL MAGIC IN THEORY AND PRACTICE + +THE word "magic," if one may be permitted to say so, is itself almost +magical--magical in its power to conjure up visions in the human mind. +For some these are of bloody rites, pacts with the powers of darkness, +and the lascivious orgies of the Saturnalia or Witches' Sabbath; in other +minds it has pleasanter associations, serving to transport them from the +world of fact to the fairyland of fancy, where the purse of FORTUNATUS, +the lamp and ring of ALADDIN, fairies, gnomes, jinn, and innumerable other +strange beings flit across the scene in a marvellous kaleidoscope of +ever-changing wonders. To the study of the magical beliefs of the past +cannot be denied the interest and fascination which the marvellous and +wonderful ever has for so many minds, many of whom, perhaps, cannot +resist the temptation of thinking that there may be some element of truth +in these wonderful stories. But the study has a greater claim to our +attention; for, as I have intimated already, magic represents a phase in +the development of human thought, and the magic of the past was the womb +from which sprang the science of the present, unlike its parent though +it be. + +What then is magic? According to the dictionary definition--and this +will serve us for the present--it is the (pretended) art of producing +marvellous results by the aid of spiritual beings or arcane spiritual +forces. Magic, therefore, is the practical complement of animism. +Wherever man has really believed in the existence of a spiritual world, +there do we find attempts to enter into communication with that world's +inhabitants and to utilise its forces.Professor LEUBA[1] and others +distinguish between propitiative behaviour towards the beings of the +spiritual world, as marking the religious attitude, and coercive behaviour +towards these beings as characteristic of the magical attitude; but one +form of behaviour merges by insensible degrees into the other, and the +distinction (though a useful one) may, for our present purpose, be +neglected. + + +[1] JAMES H. LEUBA: _The Psychological Origin and the Nature of +Religion_ (1909), chap. ii. + + +Animism, "the Conception of Spirit everywhere" as Mr EDWARD CLODD[2] +neatly calls it, and perhaps man's earliest view of natural phenomena, +persisted in a modified form, as I have pointed out in "Some +Characteristics of Mediaeval Thought," throughout the Middle Ages. +A belief in magic persisted likewise. In the writings of the Greek +philosophers of the Neo-Platonic school, in that curious body of +esoteric Jewish lore known as the Kabala, and in the works of later +occult philosophers such as AGRIPPA and PARACELSUS, we find magic, or +rather the theory upon which magic as an art was based, presented in +its most philosophical form. If there is anything of value for modern +thought in the theory of magic, here is it to be found; and it is, I +think, indeed to be found, absurd and fantastic though the practices +based upon this philosophy, or which this philosophy was thought to +substantiate, most certainly are. I shall here endeavour to give a +sketch of certain of the outstanding doctrines of magical philosophy, +some details concerning the art of magic, more especially as practiced +in the Middle Ages in Europe, and, finally, an attempt to extract from +the former what I consider to be of real worth. We have already +wandered down many of the byways of magical belief, and, indeed, the +word "magic" may be made to cover almost every superstition of the past: +To what we have already gained on previous excursions the present, I +hope, will add what we need in order to take a synthetic view of the +whole subject. + + +[2] EDWARD CLODD: _Animism the Seed of Religion_ (1905), p. 26. + + +In the first place, something must be said concerning what is called +the Doctrine of Emanations, a theory of prime importance in +Neo-Platonic and Kabalistic ontology. According to this theory, +everything in the universe owes its existence and virtue to an +emanation from God, which divine emanation is supposed to descend, +step by step (so to speak), through the hierarchies of angels and the +stars, down to the things of earth, that which is nearer to the Source +containing more of the divine nature than that which is relatively +distant. As CORNELIUS AGRIPPA expresses it: "For God, in the first +place is the end and beginning of all Virtues; he gives the seal of +#the _Ideas_ to his servants, the Intelligences; who as faithful +officers, sign all things intrusted to them with an Ideal Virtue; the +Heavens and Stars, as instruments, disposing the matter in the mean +while for the receiving of those forms which reside in Divine Majesty +(as saith Plato in Timeus) and to be conveyed by Stars; and the Giver +of Forms distributes them by the ministry of his Intelligences, which +he hath set as Rulers and Controllers over his Works, to whom such a +power is intrusted to things committed to them that so all Virtues of +Stones, Herbs, Metals, and all other things may come from the +Intelligences, the Governors. The Form, therefore, and Virtue of +things comes first from the _Ideas_, then from the ruling and governing +Intelligences, then from the aspects of the Heavens disposing, and +lastly from the tempers of the Elements disposed, answering the +influences of the Heavens, by which the Elements themselves are ordered, +or disposed. These kinds of operations, therefore, are performed in +these inferior things by express forms, and in the Heavens by disposing +virtues, in Intelligences by mediating rules, in the Original Cause +by _Ideas_ and exemplary forms, all which must of necessity agree in +the execution of the effect and virtue of every thing. + +"There is, therefore, a wonderful virtue and operation in every Herb +and Stone, but greater in a Star, beyond which, even from the +governing Intelligences everything receiveth and obtains many things +for itself, especially from the Supreme Cause, with whom all things +do mutually and exactly correspond, agreeing in an harmonious consent, +as it were in hymns always praising the highest Maker of all +things.... There is, therefore, no other cause of the necessity of +effects than the connection of all things with the First Cause, and +their correspondency with those Divine patterns and eternal _Ideas_ +whence every thing hath its determinate and particular place in the +exemplary world, from whence it lives and receives its original being: +And every virtue of herbs, stones, metals, animals, words and speeches, +and all things that are of God, is placed there."[1] As compared with +the _ex nihilo_ creationism of orthodox theology, this theory is as +light is to darkness. Of course, there is much in CORNELIUS AGRIPPA'S +statement of it which is inacceptable to modern thought; but these are +matters of form merely, and do not affect the doctrine fundamentally. +For instance, as a nexus between spirit and matter AGRIPPA places the +stars: modern thought prefers the ether. The theory of emanations may +be, and was, as a matter of fact, made the justification of +superstitious practices of the grossest absurdity, but on the other hand +it may be made the basis of a lofty system of transcendental philosophy, +as, for instance, that of EMANUEL SWEDENBORG, whose ontology resembles +in some respects that of the Neo-Platonists. AGRIPPA uses the theory to +explain all the marvels which his age accredited, marvels which we know +had for the most part no existence outside of man's imagination. +I suggest, on the contrary, that the theory is really needed to explain +the commonplace, since, in the last analysis, every bit of experience, +every phenomenon, be it ever so ordinary--indeed the very fact of +experience itself,--is most truly marvellous and magical, explicable +only in terms of spirit. As ELIPHAS LEVI well says in one of his +flashes of insight: "The supernatural is only the natural in an +extraordinary grade, or it is the exalted natural; a miracle is a +phenomenon which strikes the multitude because it is unexpected; the +astonishing is that which astonishes; miracles are effects which +surprise those who are ignorant of their causes, or assign them causes w +hich are not in proportion to such effects."[1b] But I am anticipating +the sequel. + + +[1] H. C. AGRIPPA: _Occult Philosophy_, bk. i., chap. xiii. +(WHITEHEAD'S edition, pp. 67-68). + +[1b] ELIPHAS LEVI: _Transcendental Magic, its Doctrine and Ritual_ +(trans. by A. E. WAITE, 1896), p. 192. + + +The doctrine of emanations makes the universe one vast harmonious +whole, between whose various parts there is an exact analogy, +correspondence, or sympathetic relation. "Nature" (the productive +principle), says IAMBLICHOS (3rd-4th century), the Neo-Platonist, +"in her peculiar way, makes a likeness of invisible principles through +symbols in visible forms."[2] The belief that seemingly similar things +sympathetically affect one another, and that a similar relation holds +good between different things which have been intimately connected +with one another as parts within a whole, is a very ancient one. +Most primitive peoples are very careful to destroy all their +nail-cuttings and hair-clippings, since they believe that a witch +gaining possession of these might work them harm. For a similar +reason they refuse to reveal their REAL names, which they regard as +part of themselves, and adopt nicknames for common use. The belief +that a witch can torment an enemy by making an image of his person +in clay or wax, correctly naming it, and mutilating it with pins, or, +in the case of a waxen image, melting it by fire, is a very ancient +one, and was held throughout and beyond the Middle Ages. The +Sympathetic Powder of Sir KENELM DIGBY we have already noticed, as +well as other instances of the belief in "sympathy," and examples +of similar superstitions might be multiplied almost indefinitely. +Such are generally grouped under the term "sympathetic magic"; but +inasmuch as all magical practices assume that by acting on part of a +thing, or a symbolic representation of it, one acts magically on the +whole, or on the thing symbolised, the expression may in its broadest +sense be said to involve the whole of magic. + + +[2] IAMBLICHOS: _Theurgia, or the Egyptian Mysteries_ +(trans. by Dr ALEX. WILDER, New York, 1911), p. 239. + + +The names of the Divine Being, angels and devils, the planets of the +solar system (including sun and moon) and the days of the week, birds +and beasts, colours, herbs, and precious stones--all, according to +old-time occult philosophy, are connected by the sympathetic relation +believed to run through all creation, the knowledge of which was +essential to the magician; as well, also, the chief portions of the +human body, for man, as we have seen, was believed to be a microcosm--a +universe in miniature. I have dealt with this matter and exhibited +some of the supposed correspondences in "The Belief in Talismans". Some +further particulars are shown in the annexed table, for which I am +mainly indebted to AGRIPPA. But, as in the case of the zodiacal gems +already dealt with, the old authorities by no means agree as to the +majority of the planetary correspondences. + +TABLE OF OCCULT CORRESPONDENCES + +Arch- Part of Precious +angel. Angel. Planet. Human Animal. Bird. stone. + Body. + +Raphael Michael Sun Heart Lion Swan Carbuncle +Gabriel Gabriel Moon Left foot Cat Owl Crystal +Camael Zamael Mars Right hand Wolf Vulture Diamond +Michael Raphael Mercury Left hand Ape Stork Agate +Zadikel Sachiel Jupiter Head Hart Eagle Sapphire + (=Lapis lazuli) +Haniel Anael Venus Generative Goat Dove Emerald + organs +Zaphhiel Cassiel Saturn Right foot Mole Hoopoe Onyx + + +The names of the angels are from Mr Mather's translation of +_Clavicula Salomonis_; the other correspondences are from the +second book of Agrippa's _Occult Philosophy_, chap. x. + + +In many cases these supposed correspondences are based, as will be obvious +to the reader, upon purely trivial resemblances, and, in any case, +whatever may be said--and I think a great deal may be said--in favour +of the theory of symbology, there is little that may be adduced to support +the old occultists' application of it. + +So essential a part does the use of symbols play in all magical +operations that we may, I think, modify the definition of "magic" +adopted at the outset, and define "magic" as "an attempt +to employ the powers of the spiritual world for the production +of marvellous results, BY THE AID OF SYMBOLS." It has, +on the other hand, been questioned whether the appeal +to the spirit-world is an essential element in magic. +But a close examination of magical practices always reveals at +the root a belief in spiritual powers as the operating causes. +The belief in talismans at first sight seems to have little +to do with that in a supernatural realm; but, as we have seen, +the talisman was always a silent invocation of the powers of +some spiritual being with which it was symbolically connected, +and whose sign was engraved thereon. And, as Dr T. WITTON DAVIES +well remarks with regard to "sympathetic magic": "Even this +could not, at the start, be anything other than a symbolic prayer +to the spirit or spirits having authority in these matters. +In so far as no spirit is thought of, it is a mere survival, +and not magic at all...."[1] + + +[1] Dr T. WITTON DAVIES: _Magic, Divination, and Demonology +among the Hebrews and their Neighbours_ (1898), p. 17. + + +What I regard as the two essentials of magical practices, namely, +the use of symbols and the appeal to the supernatural realm, +are most obvious in what is called "ceremonial magic". Mediaeval +ceremonial magic was subdivided into three chief branches--White +Magic, Black Magic, and Necromancy. White magic was concerned +with the evocations of angels, spiritual beings supposed to be +essentially superior to mankind, concerning which I shall give some +further details later--and the spirits of the elements,--which were, +as I have mentioned in "Some Characteristics of Mediaeval Thought," +personifications of the primeval forces of Nature. As there +were supposed to be four elements, fire, air, water, and earth, +so there were supposed to be four classes of elementals or spirits +of the elements, namely, Salamanders, Sylphs, Undines, and Gnomes, +inhabiting these elements respectively, and deriving their +characters therefrom. Concerning these curious beings, +the inquisitive reader may gain some information from a quaint +little book, by the Abbe de MONTFAUCON DE VILLARS, entitled +_The Count of Gabalis, or Conferences about Secret Sciences_ +(1670), translated into English and published in 1680, which has +recently been reprinted. The elementals, we learn therefrom, +were, unlike other supernatural beings, thought to be mortal. +They could, however, be rendered immortal by means of sexual +intercourse with men or women, as the case might be; and it was, +we are told, to the noble end of endowing them with this great gift, +that the sages devoted themselves. + +Goety, or black magic, was concerned with the evocation of demons +and devils--spirits supposed to be superior to man in certain powers, +but utterly depraved. Sorcery may be distinguished from witchcraft, +inasmuch as the sorcerer attempted to command evil spirits by the aid +of charms, _etc_., whereas the witch or wizard was supposed to have made +a pact with the Evil One; though both terms have been rather loosely used, +"sorcery" being sometimes employed as a synonym for "necromancy". +Necromancy was concerned with the evocation of the spirits of the dead: +etymologically, the term stands for the art of foretelling events by means +of such evocations, though it is frequently employed in the wider sense. + +It would be unnecessary and tedious to give any detailed account of +the methods employed in these magical arts beyond some general remarks. +Mr A. E. WAITE gives full particulars of the various rituals in his _Book +of Ceremonial Magic_ (1911), to which the curious reader may be referred. +The following will, in brief terms, convey a general idea of +a magical evocation:-- + +Choosing a time when there is a favourable conjunction of the planets, +the magician, armed with the implements of magical art, after much prayer +and fasting, betakes himself to a suitable spot, alone, or perhaps +accompanied by two trusty companions. All the articles he intends +to employ, the vestments, the magic sword and lamp, the talismans, +the book of spirits, _etc_., have been specially prepared and consecrated. +If he is about to invoke a martial spirit, the magician's vestment +will be of a red colour, the talismans in virtue of which he may have +power over the spirit will be of iron, the day chosen a Tuesday, and +the incense and perfumes employed of a nature analogous to Mars. In a +similar manner all the articles employed and the rites performed must +in some way be symbolical of the spirit with which converse is desired. +Having arrived at the spot, the magician first of all traces the magic +circle within which, we are told, no evil spirit can enter; he then +commences the magic rite, involving various prayers and conjurations, +a medley of meaningless words, and, in the case of the black art, a +sacrifice. The spirit summoned then appears (at least, so we are told), +and, after granting the magician's request, is licensed to depart--a +matter, we are admonished, of great importance. + +The question naturally arises, What were the results obtained by these +magical arts? How far, if at all, was the magician rewarded by the +attainment of his desires? We have asked a similar question regarding +the belief in talismans, and the reply which we there gained +undoubtedly applies in the present case as well. Modern psychical +research, as I have already pointed out, is supplying us with further +evidence for the survival of human personality after bodily death than +the innate conviction humanity in general seems to have in this belief, +and the many reasons which idealistic philosophy advances in favour of +it. The question of the reality of the phenomenon of "materialisation," +that is, the bodily appearance of a discarnate spirit, such as is +vouched for by spiritists, and which is what, it appears, was aimed at +in necromancy (though why the discarnate should be better informed as +to the future than the incarnate, I cannot suppose), must be regarded +as _sub judice_.[1] Many cases of fraud in connection with the alleged +production of this phenomenon have been detected in recent times; but, +inasmuch as the last word has not yet been said on the subject, we must +allow the possibility that necromancy in the past may have been sometimes +successful. But as to the existence of the angels and devils of magical +belief--as well, one might add, of those of orthodox faith,--nothing can +be adduced in evidence of this either from the results of psychical +research or on _a priori_ grounds. + + +[1] The late Sir WILLIAM CROOKES' _Experimental Researches in the +Phenomena of Spiritualism_ contains evidence in favour of the reality +of this phenomenon very difficult to gainsay. + + +Pseudo-DIONYSIUS classified the angels into three hierarchies, +each subdivided into three orders, as under:-- + + +_First Hierarchy_.--Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones; + +_Second Hierarchy_.--Dominions, Powers, and Authorities (or Virtues); + +_Third Hierarchy_.--Principalities, Archangels, and Angels,-- + +and this classification was adopted by AGRIPPA and others. +Pseudo-DIONYSIUS explains the names of these orders as follows: +" . . . the holy designation of the Seraphim denotes either that they +are kindling or burning; and that of the Cherubim, a fulness of +knowledge or stream of wisdom.... The appellation of the most exalted +and pre-eminent Thrones denotes their manifest exaltation above every +grovelling inferiority, and their super-mundane tendency towards higher +things; . . . and their invariable and firmly-fixed settlement around +the veritable Highest, with the whole force of their powers.... The +explanatory name of the Holy Lordships [Dominions] denotes a certain +unslavish elevation . . . superior to every kind of cringing slavery, +indomitable to every subserviency, and elevated above every +dissimularity, ever aspiring to the true Lordship and source of +Lordship.... The appellation of the Holy Powers denotes a certain +courageous and unflinching virility . . . vigorously conducted to the +Divine imitation, not forsaking the Godlike movement through its own +unmanliness, but unflinchingly looking to the super-essential and +powerful-making power, and becoming a powerlike image of this, as far +as is attainable....The appellation of the Holy Authorities ... denotes +the beautiful and unconfused good order, with regard to Divine receptions, +and the discipline of the super-mundane and intellectual +authority . . . conducted indomitably, with good order towards Divine +things.... [And the appellation] of the Heavenly Principalities +manifests their princely and leading function, after the Divine +example...."[1] There is a certain grandeur in these views, and if +we may be permitted to understand by the orders of the hierarchy, +"discrete" degrees (to use SWEDENBORG'S term) of spiritual +reality--stages in spiritual involution,--we may see in them a certain +truth as well. As I said, all virtue, power, and knowledge which man +has from God was believed to descend to him by way of these angelical +hierarchies, step by step; and thus it was thought that those of the +lowest hierarchy alone were sent from heaven to man. It was such +beings that white magic pretended to evoke. But the practical +occultists, when they did not make them altogether fatuous, +attributed to these angels characters not distinguishable from those +of the devils. The description of the angels in the _Heptemeron_, or + _Magical Elements_,[2] falsely attributed to PETER DE ABANO (1250-1316), +may be taken as fairly characteristic. Of MICHAEL and the other +spirits of Sunday he writes: "Their nature is to procure Gold, Gemmes, +Carbuncles, Riches; to cause one to obtain favour and benevolence; +to dissolve the enmities of men; to raise men to honors; to carry or +take away infirmities." Of GABRIEL and the other spirits of Monday, +he says: "Their nature is to give silver; to convey things from +place to place; to make horses swift, and to disclose the secrets of +persons both present and future." Of SAMAEL and the other spirits of +Tuesday he says: "Their nature is to cause wars, mortality, death +and combustions; and to give two thousand Souldiers at a time; to +bring death, infirmities or health," and so on for RAPHAEL, SACHIEL, +ANAEL, CASSIEL, and their colleagues.[1b] + + +[1] _On the Heavenly Hierarchy_. See the Rev. JOHN PARKER'S +translation of _The Works of_ DIONYSIUS _the Areopagite_, vol. ii. +(1889), pp. 24, 25, 31, 32, and 36. + +[2] The book, which first saw the light three centuries after its +alleged author's death, was translated into English by ROBERT TURNER, +and published in 1655 in a volume containing the spurious _Fourth Book +of Occult Philosophy_, attributed to CORNELIUS AGRIPPA, and other +magical works. It is from this edition that I quote. + +[1b] _Op. cit_., pp. 90, 92, and 94. + + +Concerning the evil planetary spirits, the spurious _Fourth Book of +Occult Philosophy_, attributed to CORNELIUS AGRIPPA, informs us that +the spirits of Saturn "appear for the most part with a tall, lean, +and slender body, with an angry countenance, having four faces; one +in the hinder part of the head, one on the former part of the head, +and on each side nosed or beaked: there likewise appeareth a face on +each knee, of a black shining colour: their motion is the moving of the +wince, with a kinde of earthquake: their signe is white earth, whiter +than any Snow." The writer adds that their "particular forms are,-- + A King having a beard, riding on a Dragon. + An Old man with a beard. + An Old woman leaning on a staffe. + A Hog. + A Dragon. + An Owl. + A black Garment. + A Hooke or Sickle. + A Juniper-tree." + +Concerning the spirits of Jupiter, he says that they "appear with a +body sanguine and cholerick, of a middle stature, with a horrible +fearful motion; but with a milde countenance, a gentle speech, and of +the colour of Iron. The motion of them is flashings of Lightning and +Thunder; their signe is, there will appear men about the circle, who +shall seem to be devoured of Lions," their particular forms being-- + "A King with a Sword drawn, riding on a Stag. + A Man wearing a Mitre in long rayment. + A Maid with a Laurel-Crown adorned with Flowers. + A Bull. + A Stag. + A Peacock. + An azure Garment. + A Sword. + A Box-tree." + +As to the Martian spirits, we learn that "they appear in a tall body, +cholerick, a filthy countenance, of colour brown, swarthy or red, +having horns like Harts horns, and Griphins claws, bellowing like +wilde Bulls. Their Motion is like fire burning; their signe Thunder +and Lightning about the Circle. Their particular shapes are,-- + A King armed riding upon a Wolf. + A Man armed. + A Woman holding a buckler on her thigh. + A Hee-goat. + A Horse. + A Stag. + A red Garment. + Wool. + A Cheeslip."[1] + + +[1] _Op. cit_., pp. 43-45. + +The rest are described in equally fantastic terms. + +I do not think I shall be accused of being unduly sceptical if I +say that such beings as these could not have been evoked by any +magical rites, because such beings do not and did not exist, save in +the magician's own imagination. The proviso, however, is important, +for, inasmuch as these fantastic beings did exist in the imagination +of the credulous, therein they may, indeed, have been evoked. +The whole of magic ritual was well devised to produce hallucination. +A firm faith in the ritual employed, and a strong effort of will to +bring about the desired result, were usually insisted upon as +essential to the success of the operation.[2] A period of fasting +prior to the experiment was also frequently prescribed as necessary, +which, by weakening the body, must have been conducive to hallucination. +Furthermore, abstention from the gratification of the sexual appetite +was stipulated in certain cases, and this, no doubt, had a similar +effect, especially as concerns magical evocations directed to the +satisfaction of the sexual impulse. Add to these factors the details +of the ritual itself, the nocturnal conditions under which it was +carried out, and particularly the suffumigations employed, which, most +frequently, were of a narcotic nature, and it is not difficult to +believe that almost any type of hallucination may have occurred. Such, +as we have seen, was ELIPHAS LEVI'S view of ceremonial magic; and +whatever may be said as concerns his own experiment therein (for one +would have thought that the essential element of faith was lacking in +this case), it is undoubtedly the true view as concerns the ceremonial +magic of the past. As this author well says: "Witchcraft, properly +so-called, that is ceremonial operation with intent to bewitch, acts +only on the operator, and serves to fix and confirm his will, by +formulating it with persistence and labour, the two conditions which +make volition efficacious."[1b] + + +[2] "MAGICAL AXIOM. In the circle of its action, every word +creates that which it affirms. + +DIRECT CONSEQUENCE. He who affirms the devil, creates or makes the devil. + +"_Conditions of Success in Infernal Evocations_. +1, Invincible obstinacy; 2, a conscience at once hardened +to crime and most subject to remorse and fear; 3, affected or +natural ignorance; 4, blind faith in all that is incredible, 5, +a completely false idea of God. (ELIPHAS LEVI: _Op. cit_., pp. +297 and 298.) + +[1b] ELIPHAS LEVI: _Op. cit_., pp. 130 and 131. + + +EMANUEL SWEDENBORG in one place writes: "Magic is nothing but the +perversion of order; it is especially the abuse of correspondences."[2] +A study of the ceremonial magic of the Middle Ages and the following +century or two certainly justifies SWEDENBORG in writing of magic as +something evil. The distinction, rigid enough in theory, between white +and black, legitimate and illegitimate, magic, was, as I have indicated, +extremely indefinite in practice. As Mr A. E. WAITE justly remarks: +"Much that passed current in the west as White (_i.e_. permissible) +Magic was only a disguised goeticism, and many of the resplendent +angels invoked with divine rites reveal their cloven hoofs. +It is not too much to say that a large majority of past psychological +experiments were conducted to establish communication with demons, and +that for unlawful purposes. The popular conceptions concerning the +diabolical spheres, which have been all accredited by magic, may have +been gross exaggerations of fact concerning rudimentary and perverse +intelligences, but the wilful viciousness of the communicants is +substantially untouched thereby."[1b] + + +[2] EMANUEL SWEDENBORG: _Arcana Caelestia_, SE 6692. + +[1b] ARTHUR EDWARD WAITE: _The Occult Sciences_ (1891), p. 51. + + +These "psychological experiments" were not, save, perhaps, in rare cases, +carried out in the spirit of modern psychical research, with the high aim +of the man of science. It was, indeed, far otherwise; selfish motives +were at the root of most of them; and, apart from what may be termed +"medicinal magic," it was for the satisfaction of greed, lust, revenge, +that men and women had recourse to magical arts. The history of goeticism +and witchcraft is one of the most horrible of all histories. The +"Grimoires," witnesses to the superstitious folly of the past, are full +of disgusting, absurd, and even criminal rites for the satisfaction of +unlawful desires and passions. The Church was certainly justified in +attempting to put down the practice of magic, but the means adopted in +this design and the results to which they led were even more abominable +than witchcraft itself. The methods of detecting witches and the tortures +to which suspected persons were subjected to force them to confess to +imaginary crimes, employed in so-called civilised England and Scotland +and also in America, to say nothing of countries in which the "Holy" +Inquisition held undisputed sway, are almost too horrible to describe. +For details the reader may be referred to Sir WALTER SCOTT'S _Letters on +Demonology and Witchcraft_ (1830), and (as concerns America) COTTON +MATHER'S The _Wonders of the Invisible World_ (1692). The credulous +Church and the credulous people were terribly afraid of the power of +witchcraft, and, as always, fear destroyed their mental balance and made +them totally disregard the demands of justice. The result may be well +illustrated by what almost inevitably happens when a country goes to war; +for war, as the Hon. BERTRAND RUSSELL has well shown, is fear's offspring. +Fear of the enemy causes the military party to persecute in an insensate +manner, without the least regard to justice, all those of their +fellow-men whom they consider are not heart and soul with them in their +cause; similarly the Church relentlessly persecuted its supposed enemies, +of whom it was so afraid. No doubt some of the poor wretches that were +tortured and killed on the charge of witchcraft really believed themselves +to have made a pact with the devil, and were thus morally depraved, though, +generally speaking, they were no more responsible for their actions than +any other madmen. But the majority of the persons persecuted as witches +and wizards were innocent even of this. + +However, it would, I think, be unwise to disregard the existence of +another side to the question of the validity and ethical value of magic, +and to use the word only to stand for something essentially evil. +SWEDENBORG, we may note, in the course of a long passage from the work +from which I have already quoted, says that by "magic" is signified "the +science of spiritual things"[1] His position appears to be that there +is a genuine magic, or science of spiritual things, and a false magic, +that science perverted: a view of the matter which I propose here to +adopt. The word "magic" itself is derived from the Greek "magos," the +wise man of the East, and hence the strict etymological meaning of the +term is "the wisdom or science of the magi"; and it is, I think, +significant that we are told (and I see no reason to doubt the truth of +it) that the magi were among the first to worship the new-born +CHRIST.[2] + + + +[1] _Op. cit_., SE 5223. + +[2] See The Gospel according to MATTHEW, chap. ii., verses 1 to 12. + + +If there be an abuse of correspondences, or symbols, there surely must +also be a use, to which the word "magic" is not inapplicable. As such, +religious ritual, and especially the sacraments of the Christian Church, +will, no doubt, occur to the minds of those who regard these symbols as +efficacious, though they would probably hesitate to apply the term +"magical" to them. But in using this term as applying thereto, I do not +wish to suggest that any such rites or ceremonies possess, or can possess, +any CAUSAL efficacy in the moral evolution of the soul. The will alone, +in virtue of the power vouchsafed to it by the Source of all power, can +achieve this; but I do think that the soul may be assisted by ritual, +harmoniously related to the states of mind which it is desired to induce. +No doubt there is a danger of religious ritual, especially when its +meaning is lost, being engaged in for its own sake. It is then mere +superstition;[1] and, in view of the danger of this degeneracy, many +robust minds, such as the members of the Society of Friends, prefer to +dispense with its aid altogether. When ritual is associated with +erroneous doctrines, the results are even more disastrous, as I have +indicated in "The Belief in Talismans". But when ritual is allied with, +and based upon, as adequately symbolising, the high teaching of genuine +religion, it may be, and, in fact, is, found very helpful by many people. +As such its efficacy seems to me to be altogether magical, in the best +sense of that word. + + +[1] As "ELIPHAS LEVI" well says: "Superstition . . . is the sign +surviving the thought; it is the dead body of a religious rite." +(_Op cit_., p. 150.) + + +But, indeed, I think a still wider application of the word "magic" is +possible. "All experience is magic," says NOVALIS (1772-1801), "and +only magically explicable";[2a] and again: "It is only because of the +feebleness of our perceptions and activity that we do not perceive +ourselves to be in a fairy world." No doubt it will be objected that +the common experiences of daily life are "natural," whereas magic +postulates the "supernatural". If, as is frequently done, we use the +term "natural," as relating exclusively to the physical realm, then, +indeed, we may well speak of magic as "supernatural," because its aims +are psychical. On the other hand, the term "natural" is sometimes +employed as referring to the whole realm of order, and in this sense one +can use the word "magic" as descriptive of Nature herself when viewed +in the light of an idealistic philosophy, such as that of SWEDENBORG, +in which all causation is seen to be essentially spiritual, the things +of this world being envisaged as symbols of ideas or spiritual verities, +and thus physical causation regarded as an appearance produced in virtue +of the magical, non-causal efficacy of symbols.[1] Says CORNELIUS AGRIPPA: +". . . every day some natural thing is drawn by art and some divine thing +is drawn by Nature which, the Egyptians, seeing, called Nature a +Magicianess (_i.e_.) the very Magical power itself, in the attracting of +like by like, and of suitable things by suitable."[2] + + +[2a] NOVALIS: _Schriften_ (ed. by LUDWIG TIECK and FR. SCHLEGEL, 1805), +vol. ii. p. 195 + +[1] For a discussion of the essentially magical character of inductive +reasoning, see my _The Magic of Experience_ (1915) + +[2] _Op. cit_., bk. i. chap. xxxvii. p. 119. + + +I would suggest, in conclusion, that there is nothing really opposed to +the spirit of modern science in the thesis that "all experience is magic, +and only magically explicable." Science does not pretend to reveal +the fundamental or underlying cause of phenomena, does not pretend +to answer the final Why? This is rather the business of philosophy, +though, in thus distinguishing between science and philosophy, I am far +from insinuating that philosophy should be otherwise than scientific. +We often hear religious but non-scientific men complain because scientific +and perhaps equally as religious men do not in their books ascribe +the production of natural phenomena to the Divine Power. But if they +were so to do they would be transcending their business as scientists. +In every science certain simple facts of experience are taken for granted: +it is the business of the scientist to reduce other and more complex facts +of experience to terms of these data, not to explain these data themselves. +Thus the physicist attempts to reduce other related phenomena of greater +complexity to terms of simple force and motion; but, What are force and +motion? Why does force produce or result in motion? are questions which +lie beyond the scope of physics. In order to answer these questions, if, +indeed, this be possible, we must first inquire, How and why do these ideas +of force and motion arise in our minds? These problems land us in the +psychical or spiritual world, and the term "magic" at once becomes +significant. + +"If, says THOMAS CARLYLE, . . . we . . . have led thee into the true Land +of Dreams; and . . . thou lookest, even for moments, into the region of +the Wonderful, and seest and feelest that thy daily life is girt with +Wonder, and based on Wonder, and thy very blankets and breeches are +Miracles,--then art thou profited beyond money's worth...."[1] + + +[1] THOMAS CARLYLE: _Sartor Resartus_, bk. iii. chap. ix. + + + +VIII + +ARCHITECTURAL SYMBOLISM + +I WAS once rash enough to suggest in an essay "On Symbolism in Art"[1] +that "a true work of art is at once realistic, imaginative, and +symbolical," and that its aim is to make manifest the spiritual +significance of the natural objects dealt with. I trust that those +artists (no doubt many) who disagree with me will forgive me--a man of +science--for having ventured to express any opinion whatever on the +subject. But, at any rate, if the suggestions in question are accepted, +then a criterion for distinguishing between art and craft is at once +available; for we may say that, whilst craft aims at producing works +which are physically useful, art aims at producing works which are +spiritually useful. Architecture, from this point of view, is a +combination of craft and art. It may, indeed, be said that the modern +architecture which creates our dwelling-houses, factories, and even to +a large extent our places of worship, is pure craft unmixed with art +On the other hand, it might be argued that such works of architecture +are not always devoid of decoration, and that "decorative art," even +though the "decorative artist" is unconscious of this fact, is based +upon rules and employs symbols which have a deep significance. The +truly artistic element in architecture, however, is more clearly +manifest if we turn our gaze to the past. One thinks at once, of course, +of the pyramids and sphinx of Egypt, and the rich and varied symbolism +of design and decoration of antique structures to be found in Persia +and elsewhere in the East. It is highly probable that the Egyptian +pyramids were employed for astronomical purposes, and thus subserved +physical utility, but it seems no less likely that their shape was +suggested by a belief in some system of geometrical symbolism, and +was intended to embody certain of their philosophical or religious +doctrines. + + +[1] Published in _The Occult Review_ for August 1912, vol. xvi. pp. +98 to 102. + + +The mediaeval cathedrals and churches of Europe admirably exhibit this +combination of art with craft. Craft was needed to design and construct +permanent buildings to protect worshippers from the inclemency of the +weather; art was employed not only to decorate such buildings, but it +dictated to craft many points in connection with their design. +The builders of the mediaeval churches endeavoured so to construct +their works that these might, as a whole and in their various parts, +embody the truths, as they believed them, of the Christian religion: +thus the cruciform shape of churches, their orientation, etc. +The practical value of symbolism in church architecture is obvious. +As Mr F. E. HULME remarks, "The sculptured fonts or stained-glass +windows in the churches of the Middle Ages were full of teaching to a +congregation of whom the greater part could not read, to whom therefore +one great avenue of knowledge was closed. The ignorant are especially +impressed by pictorial teaching, and grasp its meaning far more readily +than they can follow a written description or a spoken discourse."[1] + + +[1] F. EDWARD HULME, F.L.S., F.S.A.: _The History, Principles, and Practice +of Symbolism in Christian Art_ (1909), p. 2. + + +The subject of symbolism in church architecture is an extensive one, +involving many side issues. In these excursions we shall consider +only one aspect of it, namely, the symbolic use of animal forms +in English church architecture. + +As Mr COLLINS, who has written, in recent years, an interesting work +on this topic of much use to archaeologists as a book of data,[2a] +points out, the great sources of animal symbolism were the famous +_Physiologus_ and other natural history books of the Middle Ages +(generally called "Bestiaries"), and the Bible, mystically understood. +The modern tendency is somewhat unsympathetic towards any attempt +to interpret the Bible symbolically, and certainly some of the +interpretations that have been forced upon it in the name of symbolism +are crude and fantastic enough. But in the belief of the mystics, +culminating in the elaborate system of correspondences of SWEDENBORG, +that every natural object, every event in the history of the human race, +and every word of the Bible, has a symbolic and spiritual significance, +there is, I think, a fundamental truth. We must, however, as I have +suggested already, distinguish between true and forced symbolism. +The early Christians employed the fish as a symbol of Christ, because the +Greek word for fish, icqus, is obtained by _notariqon_[1] +from the phrase <gr 'Ihsous Cristos Qeou Uios, Swthr>--"JESUS CHRIST, +the Son of God, the Saviour." Of course, the obvious use of such a symbol +was its entire unintelligibility to those who had not yet been instructed +in the mysteries of the Christian faith, since in the days of persecution +some degree of secrecy was necessary. But the symbol has significance +only in the Greek language, and that of an entirely arbitrary nature. +There is nothing in the nature of the fish, apart from its name in Greek, +which renders it suitable to be used as a symbol of CHRIST. Contrast this +pseudo-symbol, however, with that of the Good Shepherd, the Lamb of God +(fig. 34), or the Lion of Judah. Here we have what may be regarded +as true symbols, something of whose meanings are clear to the smallest +degree of spiritual sight, even though the second of them has frequently +been badly misinterpreted. + + +[2a] ARTHUR H. COLLINS, M.A.: _Symbolism of Animals and Birds represented +in English Church Architecture_ (1913). + +[1] A Kabalistic process by which a word is formed by taking the initial +letters of a sentence or phrase. + + +It was a belief in the spiritual or moral significance of nature similar +to that of the mystical expositors of the Bible, that inspired the +mediaeval naturalists. The Bestiaries almost invariably conclude the +account of each animal with the moral that might be drawn from its +behaviour. The interpretations are frequently very far-fetched, and +as the writers were more interested in the morals than in the facts of +natural history themselves, the supposed facts from which they drew their +morals were frequently very far from being of the nature of facts. +Sometimes the product of this inaccuracy is grotesque, as shown by the +following quotation: "The elephants are in an absurd way typical of Adam +and Eve, who ate of the forbidden fruit, and also have the dragon for +their enemy. It was supposed that the elephant . . . used to sleep by +leaning against a tree. The hunters would come by night, and cut the +trunk through. Down he would come, roaring helplessly. None of his +friends would be able to help him, until a small elephant should come and +lever him up with his trunk. This small elephant was symbolic of Jesus +Christ, Who came in great humility to rescue the human race which had +fallen `through a tree.' "[1] + + +[1] A. H. COLLINS: _Symbolism of Animals, etc_., pp. 41 and 42. + + +In some cases, though the symbolism is based upon quite erroneous notions +concerning natural history, and is so far fantastic, it is not devoid of +charm. The use of the pelican to symbolise the Saviour is a case in +point. Legend tells us that when other food is unobtainable, the pelican +thrusts its bill into its breast (whence the red colour of the bill) and +feeds its young with its life-blood. Were this only a fact, the symbol +would be most appropriate. There is another and far less charming form +of the legend, though more in accord with current perversions of +Christian doctrine, according to which the pelican uses its blood to +revive its young, after having slain them through anger aroused by the +great provocation which they are supposed to give it. For an example of +the use of the pelican in church architecture see fig. 36. + +Mention must also be made of the purely fabulous animals of the +Bestiaries, such as the basilisk, centaur, dragon, griffin, hydra, +mantichora, unicorn, phoenix, _etc_. The centaur (fig. 39) was a beast, +half man, half horse. It typified the flesh or carnal mind of man, and +the legend of the perpetual war between the centaur and a certain tribe +of simple savages who were said to live in trees in India, symbolised +the combat between the flesh and the spirit.[1] + + +[1] A H. COLLINS: _Symbolism of Animals, etc_., pp. 150 and 153. + + +With bow and arrow in its hands the centaur forms the astrological +sign Sagittarius (or the Archer). An interesting example of this sign +occurring in church architecture is to be found on the western doorway +of Portchester Church--a most beautiful piece of Norman architecture. +"This sign of the Zodiac," writes the Rev. Canon VAUGHAN, M.A., a +former Vicar of Portchester, "was the badge of King Stephen, and its +presence on the west front [of Portchester Church] seems to indicate, +what was often the case elsewhere, that the elaborate Norman carving +was not carried out until after the completion of the building."[2] +The facts, however, that this Sagittarius is accompanied on the other +side of the doorway by a couple of fishes, which form the astrological +sign Pisces (or the Fishes), and that these two signs are what are termed, +in astrological phraseology, the "houses" of the planet Jupiter, +the "Major Fortune," suggest that the architect responsible for the design, +influenced by the astrological notions of his day, may have put +the signs there in order to attract Jupiter's beneficent influence. +Or he may have had the Sagittarius carved for the reason Canon VAUGHAN +suggests, and then, remembering how good a sign it was astrologically, +had the Pisces added to complete the effect.[1b] + + +[2] Rev. Canon VAUGHAN, M.A.: A Short History of Portchester Castle, p. 14. + +[1b] Two other possible explanations of the Pisces have been suggested by +the Rev. A. HEADLEY. In his MS. book written in 1888, when he was Vicar +of Portchester, he writes: "I have discovered an interesting proof that +it [the Church] was finished in Stephen's reign, namely, the figure of +Sagittarius in the Western Doorway. + +"Stephen adopted this as his badge for the double reason that it formed +part of the arms of the city of Blois, and that the sun was in Sagittarius +in December when he came to the throne. I, therefore, conclude that this +badge was placed where it is to mark the completion of the church. + +"There is another sign of the Zodiac in the archway, apparently Pisces. +This may have been chosen to mark the month in which the church was +finished, or simply on account of its nearness to the sea. At one time I +fancied it might refer to March, the month in which Lady Day occurred, +thus referring to the Patron Saint, St Mary. As the sun leaves Pisces +just before Lady Day this does not explain it. Possibly in the old +calendar it might do so. This is a matter for further research." +(I have to thank the Rev. H. LAWRENCE FRY, present Vicar of Portchester, +for this quotation, and the Rev. A. HEADLEY for permission to utilise it.) + + +The phoenix and griffin we have encountered already in our excursions. +The latter, we are told, inhabits desert places in India, where it +can find nothing for its young to eat. It flies away to other regions +to seek food, and is sufficiently strong to carry off an ox. Thus it +symbolises the devil, who is ever anxious to carry away our souls to +the deserts of hell. Fig. 37 illustrates an example of the use of this +symbolic beast in church architecture. + +The mantichora is described by PLINY (whose statements were unquestioningly +accepted by the mediaeval naturalists), on the authority of CTESIAS +(_fl_. 400 B.C.), as having "A triple row of teeth, which fit +into each other like those of a comb, the face and ears of a man, +and azure eyes, is the colour of blood, has the body of the lion, +and a tail ending in a sting, like that of the scorpion. +Its voice resembles the union of the sound of the flute and the trumpet; +it is of excessive swiftness, and is particularly fond of human flesh."[1] + + +[1] PLINY: _Natural History_, bk. viii. chap. xxx. (BOSTOCK and RILEY'S +trans., vol. ii., 1855, p. 280.) + + +Concerning the unicorn, in an eighteenth-century work on natural history +we read that this is "a Beast, which though doubted of by many Writers, +yet is by others thus described: He has but one Horn, and that an +exceedingly rich one, growing out of the middle of his Forehead. His +Head resembles an Hart's, his Feet an Elephant's, his tail a Boar's, and +the rest of his Body an Horse's. The Horn is about a Foot and half in +length. His Voice is like the Lowing of an Ox. His Mane and Hair are of +a yellowish Colour. His Horn is as hard as Iron, and as rough as any File, +twisted or curled, like a flaming Sword; very straight, sharp, and every +where black, excepting the Point. Great Virtues are attributed to it, in +expelling of Poison and curing of several Diseases. He is not a Beast of +prey."[2] The method of capturing the animal believed in by mediaeval +writers was a curious one. The following is a literal translation from +the _Bestiary_ of PHILIPPE DE THAUN (12th century):-- + +[2] [THOMAS BOREMAN]: _A Description of Three Hundred Animals_ (1730), +p. 6. + + "Monosceros is an animal which has one horn on its head, + Therefore it is so named; it has the form of a goat, + It is caught by means of a virgin, now hear in what manner. + When a man intends to hunt it and to take and ensnare it + He goes to the forest where is its repair; + There he places a virgin, with her breast uncovered, + And by its smell the monosceros perceives it; + Then it comes to the virgin, and kisses her breast, + Falls asleep on her lap, and so comes to its death; + The man arrives immediately, and kills it in its sleep, + Or takes it alive and does as he likes with it. + It signifies much, I will not omit to tell it you. + + "Monosceros is Greek, it means _one horn_ in French: + A beast of such a description signifies Jesus Christ; + One God he is and shall be, and was and will continue so; + He placed himself in the virgin, and took flesh for man's sake, + And for virginity to show chastity; + To a virgin he APPEARED and a virgin conceived him, + A virgin she is, and will be, and will remain always. + Now hear briefly the signification. + + "This animal in truth signifies God; + Know that the virgin signifies St Mary; + By her breast we understand similarly Holy Church; + And then by the kiss it ought to signify, + That a man when he sleeps is in semblance of death; + God slept as man, who suffered death on the cross, + And his destruction was our redemption, + And his labour our repose, + Thus God deceived the Devil by a proper semblance; + Soul and body were one, so was God and man, + And this is the signification of an animal of that description."[1] + + +[1] _Popular Treatises on Science written during the Middle Ages in +Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman, and English_, ed. by THOMAS WRIGHT (Historical +Society of Science, 1841), pp. 81-82. + +This being the current belief concerning the symbolism of the unicorn +in the Middle Ages, it is not surprising to find this animal utilised +in church architecture; for an example see fig. 35. + +The belief in the existence of these fabulous beasts may very probably +have been due to the materialising of what were originally nothing more +than mere arbitrary symbols, as I have already suggested of the phoenix.[1] +Thus the account of the mantichora may, as BOSTOCK has suggested, +very well be a description of certain hieroglyphic figures, examples of +which are still to be found in the ruins of Assyrian and Persian cities. +This explanation seems, on the whole, more likely than the alternative +hypothesis that such beliefs were due to mal-observation; though that, +no doubt, helped in their formation. + + +[1] "Superstitions concerning Birds." + + +It may be questioned, however, whether the architects and preachers of +the Middle Ages altogether believed in the strange fables of the +Bestiaries. As Mr COLLINS says in reply to this question: "Probably +they were credulous enough. But, on the whole, we may say that the +truth of the story was just what they did not trouble about, any more +than some clergymen are particular about the absolute truth of the +stories they tell children from the pulpit. The application, the lesson, +is the thing!" With their desire to interpret Nature spiritually, we +ought, I think, to sympathise. But there was one truth they had yet to +learn, namely, that in order to interpret Nature spiritually, it is +necessary first to understand her aright in her literal sense. + + + +IX + +THE QUEST OF THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE + +THE need of unity is a primary need of human thought. +Behind the varied multiplicity of the world of phenomena, primitive +man, as I have indicated on a preceding excursion, begins to seek, +more or less consciously, for that Unity which alone is Real. And +this statement not only applies to the first dim gropings of the +primitive human mind, but sums up almost the whole of science and +philosophy; for almost all science and philosophy is explicitly or +implicitly a search for unity, for one law or one love, one matter +or one spirit. That which is the aim of the search may, indeed, be +expressed under widely different terms, but it is always conceived +to be the unity in which all multiplicity is resolved, whether it +be thought of as one final law of necessity, which all things obey, +and of which all the various other "laws of nature" are so many special +and limited applications; or as one final love for which all things +are created, and to which all things aspire; as one matter of which +all bodies are but varying forms; or as one spirit, which is the life +of all things, and of which all things are so many manifestations. +Every scientist and philosopher is a merchant seeking for goodly +pearls, willing to sell every pearl that he has, if he may secure +the One Pearl beyond price, because he knows that in that One Pearl +all others are included. + +This search for unity in multiplicity, however, is not confined to the +acknowledged scientist and philosopher. More or less unconsciously +everyone is engaged in this quest. Harmony and unity are the very +fundamental laws of the human mind itself, and, in a sense, all mental +activity is the endeavour to bring about a state of harmony and unity in +the mind. No two ideas that are contradictory of one another, and are +perceived to be of this nature, can permanently exist in any sane man's +mind. It is true that many people try to keep certain portions of their +mental life in water-tight compartments; thus some try to keep their +religious convictions and their business ideas, or their religious faith +and their scientific knowledge, separate from another one--and, it seems, +often succeed remarkably well in so doing. But, ultimately, the arbitrary +mental walls they have erected will break down by the force of their own +ideas. Contradictory ideas from different compartments will then present +themselves to consciousness at the same moment of time, and the result of +the perception of their contradictory nature will be mental anguish and +turmoil, persisting until one set of ideas is conquered and overcome by +the other, and harmony and unity are restored. + +It is true of all of us, then, that we seek for Unity--unity in mind and +life. Some seek it in science and a life of knowledge; some seek it in +religion and a life of faith; some seek it in human love and find it in +the life of service to their fellows; some seek it in pleasure and the +gratification of the senses' demands; some seek it in the harmonious +development of all the facets of their being. Many the methods, right +and wrong; many the terms under which the One is conceived, true and +false--in a sense, to use the phraseology of a bygone system of +philosophy, we are all, consciously or unconsciously, following paths +that lead thither or paths that lead away, seekers in the quest of the +Philosopher's Stone. + +Let us, in these excursions in the byways of thought, consider for a +while the form that the quest of fundamental unity took in the hands of +those curious mediaeval philosophers, half mystics, half experimentalists +in natural things--that are known by the name of "alchemists." + +The common opinion concerning alchemy is that it was a pseudo-science +or pseudo-art flourishing during the Dark Ages, and having for its aim +the conversion of common metals into silver and gold by means of a most +marvellous and wholly fabulous agent called the Philosopher's Stone, +that its devotees were half knaves, half fools, whose views concerning +Nature were entirely erroneous, and whose objects were entirely mercenary. +This opinion is not absolutely destitute of truth; as a science alchemy +involved many fantastic errors; and in the course of its history it +certainly proved attractive to both knaves and fools. But if this opinion +involves some element of truth, it involves a far greater proportion of +error. Amongst the alchemists are numbered some of the greatest +intellects of the Middle Ages--ROGER BACON (_c_. 1214-1294), for example, +who might almost be called the father of experimental science. And +whether or not the desire for material wealth was a secondary object, the +true aim of the genuine alchemist was a much nobler one than this as one +of them exclaims with true scientific fervour: "Would to God . . . all +men might become adepts in our Art--for then gold, the great idol of +mankind, would lose its value, and we should prize it only for its +scientific teaching."[1] Moreover, recent developments in physical and +chemical science seem to indicate that the alchemists were not so utterly +wrong in their concept of Nature as has formerly been supposed--that, +whilst they certainly erred in both their methods and their +interpretations of individual phenomena, they did intuitively grasp +certain fundamental facts concerning the universe ofthe very greatest +importance. + + +[1] EIRENAEUS PHILALETHES: _An Open Entrance to the Closed Palace of the +King_. (See _The Hermetic Museum, Restored and Enlarged_, ed. by A. E. +WAITE, 1893, vol. ii. p. 178.) + + +Suppose, however, that the theories of the alchemists are entirely +erroneous from beginning to end, and are nowhere relieved by the merest +glimmer of truth. Still they were believed to be true, and this belief +had an important influence upon human thought. Many men of science have, +I am afraid, been too prone to regard the mystical views of the alchemists +as unintelligible; but, whatever their theories may be to us, these +theories were certainly very real to them: it is preposterous to maintain +that the writings of the alchemists are without meaning, even though their +views are altogether false. And the more false their views are believed +to be, the more necessary does it become to explain why they should have +gained such universal credit. Here we have problems into which scientific +inquiry is not only legitimate, but, I think, very desirable,--apart +altogether from the question of the truth or falsity of alchemy as a +science, or its utility as an art. What exactly was the system of beliefs +grouped under the term "alchemy," and what was its aim? Why were the +beliefs held? What was their precise influence upon human thought and +culture? + +It was in order to elucidate problems of this sort, as well as to +determine what elements of truth, if any, there are in the theories of +the alchemists, that The Alchemical Society was founded in 1912, mainly +through my own efforts and those of my confreres, and for the first +time something like justice was being done to the memory of the +alchemists when the Society's activities were stayed by that greatest +calamity of history, the European War. + +Some students of the writings of the alchemists have advanced a very +curious and interesting theory as to the aims of the alchemists, which +may be termed "the transcendental theory". According to this theory, the +alchemists were concerned only with the mystical processes affecting the +soul of man, and their chemical references are only to be understood +symbolically. In my opinion, however, this view of the subject is +rendered untenable by the lives of the alchemists themselves; for, as +Mr WAITE has very fully pointed out in his _Lives of Alchemystical +Philosophers_ (1888), the lives of the alchemists show them to have been +mainly concerned with chemical and physical processes; and, indeed, to +their labours we owe many valuable discoveries of a chemical nature. +But the fact that such a theory should ever have been formulated, and +should not be altogether lacking in consistency, may serve to direct +our attention to the close connection between alchemy and mysticism. + +If we wish to understand the origin and aims of alchemy we must +endeavour to recreate the atmosphere of the Middle Ages, and to look +at the subject from the point of view of the alchemists themselves. +Now, this atmosphere was, as I have indicated in a previous essay, +surcharged with mystical theology and mystical philosophy. Alchemy, +so to speak, was generated and throve in a dim religious light. We +cannot open a book by any one of the better sort of alchemists without +noticing how closely their theology and their chemistry are interwoven, +and what a remarkably religious view they take of their subject. +Thus one alchemist writes: "In the first place, let every devout and +God-fearing chemist and student of this Art consider that this arcanum +should be regarded, not only as a truly great, but as a most holy Art +(seeing that it typifies and shadows out the highest heavenly good). +Therefore, if any man desire to reach this great and unspeakable Mystery, +he must remember that it is obtained not by the might of man, +but by the grace of God, and that not our will or desire, but only +the mercy of the Most High, can bestow it upon us. For this reason +you must first of all cleanse your heart, lift it up to Him alone, +and ask of Him this gift in true, earnest and undoubting prayer. +He alone can give and bestow it."[1] Whilst another alchemist declares: +"I am firmly persuaded that any unbeliever who got truly to know +this Art, would straightway confess the truth of our Blessed Religion, +and believe in the Trinity and in our Lord JESUS CHRIST."[2] + + +[1] _The Sophic Hydrolith; or, Water Stone of the Wise_. (See _The +Hermetic Museum_, vol. i. pp. 74 and 75.) + +[2] PETER BONUS: _The New Pearl of Great Price_ (trans. by A. E. WAITE, +1894), p. 275. + + +Now, what I suggest is that the alchemists constructed their chemical +theories for the main part by means of _a priori_ reasoning, and that +the premises from which they started were (i.) the truth of mystical +theology, especially the doctrine of the soul's regeneration, and (ii.) +the truth of mystical philosophy, which asserts that the objects of +Nature are symbols of spiritual verities. There is, I think, abundant +evidence to show that alchemy was a more or less deliberate attempt to +apply, according to the principles of analogy, the doctrines of religious +mysticism to chemical and physical phenomena. Some of this evidence I +shall attempt to put forward in this essay. + +In the first place, however, I propose to say a few words more in +description of the theological and philosophical doctrines which so +greatly influenced the alchemists, and which, I believe, they borrowed +for their attempted explanations of chemical and physical phenomena. +This system of doctrine I have termed "mysticism"--a word which is +unfortunately equivocal, and has been used to denote various systems of +religious and philosophical thought, from the noblest to the most degraded. +I have, therefore, further to define my usage of the term. + +By mystical theology I mean that system of religious thought which +emphasises the unity between Creator and creature, though not +necessarily to the extent of becoming pantheistic. Man, mystical +theology asserts, has sprung from God, but has fallen away from Him +through self-love. Within man, however, is the seed of divine grace, +whereby, if he will follow the narrow road of self-renunciation, he may +be regenerated, born anew, becoming transformed into the likeness of God +and ultimately indissolubly united to God in love. God is at once the +Creator and the Restorer of man's soul, He is the Origin as well as the +End of all existence; and He is also the Way to that End. In Christian +mysticism, CHRIST is the Pattern, towards which the mystic strives; +CHRIST also is the means towards the attainment of this end. + +By mystical philosophy I mean that system of philosophical thought +which emphasises the unity of the Cosmos, asserting that God and +the spiritual may be perceived immanent in the things of this world, +because all things natural are symbols and emblems of spiritual verities. +As one of the _Golden Verses_ attributed to PYTHAGORAS, which I have +quoted in a previous essay, puts it: "The Nature of this Universe +is in all things alike"; commenting upon which, HIEROCLES, writing in +the fifth or sixth century, remarks that "Nature, in forming this +Universe after the Divine Measure and Proportion, made it in all things +conformable and like to itself, analogically in different manners. +Of all the different species, diffused throughout the whole, it made, +as it were, an Image of the Divine Beauty, imparting variously +to the copy the perfections of the Original."[1] We have, however, +already encountered so many instances of this belief, that no more +need be said here concerning it. + + +[1] _Commentary of_ HIEROCLES _on the Golden Verses of_ PYTHAGORAS +(trans. by N. ROWE, 1906), pp. 101 and 102. + + +In fine, as Dean INGE well says: "Religious Mysticism may be defined +as the attempt to realise the presence of the living God in the soul +and in nature, or, more generally, as _the attempt to realise, +in thought and feeling, the immanence of the temporal in the eternal, +and of the eternal in the temporal_."[2] + + +[2] WILLIAM RALPH INGE, M.A.: _Christian Mysticism_ (the Bampton Lectures, +1899), p. 5. + + +Now, doctrines such as these were not only very prevalent during +the Middle Ages, when alchemy so greatly flourished, but are of +great antiquity, and were undoubtedly believed in by the learned +class in Egypt and elsewhere in the East in those remote days when, +as some think, alchemy originated, though the evidence, +as will, I hope, become plain as we proceed, points to a later +and post-Christian origin for the central theorem of alchemy. +So far as we can judge from their writings, the more important +alchemists were convinced of the truth of these doctrines, +and it was with such beliefs in mind that they commenced +their investigations of physical and chemical phenomena. +Indeed, if we may judge by the esteem in which the Hermetic maxim, +"What is above is as that which is below, what is below is as that +which is above, to accomplish the miracles of the One Thing," +was held by every alchemist, we are justified in asserting that the +mystical theory of the spiritual significance of Nature--a theory with +which, as we have seen, is closely connected the Neoplatonic and +Kabalistic doctrine that all things emanate in series from the Divine +Source of all Being--was at the very heart of alchemy. As writes one +alchemist: " . . . the Sages have been taught of God that this +natural world is only an image and material copy of a heavenly and +spiritual pattern; that the very existence of this world is based +upon the reality of its celestial archetype; and that God has created +it in imitation of the spiritual and invisible universe, in order that +men might be the better enabled to comprehend His heavenly teaching, +and the wonders of His absolute and ineffable power and wisdom. +Thus the sage sees heaven reflected in Nature as in a mirror; and he +pursues this Art, not for the sake of gold or silver, but for the love +of the knowledge which it reveals; he jealously conceals it from the +sinner and the scornful, lest the mysteries of heaven should be laid +bare to the vulgar gaze."[1] + + +[1] MICHAEL SENDIVOGIUS (?): _The New Chemical Light, Pt. II., Concerning +Sulphur_. (See _The Hermetic Museum_, vol. ii. p. 138.) + + +The alchemists, I hold, convinced of the truth of this view of Nature, +_i.e_. that principles true of one plane of being are true also of all +other planes, adopted analogy as their guide in dealing with the facts +of chemistry and physics known to them. They endeavoured to explain these +facts by an application to them of the principles of mystical theology, +their chief aim being to prove the truth of these principles as applied +to the facts of the natural realm, and by studying natural phenomena +to become instructed in spiritual truth. They did not proceed by the sure, +but slow, method of modern science, _i.e_. the method of induction, +which questions experience at every step in the construction of a theory; +but they boldly allowed their imaginations to leap ahead and to formulate +a complete theory of the Cosmos on the strength of but few facts. +This led them into many fantastic errors, but I would not venture to deny +them an intuitive perception of certain fundamental truths concerning +the constitution of the Cosmos, even if they distorted these truths +and dressed them in a fantastic garb. + +Now, as I hope to make plain in the course of this excursion, the +alchemists regarded the discovery of the Philosopher's Stone and the +transmutation of "base" metals into gold as the consummation of the +proof of the doctrines of mystical theology as applied to chemical +phenomena, and it was as such that they so ardently sought to achieve +the _magnum opus_, as this transmutation was called. Of course, it +would be useless to deny that many, accepting the truth of the great +alchemical theorem, sought for the Philosopher's Stone because of what +was claimed for it in the way of material benefits. But, as I have +already indicated, with the nobler alchemists this was not the case, and +the desire for wealth, if present at all, was merely a secondary object. + +The idea expressed in DALTON'S atomic hypothesis (1802), and universally +held during the nineteenth century, that the material world is made +up of a certain limited number of elements unalterable in quantity, +subject in themselves to no change or development, and inconvertible +one into another, is quite alien to the views of the alchemists. +The alchemists conceived the universe to be a unity; they believed +that all material bodies had been developed from one seed; +their elements are merely different forms of one matter and, +therefore, convertible one into another. They were thoroughgoing +evolutionists with regard to the things of the material world, +and their theory concerning the evolution of the metals was, +I believe, the direct outcome of a metallurgical application of +the mystical doctrine of the soul's development and regeneration. +The metals, they taught, all spring from the same seed in Nature's womb, +but are not all equally matured and perfect; for, as they say, +although Nature always intends to produce only gold, various impurities +impede the process. In the metals the alchemists saw symbols +of man in the various stages of his spiritual development. +Gold, the most beautiful as well as the most untarnishable metal, +keeping its beauty permanently, unaffected by sulphur, most acids, +and fire--indeed, purified by such treatment,--gold, to the alchemist, +was the symbol of regenerate man, and therefore he called it "a +noble metal". Silver was also termed "noble"; but it was regarded +as less mature than gold, for, although it is undoubtedly beautiful +and withstands the action of fire, it is corroded by nitric acid +and is blackened by sulphur; it was, therefore, considered to be +analogous to the regenerate man at a lower stage of his development. +Possibly we shall not be far wrong in using SWEDENBORG'S terms, +"celestial" to describe the man of gold, "spiritual" to designate +him of silver. Lead, on the other hand, the alchemists regarded +as a very immature and impure metal: heavy and dull, corroded by +sulphur and nitric acid, and converted into a calx by the action +of fire,--lead, to the alchemists, was a symbol of man in a sinful +and unregenerate condition. + +The alchemists assumed the existence of three principles in the metals, +their obvious reason for so doing being the mystical threefold division +of man into body, soul (_i.e_. affections and will), and spirit (_i.e_. +intelligence), though the principle corresponding to body was a +comparatively late introduction in alchemical philosophy. This latter +fact, however, is no argument against my thesis; because, of course, I +do not maintain that the alchemists started out with their chemical +philosophy ready made, but gradually worked it out, by incorporating in +it further doctrines drawn from mystical theology. The three principles +just referred to were called "mercury," "sulphur," and "salt"; and they +must be distinguished from the common bodies so designated (though the +alchemists themselves seem often guilty of confusing them). "Mercury" is +the metallic principle _par excellence_, conferring on metals their +brightness and fusibility, and corresponding to the spirit or intelligence +in man.[1] "Sulphur," the principle of combustion and colour, is the +analogue of the soul. Many alchemists postulated two sulphurs in the +metals, an inward and an outward.[1b] The outward sulphur was thought to +be the chief cause of metallic impurity, and the reason why all (known) +metals, save gold and silver, were acted on by fire. The inward sulphur, +on the other hand, was regarded as essential to the development of the +metals: pure mercury, we are told, matured by a pure inward sulphur +yields pure gold. Here again it is evident that the alchemists borrowed +their theories from mystical theology; for, clearly, inward sulphur is +nothing else than the equivalent to love of God; outward sulphur to love +of self. Intelligence (mercury) matured by love to God (inward sulphur) +exactly expresses the spiritual state of the regenerate man according to +mystical theology. There is no reason, other than their belief in analogy, +why the alchemists should have held such views concerning the metals. +"Salt," the principle of solidity and resistance to fire, corresponding to +the body in man, plays a comparatively unimportant part in alchemical +theory, as does its prototype in mystical theology. + + +[1] The identification of the god MERCURY with THOTH, the Egyptian god +of learning, is worth noticing in this connection. + +[1b] Pseudo-GEBER, whose writings were highly esteemed, for instance. +See R. RUSSEL'S translation of his works (1678), p. 160. + + +Now, as I have pointed out already, the central theorem of mystical +theology is, in Christian terminology, that of the regeneration of the +soul by the Spirit of CHRIST. The corresponding process in alchemy is +that of the transmutation of the "base" metals into silver and gold by +the agency of the Philosopher's Stone. Merely to remove the evil sulphur +of the "base" metals, thought the alchemists, though necessary, is not +sufficient to transmute them into "noble" metals; a maturing process is +essential, similar to that which they supposed was effected in Nature's +womb. Mystical theology teaches that the powers and life of the soul +are not inherent in it, but are given by the free grace of God. Neither, +according to the alchemists, are the powers and life of nature in herself, +but in that immanent spirit, the Soul of the World, that animates her. As +writes the famous alchemist who adopted the pleasing pseudonym of "BASIL +VALENTINE" (_c_. 1600), "the power of growth . . . is imparted not by the +earth, but by the life-giving spirit that is in it. If the earth were +deserted by this spirit, it would be dead, and no longer able to afford +nourishment to anything. For its sulphur or richness would lack the +quickening spirit without which there can be neither life nor growth."[1a] +To perfect the metals, therefore, the alchemists argued, from analogy +with mystical theology, which teaches that men can be regenerated only +by the power of CHRIST within the soul, that it is necessary to subject +them to the action of this world-spirit, this one essence underlying all +the varied powers of nature, this One Thing from which "all things were +produced . . . by adaption, and which is the cause of all perfection +throughout the whole world."[2a] "This," writes one alchemist, "is the +Spirit of Truth, which the world cannot comprehend without the +interposition of the Holy Ghost, or without the instruction of those who +know it. The same is of a mysterious nature, wondrous strength, boundless +power.... By Avicenna this Spirit is named the Soul of the World. For, as +the Soul moves all the limbs of the Body, so also does this Spirit move +all bodies. And as the Soul is in all the limbs of the Body, so also is +this Spirit in all elementary created things. It is sought by many and +found by few. It is beheld from afar and found near; for it exists in +every thing, in every place, and at all times. It has the powers of all +creatures; its action is found in all elements, and the qualities of all +things are therein, even in the highest perfection . . . it heals all +dead and living bodies without other medicine . . . converts all metallic +bodies into gold, and there is nothing like unto it under Heaven."[1b] +It was this Spirit, concentrated in all its potency in a suitable +material form, which the alchemists sought under the name of "the +Philosopher's Stone". Now, mystical theology teaches that the Spirit +of CHRIST, by which alone the soul of man can be tinctured and +transmuted into the likeness of God, is Goodness itself; consequently, +the alchemists argued that the Philosopher's Stone must be, so to +speak, Gold itself, or the very essence of Gold: it was to them, as +CHRIST is of the soul's perfection, at once the pattern and the means +of metallic perfection. "The Philosopher's Stone," declares +"EIRENAEUS PHILALETHES" (_nat. c_. 1623), "is a certain heavenly, +spiritual, penetrative, and fixed substance, which brings all metals to +the perfection of gold or silver (according to the quality of the +Medicine), and that by natural methods, which yet in their effects +transcend Nature.... Know, then, that it is called a stone, not because +it is like a stone, but only because, by virtue of its fixed nature, it +resists the action of fire as successfully as any stone. In species it +is gold, more pure than the purest; it is fixed and incombustible like +a stone [_i.e_. it contains no outward sulphur, but only inward, fixed +sulphur], but its appearance is that of a very fine powder, impalpable +to the touch, sweet to the taste, fragrant to the smell, in potency a +most penetrative spirit, apparently dry and yet unctuous, and easily +capable of tingeing a plate of metal.... If we say that its nature is +spiritual, it would be no more than the truth; if we described it as +corporeal the expression would be equally correct; for it is subtle, +penetrative, glorified, spiritual gold. It is the noblest of all +created things after the rational soul, and has virtue to repair all +defects both in animal and metallic bodies, by restoring them to the +most exact and perfect temper; wherefore is it a spirit or ` +quintessence.' "[1c] + + +[1a] BASIL VALENTINE: _The Twelve Keys_. (See _The Hermetic Museum_, +vol. i. pp. 333 and 334.) + +[2a] From the "Smaragdine Table," attributed to HERMES TRISMEGISTOS +(_ie_. MERCURY or THOTH). + +[1b] _The Book of the Revelation of_ HERMES, _interpreted by_ +THEOPHRASTUS PARACELSUS, _concerning the Supreme Secret of +the World_. (See BENEDICTUS FIGULUS, _A Golden and Blessed Casket +of Nature's Marvels_, trans. by A. E. WAITE, 1893, pp. +36, 37, and 41.) + +[1c] EIRENAEUS PHILALETHES: _A Brief Guide to the Celestial Ruby_. +(See _The Hermetic Museum_, vol. ii. pp. 246 and 249.) + + +In other accounts the Philosopher's Stone, or at least the _materia +prima_ of which it is compounded, is spoken of as a despised +substance, reckoned to be of no value. Thus, according to one +curious alchemistic work, "This matter, so precious by the +excellent Gifts, wherewith Nature has enriched it, is truly mean, +with regard to the Substances from whence it derives its Original. +Their price is not above the Ability of the Poor. Ten Pence is +more than sufficient to purchase the Matter of the Stone. . . . The +matter therefore is mean, considering the Foundation of the Art +because it costs very little; it is no less mean, if one considers +exteriourly that which gives it Perfection, since in that regard it +costs nothing at all, in as much as _all the World has it in its +Power_ . . . so that . . . it is a constant Truth, that the Stone is +a Thing mean in one Sense, but that in another it is most precious, +and that there are none but Fools that despise it, by a just +Judgment of God."[1] And JACOB BOEHME (1575--1624) writes: "The +_philosopher's stone_ is a very dark, disesteemed stone, of a grey +colour, but therein lieth the highest tincture."[2] In these passages +there is probably some reference to the ubiquity of the Spirit of the +World, already referred to in a former quotation. But this fact is +not, in itself, sufficient to account for them. I suggest that their +origin is to be found in the religious doctrine that God's Grace, the +Spirit of CHRIST that is the means of the transmutation of man's soul +into spiritual gold, is free to all; that it is, at once, the meanest +and the most precious thing in the whole Universe. Indeed, I think it +quite probable that the alchemists who penned the above-quoted passages +had in mind the words of ISAIAH, "He was despised and we esteemed him +not." And if further evidence is required that the alchemists believed +in a correspondence between CHRIST--"the Stone which the builders +rejected"--and the Philosopher's Stone, reference may be made to the +alchemical work called _The Sophic Hydrolith: or Water Stone of the +Wise_, a tract included in _The Hermetic Museum_, in which this supposed +correspondence is explicitly asserted and dealt with in some detail. + + +[1] _A Discourse between Eudoxus and Pyrophilus, upon the Ancient War +of the Knights_. See _The Hermetical Triumph: or, the Victorious +Philosophical Stone_ (1723), pp. 101 and 102. + +[2] JACOB BOEHME: _Epistles_ (trans. by J. E., 1649, reprinted 1886), +Ep. iv., SE III. + + +Apart from the alchemists' belief in the analogy between natural and +spiritual things, it is, I think, incredible that any such theories of +the metals and the possibility of their transmutation or "regeneration" +by such an extraordinary agent as the Philosopher's Stone would have +occurred to the ancient investigators of Nature's secrets. When they +had started to formulate these theories, facts[1] were discovered which +appeared to support them; but it is, I suggest, practically impossible +to suppose that any or all of these facts would, in themselves, have been +sufficient to give rise to such wonderfully fantastic theories as these: +it is only from the standpoint of the theory that alchemy was a direct +offspring of mysticism that its origin seems to be capable of explanation. + + + +[1] One of those facts, amongst many others, that appeared to confirm +the alchemical doctrines, was the ease with which iron could apparently +be transmuted into copper. It was early observed that iron vessels +placed in contact with a solution of blue vitriol became converted +(at least, so far as their surfaces were concerned) into copper. +This we now know to be due to the fact that the copper originally +contained in the vitriol is thrown out of solution, whilst the iron +takes its place. And we know, also, that no more copper can be +obtained in this way from the blue vitriol than is actually used up +in preparing it; and, further, that all the iron which is apparently +converted into copper can be got out of the residual solution by +appropriate methods, if such be desired; so that the facts really +support DALTON'S theory rather than the alchemical doctrines. +But to the alchemist it looked like a real transmutation of iron +into copper, confirmation of his fond belief that iron and other +base metals could be transmuted into silver and gold by the aid +of the Great Arcanum of Nature. + + +In all the alchemical doctrines mystical connections are evident, +and mystical origins can generally be traced. I shall content +myself here with giving a couple of further examples. Consider, +in the first place, the alchemical doctrine of purification +by putrefaction, that the metals must die before they can be +resurrected and truly live, that through death alone are they +purified--in the more prosaic language of modern chemistry, death +becomes oxidation, and rebirth becomes reduction. In many +alchemical books there are to be found pictorial symbols of the +putrefaction and death of metals and their new birth in the state +of silver or gold, or as the Stone itself, together with descriptions +of these processes. The alchemists sought to kill or destroy the +body or outward form of the metals, in the hope that they might get +at and utilise the living essence they believed to be immanent within. +As PARACELSUS put it: "Nothing of true value is located in the body of +a substance, but in the virtue . . . the less there is of body, the +more in proportion is the virtue." It seems to me quite obvious that +in such ideas as these we have the application to metallurgy of the +mystic doctrine of self-renunciation--that the soul must die to self +before it can live to God; that the body must be sacrificed to the +spirit, and the individual will bowed down utterly to the One Divine +Will, before it can become one therewith. + +In the second place, consider the directions as to the colours that +must be obtained in the preparation of the Philosopher's Stone, if +a successful issue to the Great Work is desired. Such directions +are frequently given in considerable detail in alchemical works; and, +without asserting any exact uniformity, I think that I may state that +practically all the alchemists agree that three great colour-stages +are necessary--(i.) an inky blackness, which is termed the "Crow's +Head" and is indicative of putrefaction; (ii.) a white colour +indicating that the Stone is now capable of converting "base" metals +into silver; this passes through orange into (iii.) a red colour, +which shows that the Stone is now perfect, and will transmute "base" +metals into gold. Now, what was the reason for the belief in these +three colour-stages, and for their occurrence in the above order? +I suggest that no alchemist actually obtained these colours in this +order in his chemical experiments, and that we must look for a +speculative origin for the belief in them. We have, I think, only +to turn to religious mysticism for this origin. For the exponents +of religious mysticism unanimously agree to a threefold division of +the life of the mystic. The first stage is called "the dark night +of the soul," wherein it seems as if the soul were deserted by God, +although He is very near. It is the time of trial, when self is +sacrificed as a duty and not as a delight. Afterwards, however, +comes the morning light of a new intelligence, which marks the +commencement of that stage of the soul's upward progress that is +called the "illuminative life". All the mental powers are now +concentrated on God, and the struggle is transferred from without to +the inner man, good works being now done, as it were, spontaneously. +The disciple, in this stage, not only does unselfish deeds, but does +them from unselfish motives, being guided by the light of Divine +Truth. The third stage, which is the consummation of the process, is +termed "the contemplative life". It is barely describable. The +disciple is wrapped about with the Divine Love, and is united thereby +with his Divine Source. It is the life of love, as the illuminative +life is that of wisdom. I suggest that the alchemists, believing in +this threefold division of the regenerative process, argued that there +must be three similar stages in the preparation of the Stone, which +was the pattern of all metallic perfection; and that they derived +their beliefs concerning the colours, and other peculiarities of each +stage in the supposed chemical process,from the characteristics of +each stage in the psychological process according to mystical theology. + +Moreover, in the course of the latter process many flitting thoughts +and affections arise and deeds are half-wittingly done which are not +of the soul's true character; and in entire agreement with this, +we read of the alchemical process, in the highly esteemed "Canons" +of D'ESPAGNET: "Besides these decretory signs [_i.e_. the black, +white, orange, and red colours] which firmly inhere in the matter, +and shew its essential mutations, almost infinite colours appear, +and shew themselves in vapours, as the Rainbow in the clouds, +which quickly pass away and are expelled by those that succeed, +more affecting the air than the earth: the operator must have +a gentle care of them, because they are not permanent, and proceed +not from the intrinsic disposition of the matter, but from the fire +painting and fashioning everything after its pleasure, or casually +by heat in slight moisture."[1] That D'ESPAGNET is arguing, +not so much from actual chemical experiments, as from analogy +with psychological processes in man, is, I think, evident. + + +[1] JEAN D'ESPAGNET: _Hermetic Arcanum_, canon 65. (See _Collectanea +Hermetica_, ed. by W. WYNN WESTCOTT, vol. i., 1893, pp. 28 and 29.) + + +As well as a metallic, the alchemists believed in a physiological, +application of the fundamental doctrines of mysticism: +their physiology was analogically connected with their +metallurgy, the same principles holding good in each case. +PARACELSUS, as we have seen, taught that man is a microcosm, +a world in miniature; his spirit, the Divine Spark within, +is from God; his soul is from the Stars, extracted from +the Spirit of the World; and his body is from the earth, +extracted from the elements of which all things material are made. +This view of man was shared by many other alchemists. +The Philosopher's Stone, therefore (or, rather, a solution +of it in alcohol) was also regarded as the Elixir of Life; +which, thought the alchemists, would not endow man with +physical immortality, as is sometimes supposed, but restore him +again to the flower of youth, "regenerating" him physiologically. +Failing this, of course, they regarded gold in a potable form +as the next most powerful medicine--a belief which probably +led to injurious effects in some cases. + +Such are the facts from which I think we are justified in concluding, +as I have said, "that the alchemists constructed their chemical theories +for the main part by means of _a priori_ reasoning, and that the premises +from which they started were (i.) the truth of mystical theology, +especially the doctrine of the soul's regeneration, and (ii.) the truth +of mystical philosophy, which asserts that the objects of nature are +symbols of spiritual verities."[1] + + +[1] In the following excursion we will wander again in the alchemical +bypaths of thought, and certain objections to this view of the origin +and nature of alchemy will be dealt with and, I hope, satisfactorily +answered. + + +It seems to follow, _ex hypothesi_, that every alchemical work ought +to permit of two interpretations, one physical, the other +transcendental. But I would not venture to assert this, because, as +I think, many of the lesser alchemists knew little of the origin of +their theories, nor realised their significance. They were concerned +merely with these theories in their strictly metallurgical applications, +and any transcendental meaning we can extract from their works was not +intended by the writers themselves. However, many alchemists, I +conceive, especially the better sort, realised more or less clearly +the dual nature of their subject, and their books are to some extent +intended to permit of a double interpretation, although the emphasis is +laid upon the physical and chemical application of mystical doctrine. +And there are a few writers who adopted alchemical terminology +on the principle that, if the language of theology is competent +to describe chemical processes, then, conversely, the language +of alchemy must be competent to describe psychological processes: +this is certainly and entirely true of JACOB BOEHME, and, to some +extent also, I think, of HENRY KHUNRATH (1560-1605) and THOMAS +VAUGHAN (1622-1666). + +As may be easily understood, many of the alchemists led most +romantic lives, often running the risk of torture and death at +the hands of avaricious princes who believed them to be in possession +of the Philosopher's Stone, and adopted such pleasant methods +of extorting (or, at least, of trying to extort) their secrets. +A brief sketch, which I quote from my _Alchemy: Ancient and Modern_ +(1911), SE 54, of the lives of ALEXANDER SETHON and MICHAEL SENDIVOGIUS, +will serve as an example:-- + +"The date and birthplace of ALEXANDER SETHON, a Scottish alchemist, +do not appear to have been recorded, but MICHAEL SENDIVOGIUS was +probably born in Moravia about 1566. Sethon, we are told, was in +possession of the arch-secrets of Alchemy. He visited Holland in 1602, +proceeded after a time to Italy, and passed through Basle to Germany; +meanwhile he is said to have performed many transmutations. +Ultimately arriving at Dresden, however, he fell into the clutches +of the young Elector, Christian II., who, in order to extort his secret, +cast him into prison and put him to the torture, but without avail. +Now it so happened that Sendivogius, who was in quest of +the Philosopher's Stone, was staying at Dresden, and hearing +of Sethon's imprisonment obtained permission to visit him. +Sendivogius offered to effect Sethon's escape in return for assistance +in his alchemistic pursuits, to which arrangement the Scottish +alchemist willingly agreed. After some considerable outlay +of money in bribery, Sendivogius's plan of escape was successfully +carried out, and Sethon found himself a free man; but he refused +to betray the high secrets of Hermetic philosophy to his rescuer. +However, before his death, which occurred shortly afterwards, +he presented him with an ounce of the transmutative powder. +Sendivogius soon used up this powder, we are told, in effecting +transmutations and cures, and, being fond of expensive living, +he married Sethon's widow, in the hope that she was in the possession +of the transmutative secret. In this, however, he was disappointed; +she knew nothing of the matter, but she had the manuscript of an +alchemistic work written by her late husband. Shortly afterwards +Sendivogius printed at Prague a book entitled _The New Chemical Light_ +under the name of `Cosmopolita,' which is said to have been this +work of Sethon's, but which Sendivogius claimed for his own by the +insertion of his name on the title page, in the form of an anagram. +The tract _On Sulphur_ which was printed at the end of the book +in later editions, however, is said to have been the genuine +work of the Moravian. Whilst his powder lasted, Sendivogius +travelled about, performing, we are told, many transmutations. +He was twice imprisoned in order to extort the secrets of alchemy +from him, on one occasion escaping, and on the other occasion obtaining +his release from the Emperor Rudolph. Afterwards, he appears +to have degenerated into an impostor, but this is said to have been +a _finesse_ to hide his true character as an alchemistic adept. +He died in 1646." + +However, all the alchemists were not of the apparent character +of SENDIVOGIUS--many of them leading holy and serviceable lives. +The alchemist-physician J. B. VAN HELMONT (1577-1644), who was a man +of extraordinary benevolence, going about treating the sick poor freely, +may be particularly mentioned. He, too, claimed to have performed +the transmutation of "base" metal into gold, as did also HELVETIUS +(whom we have already met), physician to the Prince of Orange, +with a wonderful preparation given to him by a stranger. +The testimony of these two latter men is very difficult either to explain +or to explain away, but I cannot deal with this question here, but must +refer the reader to a paper on the subject by Mr GASTON DE MENGEL, +and the discussion thereon, published in vol. i. of _The Journal +of the Alchemical Society_. + +In conclusion, I will venture one remark dealing with a matter outside +of the present inquiry. Alchemy ended its days in failure and fraud; +charlatans and fools were attracted to it by purely mercenary objects, +who knew nothing of the high aims of the genuine alchemists, +and scientific men looked elsewhere for solutions of Nature's problems. +Why did alchemy fail? Was it because its fundamental theorems +were erroneous? I think not. I consider the failure of the alchemical +theory of Nature to be due rather to the misapplication of these +fundamental concepts, to the erroneous use of _a priori_ methods +of reasoning, to a lack of a sufficiently wide knowledge of natural +phenomena to which to apply these concepts, to a lack of adequate +apparatus with which to investigate such phenomena experimentally, +and to a lack of mathematical organons of thought with which to +interpret such experimental results had they been obtained. +As for the basic concepts of alchemy themselves, such as the fundamental +unity of the Cosmos and the evolution of the elements, in a word, +the applicability of the principles of mysticism to natural phenomena: +these seem to me to contain a very valuable element of truth--a +statement which, I think, modern scientific research justifies me in +making,--though the alchemists distorted this truth and expressed it in +a fantastic form. I think, indeed, that in the modern theories of energy +and the all-pervading ether, the etheric and electrical origin and nature +of matter and the evolution of the elements, we may witness the triumphs +of mysticism as applied to the interpretation of Nature. Whether or not +we shall ever transmute lead into gold, I believe there is a very true +sense in which we may say that alchemy, purified by its death, has been +proved true, whilst the materialistic view of Nature has been proved false. + + + +X + +THE PHALLIC ELEMENT IN ALCHEMICAL DOCTRINE + +THE problem of alchemy presents many aspects to our view, but, to my +mind, the most fundamental of these is psychological, or, perhaps I +should say, epistemological. It has been said that the proper study +of mankind is man; and to study man we must study the beliefs of man. +Now so long as we neglect great tracts of such beliefs, because they +have been, or appear to have been, superseded, so long will our +study be incomplete and ineffectual. And this, let me add,is no +mere excuse for the study of alchemy, no mere afterthought put +forward in justification of a predilection, but a plain statement of +fact that renders this study an imperative need. There are other +questions of interest--of very great interest--concerning alchemy: +questions, for instance, as to the scope and validity of its doctrines; +but we ought not to allow their fascination and promise to distract +our attention from the fundamental problem, whose solution is essential +to their elucidation. + +In the preceding essay on "The Quest of the Philosopher's Stone," +which was written from the standpoint I have sketched in the foregoing +words, my thesis was "that the alchemists constructed their chemical +theories for the main part by means of _a priori_ reasoning, and that +the premises from which they started were (i.) the truth of mystical +theology, especially the doctrine of the soul's regeneration, and +(ii.) the truth of mystical philosophy, which asserts that the objects +of nature are symbols of spiritual verities." Now, I wish to treat my +present thesis, which is concerned with a further source from which the +alchemists derived certain of their views and modes of expression by +means of _a priori_ reasoning, in connection with, and, in a sense, as +complementary to, my former thesis. I propose in the first place, +therefore, briefly to deal with certain possible objections to this +view of alchemy. + +It has, for instance, been maintained[1] that the assimilation +of alchemical doctrines concerning the metals to those of mysticism +concerning the soul was an event late in the history of alchemy, +and was undertaken in the interests of the latter doctrines. +Now we know that certain mystics of the sixteenth and seventeenth +centuries did borrow from the alchemists much of their terminology with +which to discourse of spiritual mysteries--JACOB BOEHME, HENRY KHUNRATH, +and perhaps THOMAS VAUGHAN, may be mentioned as the most prominent cases +in point. But how was this possible if it were not, as I have suggested, +the repayment, in a sense, of a sort of philological debt? +Transmutation was an admirable vehicle of language for describing +the soul's regeneration, just because the doctrine of transmutation +was the result of an attempt to apply the doctrine of regeneration +in the sphere of metallurgy; and similar remarks hold of the other +prominent doctrines of alchemy. + + +[1] See, for example, Mr A. E. WAITE'S paper, "The Canon +of Criticism in respect of Alchemical Literature," _The Journal +of the Alchemical Society_, vol. i. (1913), pp. 17-30. + + +The wonderful fabric of alchemical doctrine was not woven in a day, +and as it passed from loom to loom, from Byzantium to Syria, +from Syria to Arabia, from Arabia to Spain and Latin Europe, +so its pattern changed; but it was always woven _a priori_, +in the belief that that which is below is as that which is above. +In its final form, I think, it is distinctly Christian. + +In the _Turba Philosophorum_, the oldest known work of Latin alchemy--a +work which, claiming to be of Greek origin, whilst not that, is +certainly Greek in spirit,--we frequently come across statements of +a decidedly mystical character. "The regimen," we read, "is greater +than is perceived by reason, except through divine inspiration."[1] +Copper, it is insisted upon again and again, has a soul as well as a +body; and the Art, we are told, is to be defined as "the liquefaction +of the body and the separation of the soul from the body, seeing that +copper, like a man, has a soul and a body."[2] Moreover, other +doctrines are here propounded which, although not so obviously of a +mystical character, have been traced to mystical sources in the +preceding excursion. There is, for instance, the doctrine of +purification by means of putrefaction, this process being likened to +that of the resurrection of man. "These things being done," we read, +"God will restore unto it [the matter operated on] both the soul and +the spirit thereof, and the weakness being taken away, that matter will +be made strong, and after corruption will be improved, even as a man +becomes stronger after resurrection and younger than he was in this +world."[1b] The three stages in the alchemical work--black, white, and +red--corresponding to, and, as I maintain, based on the three stages +in the life of the mystic, are also more than once mentioned. "Cook +them [the king and his wife], therefore, until they become black, then +white, afterwards red, and finally until a tingeing venom is produced."[2b] + + +[1] _The Turba Philosophorum, or Assembly of the Sages_ (trans. by A. E. +WAITE, 1896), p. 128. + +[2] _Ibid_., p. 193, _cf_. pp. 102 and 152. + +[1b] _The Turba Philosophorum, or Assembly of the Sages_ (trans. by A. E. +WAITE), p. 101, _cf_. pp. 27 and 197. + +[2b] _Ibid_., p. 98, _cf_. p. 29. + + +In view of these quotations, the alliance (shall I say?) between alchemy +and mysticism cannot be asserted to be of late origin. And we shall +find similar statements if we go further back in time. To give but one +example: "Among the earliest authorities," writes Mr WAITE, "the _Book +of Crates_ says that copper, like man, has a spirit, soul, and body," +the term "copper" being symbolical and applying to a stage in the +alchemical work. But nowhere in the _Turba_ do we meet with the concept +of the Philosopher's Stone as the medicine of the metals, a concept +characteristic of Latin alchemy, and, to quote Mr WAITE again, "it does +not appear that the conception of the Philosopher's Stone as a medicine +of metals and of men was familiar to Greek alchemy;"[3] + +[3] _Ibid_., p. 71. + +All this seems to me very strongly to support my view of the origin of +alchemy, which requires a specifically Christian mysticism only for this +specific concept of the Philosopher's Stone in its fully-fledged form. +At any rate, the development of alchemical doctrine can be seen +to have proceeded concomitantly with the development of mystical +philosophy and theology. Those who are not prepared here to see effect +and cause may be asked not only to formulate some other hypothesis +in explanation of the origin of alchemy, but also to explain this fact +of concomitant development. + +From the standpoint of the transcendental theory of alchemy it has +been urged "that the language of mystical theology seemed to be +hardly so suitable to the exposition [as I maintain] or concealment +of chemical theories, as the language of a definite and generally +credited branch of science was suited to the expression of a veiled +and symbolical process such as the regeneration of man."[1] But such +a statement is only possible with respect to the latest days of alchemy, +when there WAS a science of chemistry, definite and generally credited. +The science of chemistry, it must be remembered, had no growth +separate from alchemy, but evolved therefrom. Of the days before +this evolution had been accomplished, it would be in closer accord +with the facts to say that theology, including the doctrine of man's +regeneration, was in the position of "a definite and generally +credited branch of science," whereas chemical phenomena were veiled +in deepest mystery and tinged with the dangers appertaining to magic. +As concerns the origin of alchemy, therefore, the argument +as to suitability of language appears to support my own theory; +it being open to assume that after formulation--that is, +in alchemy's latter days--chemical nomenclature and theories were +employed by certain writers to veil heterodox religious doctrine. + + +[1] PHILIP S. WELLBY, M.A., in _The Journal of the +Alchemical Society_, vol. ii. (1914), p. 104. + + +Another recent writer on the subject, my friend the late Mr ABDUL-ALI, +has remarked that "he thought that, in the mind of the alchemist at +least, there was something more than analogy between metallic and +psychic transformations, and that the whole subject might well be +assigned to the doctrinal category of ineffable and transcendent Oneness. +This Oneness comprehended all--soul and body, spirit and matter, mystic +visions and waking life--and the sharp metaphysical distinction between +the mental and the non-mental realms, so prominent during the history of +philosophy, was not regarded by these early investigators in the sphere +of nature. There was the sentiment, perhaps only dimly experienced, +that not only the law, but the substance of the Universe, was one; +that mind was everywhere in contact with its own kindred; and that +metallic transmutation would, somehow, so to speak, signalise and seal +a hidden transmutation of the soul."[1] + + +[1] SIJIL ABDUL-ALI, in _The Journal of the Alchemical Society_, +vol. ii. (1914), p. 102. + + +I am to a large extent in agreement with this view. Mr ABDUL-ALI +quarrels with the term "analogy," and, if it is held to imply any +merely superficial resemblance, it certainly is not adequate to my own +needs, though I know not what other word to use. SWEDENBORG'S term +"correspondence" would be better for my purpose, as standing for an +essential connection between spirit and matter, arising out of the +causal relationship of the one to the other. But if SWEDENBORG +believed that matter and spirit were most intimately related, he +nevertheless had a very precise idea of their distinctness, which he +formulated in his Doctrine of Degrees--a very exact metaphysical +doctrine indeed. The alchemists, on the other hand, had no such +clear ideas on the subject. It would be even more absurd to attribute +to them a Cartesian dualism. To their ways of thinking, it was by no +means impossible to grasp the spiritual essences of things by what we +should now call chemical manipulations. For them a gas was still a +ghost and air a spirit. One could quote pages in support of this, but +I will content myself with a few words from the _Turba_--the antiquity +of the book makes it of value, and anyway it is near at hand. "Permanent +water," whatever that may be, being pounded with the body, we are told, +"by the will of God it turns that body into spirit." And in another +place we read that "the Philosophers have said: Except ye turn bodies +into not-bodies, and incorporeal things into bodies, ye have not yet +discovered the rule of operation."[1a] No one who could write like this, +and believe it, could hold matter and spirit as altogether distinct. +But it is equally obvious that the injunction to convert body into +spirit is meaningless if spirit and body are held to be identical. +I have been criticised for crediting the alchemists "with the +philosophic acumen of Hegel,"[1b] but that is just what I think one +ought to avoid doing. At the same time, however, it is extremely +difficult to give a precise account of views which are very far from +being precise themselves. But I think it may be said, without fear of +error, that the alchemist who could say, "As above, so below," _ipso +facto_ recognised both a very close connection between spirit and +matter, and a distinction between them. Moreover, the division thus +implied corresponded, on the whole, to that between the realms of the +known (or what was thought to be known) and the unknown. The Church, +whether Christian or pre-Christian, had very precise (comparatively +speaking) doctrine concerning the soul's origin, duties, and destiny, +backed up by tremendous authority, and speculative philosophy had +advanced very far by the time PLATO began to concern himself with its +problems. Nature, on the other hand, was a mysterious world of magical +happenings, and there was nothing deserving of the name of natural +science until alchemy was becoming decadent. It is not surprising, +therefore, that the alchemists--these men who wished to probe Nature's +hidden mysteries--should reason from above to below; indeed, unless they +had started _de novo_--as babes knowing nothing,--there was no other +course open to them. And that they did adopt the obvious course is +all that my former thesis amounts to. In passing, it is interesting +to note that a sixteenth-century alchemist, who had exceptional +opportunities and leisure to study the works of the old masters of +alchemy, seems to have come to a similar conclusion as to the nature of +their reasoning. He writes: "The Sages . . . after having conceived +in their minds a Divine idea of the relations of the whole +universe . . . selected from among the rest a certain substance, from +which they sought to elicit the elements, to separate and purify them, +and then again put them together in a manner suggested by a keen and +profound observation of Nature."[1c] + + +[1a] _op cit_., pp,. 65 and 110, _cf_. p. 154. + +[1b] _Vide_ a rather frivolous review of my _Alchemy: Ancient and +Modern_ in _The Outlook_ for 14th January 1911. + +[1c] EDWARD KELLY: _The Humid Path_. (See _The Alchemical Writings_ +of EDWARD KELLY, edited by A. E. WAITE, 1893, pp. 59-60.) + + +In describing the realm of spirit as _ex hypothesi_ known, that of +Nature unknown, to the alchemists, I have made one important omission, +and that, if I may use the name of a science to denominate a complex +of crude facts, is the realm of physiology, which, falling within +that of Nature, must yet be classed as _ex hypothesi_ known. +But to elucidate this point some further considerations are necessary +touching the general nature of knowledge. Now, facts may be roughly +classed, according to their obviousness and frequency of occurrence, +into four groups. There are, first of all, facts which are so obvious, +to put it paradoxically, that they escape notice; and these facts are +the commonest and most frequent in their occurrence. I think it is Mr +CHESTERTON who has said that, looking at a forest one cannot see the +trees because of the forest; and, in _The Innocence of Father Brown_, he +has a good story ("The Invisible Man") illustrating the point, in which +a man renders himself invisible by dressing up in a postman's uniform. +At any rate, we know that when a phenomenon becomes persistent it tends +to escape observation; thus, continuous motion can only be appreciated +with reference to a stationary body, and a noise, continually repeated, +becomes at last inaudible. The tendency of often-repeated actions to +become habitual, and at last automatic, that is to say, carried out +without consciousness, is a closely related phenomenon. We can +understand, therefore, why a knowledge of the existence of the +atmosphere, as distinct from the wind, came late in the history of +primitive man, as, also, many other curious gaps in his knowledge. In +the second group we may put those facts which are common, that is, of +frequent occurrence, and are classed as obvious. Such facts are +accepted at face-value by the primitive mind, and are used as the +basis of explanation of facts in the two remaining groups, namely, +those facts which, though common, are apt to escape the attention +owing to their inconspicuousness, and those which are of infrequent +occurrence. When the mind takes the trouble to observe a fact of the +third group, or is confronted by one of the fourth, it feels a sense +of surprise. Such facts wear an air of strangeness, and the mind can +only rest satisfied when it has shown them to itself as in some way +cases of the second group of facts, or, at least, brought them into +relation therewith. That is what the mind--at least the primitive +mind--means by "explanation". "It is obvious," we say, commencing an +argument, thereby proclaiming our intention to bring that which is at +first in the category of the not-obvious, into the category of the +obvious. It remains for a more sceptical type of mind--a later product +of human evolution--to question obvious facts, to explain them, either, +as in science, by establishing deeper and more far-reaching correlations +between phenomena, or in philosophy, by seeking for the source and purpose +of such facts, or, better still, by both methods. + +Of the second class of facts--those common and obvious facts +which the primitive mind accepts at face-value and uses as the basis +of its explanations of such things as seem to it to stand in need +of explanation--one could hardly find a better instance than sex. +The universality of sex, and the intermittent character of +its phenomena, are both responsible for this. Indeed, the attitude +of mind I have referred to is not restricted to primitive man; +how many people to-day, for instance, just accept sex as a fact, +pleasant or unpleasant according to their predilections, +never querying, or feeling the need to query, its why and wherefore? +It is by no means surprising, that when man first felt the need +of satisfying himself as to the origin of the universe, he should have +done so by a theory founded on what he knew of his own generation. +Indeed, as I queried on a former occasion, what other source of +explanation was open to him? Of what other form of origin was he aware? +Seeing Nature springing to life at the kiss of the sun, what more +natural than that she should be regarded as the divine Mother, +who bears fruits because impregnated by the Sun-God? It is not +difficult to understand, therefore, why primitive man paid divine +honours to the organs of sex in man and woman, or to such things +as he considered symbolical of them--that is to say, to understand +the extensiveness of those religions which are grouped under the term +"phallicism". Nor, to my mind, is the symbol of sex a wholly +inadequate one under which to conceive of the origin of things. +And, as I have said before, that phallicism usually appears to have +degenerated into immorality of a very pronounced type is to be deplored, +but an immoral view of human relations is by no means a necessary +corollary to a sexual theory of the universe.[1] + + +[1] "The reverence as well as the worship paid to the phallus, in early +and primitive days, had nothing in it which partook of indecency; +all ideas connected with it were of a reverential and religious kind.... + +"The indecent ideas attached to the representation of the phallus were, +though it seems a paradox to say so, the results of a more advanced +civilization verging towards its decline, as we have evidence at +Rome and Pompeii.... + +"To the primitive man [the reproductive force which pervades all nature] +was the most mysterious of all manifestations. The visible physical powers +of nature--the sun, the sky, the storm--naturally claimed his reverence, +but to him the generative power was the most mysterious of all powers. In +the vegetable world, the live seed placed in the ground, and hence +germinating, sprouting up, and becoming a beautiful and umbrageous tree, +was a mystery. In the animal world, as the cause of all life, by which +all beings came into existence, this power was a mystery. In the view +of primitive man generation was the action of the Deity itself. +It was the mode in which He brought all things into existence, +the sun, the moon, the stars, the world, man were generated +by Him. To the productive power man was deeply indebted, for to it +he owed the harvests and the flocks which supported his life; +hence it naturally became an object of reverence and worship. + +"Primitive man wants some object to worship, for an abstract idea is +beyond his comprehension, hence a visible representation of the +generative Deity was made, with the organs contributing to generation +most prominent, and hence the organ itself became a symbol of the +power."--H, M. WESTROPP: _Primitive Symbolism as Illustrated in Phallic +Worship, or the Reproductive Principle_ (1885), pp. 47, 48, and 57. {End +of long footnote} + + +The Aruntas of Australia, I believe, when discovered by Europeans, +had not yet observed the connection between sexual intercourse and birth. +They believed that conception was occasioned by the woman passing +near a _churinga_--a peculiarly shaped piece of wood or stone, +in which a spirit-child was concealed, which entered into her. +But archaeological research having established the fact that phallicism +has, at one time or another, been common to nearly all races, it seems +probable that the Arunta tribe represents a deviation from the normal +line of mental evolution. At any rate, an isolated phenomenon, +such as this, cannot be held to controvert the view that regards +phallicism as in this normal line. Nor was the attitude of mind +that not only accepts sex at face-value as an obvious fact, but uses +the concept of it to explain other facts, a merely transitory one. +We may, indeed, not difficultly trace it throughout the history +of alchemy, giving rise to what I may term "The Phallic Element +in Alchemical Doctrine". + +In aiming to establish this, I may be thought to be endeavouring to +establish a counter-thesis to that of the preceding essay on alchemy, +but, in virtue of the alchemists' belief in the mystical unity of all +things, in the analogical or correspondential relationship of all parts +of the universe to each other, the mystical and the phallic views of +the origin of alchemy are complementary, not antagonistic. Indeed, the +assumption that the metals are the symbols of man almost necessitates +the working out of physiological as well as mystical analogies, and +these two series of analogies are themselves connected, because the +principle "As above, so below" was held to be true of man himself. +We might, therefore, expect to find a more or less complete harmony +between the two series of symbols, though, as a matter of fact, +contradictions will be encountered when we come to consider points of +detail. The undoubtable antiquity of the phallic element in alchemical +doctrine precludes the idea that this element was an adventitious one, +that it was in any sense an afterthought; notwithstanding, however, the +evidence, as will, I hope, become apparent as we proceed, indicates that +mystical ideas played a much more fundamental part in the genesis of +alchemical doctrine than purely phallic ones--mystical interpretations +fit alchemical processes and theories far better than do sexual +interpretations; in fact, sex has to be interpreted somewhat mystically +in order to work out the analogies fully and satisfactorily. + +As concerns Greek alchemy, I shall content myself with a passage from +a work _On the Sacred Art_, attributed to OLYMPIODORUS (sixth century +A.D.), followed by some quotations from and references to the _Turba_. +In the former work it is stated on the authority of HORUS that "The +proper end of the whole art is to obtain the semen of the male secretly, +seeing that all things are male and female. Hence [we read further] +Horus says in a certain place: Join the male and the female, and you +will find that which is sought; as a fact, without this process of +re-union, nothing can succeed, for Nature charms Nature," _etc_. The +_Turba_ insistently commands those who would succeed in the Art, to +conjoin the male with the female,[1] and, in one place, the male is +said to be lead and the female orpiment.[2] We also find the alchemical +work symbolised by the growth of the embryo in the womb. "Know," we are +told, ". . . that out of the elect things nothing becomes useful without +conjunction and regimen, because sperma is generated out of blood and +desire. For the man mingling with the woman, the sperm is nourished by +the humour of the womb, and by the moistening blood, and by heat, and +when forty nights have elapsed the sperm is formed.... God has +constituted that heat and blood for the nourishment of the sperm until +the foetus is brought forth. So long as it is little, it is nourished +with milk, and in proportion as the vital heat is maintained, the bones +are strengthened. Thus it behoves you also to act in this Art."[3] + + +[1] _Vide_ pp. 60 92, 96 97, 134, 135 and elsewhere in Mr WAITE'S +translation. + +[2] _Ibid_., p. 57 + +[3] _Ibid_., pp. 179-181 (second recension); _cf_. pp. 103-104. + + +The use of the mystical symbols of death (putrefaction) and resurrection +or rebirth to represent the consummation of the alchemical work, and that +of the phallic symbols of the conjunction of the sexes and the development +of the foetus, both of which we have found in the _Turba_, are current +throughout the course of Latin alchemy. In _The Chymical Marriage of +Christian Rosencreutz_, that extraordinary document of what is called +"Rosicrucianism"--a symbolic romance of considerable ability, whoever its +author was,[1]--an attempt is made to weld the two sets of symbols--the +one of marriage, the other of death and resurrection unto glory--into one +allegorical narrative; and it is to this fusion of seemingly disparate +concepts that much of its fantasticality is due. Yet the concepts are not +really disparate; for not only is the second birth like unto the first, +and not only is the resurrection unto glory described as the Bridal Feast +of the Lamb, but marriage is, in a manner, a form of death and rebirth. +To justify this in a crude sense, I might say that, from the male +standpoint at least, it is a giving of the life-substance to the beloved +that life may be born anew and increase. But in a deeper sense it is, or +rather should be, as an ideal, a mutual sacrifice of self for each other's +good--a death of the self that it may arise with an enriched personality. + + +[1] See Mr WAITE'S _The Real History of the Rosicrucians_ (1887) for +translation and discussion as to origin and significance. The work was +first published (in German) at Strassburg in 1616. + + +It is when we come to an examination of the ideas at the root of, and +associated with, the alchemical concept of "principles," that we find +some difficulty in harmonising the two series of symbols--the mystical +and the phallic. In one place in the _Turba_ we are directed "to take +quicksilver, in which is the male potency or strength";[2a] and this +concept of mercury as male is quite in accord with the mystical origin +I have assigned in the preceding excursion to the doctrine of the +alchemical principles. I have shown, I think, that salt, sulphur, and +mercury are the analogues _ex hypothesi_ of the body, soul (affection +and volition), and spirit (intelligence or understanding) in man; and +the affections are invariably regarded as especially feminine, the +understanding as especially masculine. But it seems that the more common +opinion, amongst Latin alchemists at any rate, was that sulphur was male +and mercury female. Writes BERNARD of TREVISAN: "For the Matter +suffereth, and the Form acteth assimulating the Matter to itself, and +according to this manner the Matter naturally thirsteth after a Form, as +a Woman desireth an Husband, and a Vile thing a precious one, and an +impure a pure one, so also _Argent-vive_ coveteth a Sulphur, as that +which should make perfect which is imperfect: So also a Body freely +desireth a Spirit, whereby it may at length arrive at its perfection."[1b] +At the same time, however, Mercury was regarded as containing in itself +both male and female potencies--it was the product of male and female, +and, thus, the seed of all the metals. "Nothing in the World can be +generated," to repeat a quotation from BERNARD, without these two +Substances, to wit a Male and Female: From whence it appeareth, that +although these two substances are not of one and the same species, yet +one Stone doth thence arise, and although they appear and are said to +be two Substances, yet in truth it is but one, to wit, _Argent-vive_. +But of this _Argent-vive_ a certain part is fixed and digested, Masculine, +hot, dry and secretly informing. But the other, which is the Female, is +volatile, crude, cold, and moyst."[2b] EDWARD KELLY (1555-1595), who is +valuable because he summarises authoritative opinion, says somewhat the +same thing, though in clearer words: "The active elements . . . these +are water and fire . . . may be called male, while the passive +elements . . . earth and air . . . represent the female +principle.... Only two elements, water and earth, are visible, and earth +is called the hiding-place of fire, water the abode of air. In these +two elements we have the broad law of limitation which divides the male +from the female. . . . The first matter of minerals is a kind of +viscous water, mingled with pure and impure earth. . . Of this viscous +water and fusible earth, or sulphur, is composed that which is called +quicksilver, the first matter of the metals. Metals are nothing but +Mercury digested by different degrees of heat."[1c] There is one +difference, however, between these two writers, inasmuch as BERNARD says +that "the Male and Female abide together in closed Natures; the Female +truly as it were Earth and Water, the Male as Air and Fire." Mercury for +him arises from the two former elements, sulphur from the two latter.[2c] +And the difference is important as showing beyond question the _a priori_ +nature of alchemical reasoning. The idea at the back of the alchemists' +minds was undoubtedly that of the ardour of the male in the act of +coition and the alleged, or perhaps I should say apparent, passivity of +the female. Consequently, sulphur, the fiery principle of combustion, +and such elements as were reckoned to be active, were denominated "male," +whilst mercury, the principle acted on by sulphur, and such elements as +were reckoned to be passive, were denominated "female". As to the question +of origin, I do not think that the palm can be denied to the mystical as +distinguished from the phallic theory. And in its final form the doctrine +of principles is incapable of a sexual interpretation. Mystically +understood, man is capable of analysis into two principles--since "body" +may be neglected as unimportant (a false view, I think, by the way) or +"soul" and "spirit" may be united under one head--OR into three; whereas +the postulation of THREE principles on a sexual basis is impossible. +JOANNES ISAACUS HOLLANDUS (fifteenth century) is the earliest author in +whose works I have observed explicit mention of THREE principles, though +he refers to them in a manner seeming to indicate that the doctrine was +no new one in his day. I have only read one little tract of his; there +is nothing sexual in it, and the author's mental character may be judged +from his remarks concerning "the three flying spirits"--taste, smell, and +colour. These, he writes, "are the life, soule, and quintessence of every +thing, neither can these three spirits be one without the other, as the +Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are one, yet three Persons, and one is +not without the other."[1d] + + +[2a] Mr WAITE's translation, p. 79. + +[1b] BERNARD, Earl of TREVISAN: _A Treatise of the Philosopher's Stone_, +1683. (See _Collectanea Chymica: A Collection of Ten Several Treatises +in Chymistry_, 1684, p. 92.) + +[2b] _Ibid_., p. 91. + +[1c] EDWARD KELLY: _The Stone of the Philosophers_. (See _The +Alchemical Writings of_ EDWARD KELLY, edited by A. E. WAITE, 1893, +pp. 9 and 11 to 13.) + +[2c] _The Answer of_ BERNARDUS TREVISANUS, _to the Epistle of Thomas +of Bononira, Physician to K. Charles the 8th_. (See JOHN FREDERICK +HOUPREGHT: _Aurifontina Chymica_, 1680, p. 208.) + +[1d] _One Hundred and Fourteen Experiments and Cures of the Famous +Physitian_ THEOPHRASTUS PARACELSUS. _Whereunto is added . . . certain +Secrets of_ ISAAC HOLLANDUS, _concerning the Vegetall and Animall Work_ +(1652), pp. 29 and 30. + +When the alchemists described an element or principle as male or female, +they meant what they said, as I have already intimated, to the extent, +at least, of firmly believing that seed was produced by the two +metallic sexes. By their union metals were thought to be produced +in the womb of the earth; and mines were shut in order that by the birth +and growth of new metal the impoverished veins might be replenished. +In this way, too, was the _magnum opus_, the generation of the +Philosopher's Stone--in species gold, but purer than the purest--to +be accomplished. To conjoin that which Nature supplied, to foster +the growth and development of that which was thereby produced; +such was the task of the alchemist. "For there are Vegetables," +says BERNARD of TREVISAN in his _Answer to Thomas of Bononia_, +"but Sensitives more especially, which for the most part beget their like, +by the Seeds of the Male and Female for the most part concurring +and conmixt by copulation; which work of Nature the Philosophick Art +imitates in the generation of gold."[1] + + +[1] _Op. cit_., p. 216. + + +Mercury, as I have said, was commonly regarded as the seed of the metals, +or as especially the female seed, there being two seeds, one the male, +according to BERNARD, more ripe, perfect and active, the other the female. +"more immature and in a sort passive[2] ". . . our Philosophick Art," +he says in another place, following a description of the generation of man, +" . . . is like this procreation of Man; for as in _Mercury_ (of which Gold +is by Nature generated in Mineral Vessels) a natural conjunction + + +[2] _Ibid_., p. 217; _cf_. p. 236 + +is made of both the Seeds, Male and Female, so by our artifice, an +artificial and like conjunction is made of Agents and Patients."[1] +"All teaching," says KELLY, "that changes Mercury is false and vain, +for this is the original sperm of metals, and its moisture must not +be dried up, for otherwise it will not dissolve,"[2] and quotes ARNOLD +(_ob. c_. 1310) to a similar effect.[3] One wonders how far the fact +that human and animal seed is fluid influenced the alchemists in their +choice of mercury, the only metal liquid at ordinary temperatures, as +the seed of the metals. There are, indeed, other good reasons for +this choice, but that this idea played some part in it, and, at least, +was present at the back of the alchemists' minds, I have little doubt. + +The most philosophic account of metallic seed is that, perhaps, of +the mysterious adept "EIRENAEUS PHILALETHES," who distinguishes +between it and mercury in a rather interesting manner. He writes: +"Seed is the means of generic propagation given to all perfect +things here below; it is the perfection of each body; and anybody +that has no seed must be regarded as imperfect. Hence there can be +no doubt that there is such a thing as metallic seed.... All metallic +seed is the seed of gold; for gold is the intention of Nature in +regard to all metals. If the base metals are not gold, it is only +through some accidental hindrance; they are-all potentially gold. +But, of course, this seed of gold is most easily obtainable +from well-matured gold itself.... Remember that I am now speaking +of metallic seed, and not of Mercury.... The seed of metals is +hidden out of sight still more completely than that of animals; +nevertheless, it is within the compass of our Art to extract it. +The seed of animals and vegetables is something separate, +and may be cut out, or otherwise separately exhibited; but metallic +seed is diffused throughout the metal, and contained in all its +smallest parts; neither can it be discerned from its body: +its extraction is therefore a task which may well tax the ingenuity +of the most experienced philosopher; the virtues of the whole +metal have to be intensified, so as to convert it into the sperm +of our seed, which, by circulation, receives the virtues of superiors +and inferiors, then next becomes wholly form, or heavenly virtue, +which can communicate this to others related to it by homogeneity +of matter. . . . The place in which the seed resides is--approximately +speaking--water; for, to speak properly and exactly, the seed is the +smallest part of the metal, and is invisible; but as this invisible +presence is diffused throughout the water of its kind, and exerts its +virtue therein, nothing being visible to the eye but water, we are left +to conclude from rational induction that this inward agent (which is, +properly speaking, the seed) is really there. Hence we call the whole of +the water seed, just as we call the whole of the grain seed, though the +germ of life is only a smallest particle of the grain."[1b] + + + +[1] _The Answer of_ BERNARDUS TREVISANUS, _etc_. _Op. cit_. p. 218. + +[2] _op. cit_., p. 22. + +[3] _Ibid_., p. 16. + +[1b] EIRENAEUS PHILALETHES: _The Metamorphosis of Metals_. +(See _The Hermetic Museum_, vol. ii. pp. 238-240.) + + +To say that "PHILALETHES'" seed resembles the modern electron is, +perhaps, to draw a rather fanciful analogy, since the electron is +a very precise idea, the result of the mathematical interpretation +of the results of exact experimentation. But though it would be +absurd to speak of this concept of the one seed of all metals as an +anticipation of the electron, to apply the expression "metallic seed" +to the electron, now that the concept of it has been reached, +does not seem so absurd. + +According to "PHILALETHES," the extraction of the seed is a very +difficult process, accomplishable, however, by the aid of +mercury--the water homogeneous therewith. Mercury, again, is the +form of the seed thereby obtained. He writes: "When the sperm +hidden in the body of gold is brought out by means of our Art, it +appears under the form of Mercury, whence it is exalted into the +quintessence which is first white, and then, by means of continuous +coction, becomes red." And again: "There is a womb into which the +gold (if placed therein) will, of its own accord, emit its seed, +until it is debilitated and dies, and by its death is renewed into a +most glorious King, who thenceforward receives power to deliver all +his brethren from the fear of death."[1] + + +[1] EIRENAEUS PHILALETHES: _The Metamorphosis of Metals_. +(See _The Hermetic Museum_, vol. ii. pp. 241 and 244.) + + +The fifteenth-century alchemist THOMAS NORTON was peculiar in his views, +inasmuch as he denied that metals have seed. He writes: "Nature never +multiplies anything, except in either one or the other of these two ways: +either by decay, which we call putrefaction, or, in the case of animate +creatures, by propagation. In the case of metals there can be no +propagation, though our Stone exhibits something like it.... Nothing +can be multiplied by inward action unless it belong to the vegetable +kingdom, or the family of sensitive creatures. But the metals are +elementary objects, and possess neither seed nor sensation."[1] + + +[1] THOMAS NORTON: _The Ordinal of Alchemy_. (See _The Hermetic Museum_, +vol. ii. pp. 15 and 16.) + + +His theory of the origin of the metals is astral rather than phallic. +"The only efficient cause of metals," he says, "is the mineral virtue, +which is not found in every kind of earth, but only in certain places and +chosen mines, into which the celestial sphere pours its rays in a straight +direction year by year, and according to the arrangement of the metallic +substance in these places, this or that metal is gradually formed."[2] + + +[2] _Ibid_., pp. 15 and 16. + + +In view of the astrological symbolism of these metals, that gold +should be masculine, silver feminine, does not surprise us, because +the idea of the masculinity of the sun and the femininity of the moon +is a bit of phallicism that still remains with us. It was by the +marriage of gold and silver that very many alchemists considered that +the _magnum opus_ was to be achieved. Writes BERNARD of TREVISAN: "The +subject of this admired Science [alchemy] is _Sol_ and _Luna_, or +rather Male and Female, the Male is hot and dry, the Female cold and +moyst." The aim of the work, he tells us, is the extraction of the +spirit of gold, which alone can enter into bodies and tinge them. Both +_Sol_ and _Luna_ are absolutely necessary, and "whoever . . .shall think +that a Tincture can be made without these two Bodyes,. . . he proceedeth +to the Practice like one that is blind."[1] + + +[1] BERNARD, Earl of TREVISAN: _A Treatise, etc., Op. cit_. pp. 83 and 87. + + +KELLY has teaching to the same effect, the Mercury of the Philosophers +being for him the menstruum or medium wherein the copulation of Gold +with Silver is to be accomplished. Mercury, in fact, seems to have +been everything and to have been capable of effecting everything in +the eyes of the alchemists. Concerning gold and silver, KELLY writes: +"Only one metal, viz. gold, is absolutely perfect and mature. Hence +it is called the perfect male body. . . Silver is less bounded by +aqueous immaturity than the rest of the metals, though it may indeed +be regarded as to a certain extent impure, still its water is already +covered with the congealing vesture of its earth, and it thus tends to +perfection. This condition is the reason why silver is everywhere +called by the Sages the perfect female body." And later he writes: +"In short, our whole Magistery consists in the union of the male and +female, or active and passive, elements through the mediation of our +metallic water and a proper degree of heat. Now, the male and female +are two metallic bodies, and this I will again prove by irrefragable +quotations from the Sages." Some of the quotations will be given: +"Avicenna: `Purify husband and wife separately, in order that they +may unite more intimately; for if you do not purify them, they cannot +love each other. By conjunction of the two natures you get a clear +and lucid nature, which, when it ascends, becomes bright and +serviceable.' . . . Senior: `I, the Sun, am hot and dry, and thou, +the Moon, are cold and moist; when we are wedded together in a closed +chamber, I will gently steal away thy soul.' . . . Rosinus: `When +the Sun, my brother, for the love of me (silver) pours his sperm +(_i.e_. his solar fatness) into the chamber (_i.e_. my Lunar body), +namely, when we become one in a strong and complete complexion and +union, the child of our wedded love will be born.. . . `Rosary': `The +ferment of the Sun is the sperm of the man, the ferment of the Moon, +the sperm of the woman. Of both we get a chaste union and a true +generation.' . . . Aristotle: `Take your beloved son, and wed him to +his sister, his white sister, in equal marriage, and give them the +cup of love, for it is a food which prompts to union.' "[1a] KELLY, +of course, accepts the traditional authorship of the works from +which he quotes, though in many cases such authorship is doubtful, to +say the least. The alchemical works ascribed to ARISTOTLE +(384-322 B.C.), for instance, are beyond question forgeries. Indeed, +the symbol of a union between brother and sister, here quoted, could +hardly be held as acceptable to Greek thought, to which incest was the +most abominable and unforgiveable sin. It seems likelier that it +originated with the Egyptians, to whom such unions were tolerable in +fact. The symbol is often met with in Latin alchemy. MICHAEL MAIER +(1568-1622) also says: "_conjunge fratrem cum sorore et propina illis +poculum amoris_," the words forming a motto to a picture of a man +and woman clasped in each other's arms, to whom an older man offers a +goblet. This symbolic picture occurs in his _Atalanta Fugiens, hoc +est, Emblemata nova de Secretis Naturae Chymica, etc_. (Oppenheim, 1617). +This work is an exceedingly curious one. It consists of a number of +carefully executed pictures, each accompanied by a motto, a verse of +poetry set to music, with a prose text. Many of the pictures are phallic +in conception, and practically all of them are anthropomorphic. Not +only the primary function of sex, but especially its secondary one of +lactation, is made use of. The most curious of these emblematic pictures, +perhaps, is one symbolising the conjunction of gold and silver. It shows +on the right a man and woman, representing the sun and moon, in the act +of coition, standing up to the thighs in a lake. On the left, on a hill +above the lake, a woman (with the moon as halo) gives birth to a child. +A boy is coming out of the water towards her. The verse informs us that: +"The bath glows red at the conception of the boy, the air at his birth." +We learn also that "there is a stone, and yet there is not, which is the +noble gift of God. If God grants it, fortunate will be he who shall +receive it."[1] + + +[1a] EDWARD KELLY: _The Stone of the Philosophers, Op. cit_., pp 13, 14, +33, 35, 36, 38-40, and 47. + +[1] _Op. Cit_., p. 145 + + +Concerning the nature of gold, there is a discussion in _The Answer of_ +BERNARDUS TREVISANUS _to the Epistle of Thomas of Bononia_, with which I +shall close my consideration of the present aspect of the subject. +Its interest for us lies in the arguments which are used and held +to be valid. "Besides, you say that Gold, as most think, is nothing +else than _Quick-silver_ coagulated naturally by the force of _Sulphur_; +yet so, that nothing of the _Sulphur_ which generated the Gold, doth +remain in the substance of the Gold: as in an humane _Embryo_, +when it is conceived in the Womb, there remains nothing of the Father's +Seed, according to _Aristotle's_ opinion, but the Seed of the Man doth +only coagulate the _menstrual_ blood of the Woman: in the same manner +you say, that after _Quick-silver_ is so coagulated, the form of Gold +is perfected in it, by virtue of the Heavenly Bodies, and especially +of the Sun."[1] BERNARD, however, decides against this view, holding +that gold contains both mercury and sulphur, for "we must not imagine, +according to their mistake who say, that the Male Agent himself +approaches the Female in the coagulation, and departs afterwards; +because, as is known in every generation, the conception is active and +passive: Both the active and the passive, that is, all the four +Elements, must always abide together, otherwise there would be no +mixture, and the hope of generating an off-spring would be +extinguished."[2] + + +[1] _Op. cit_., pp. 206 and 207. + +[2] _Ibid_., pp. 212 and 213. + + +In conclusion, I wish to say something of the role of sex in spiritual +alchemy. But in doing this I am venturing outside the original field of +inquiry of this essay and making a by no means necessary addition to my +thesis; and I am anxious that what follows should be understood as such, +so that no confusion as to the issues may arise. + +In the great alchemical collection of J. J. MANGET, there is a curious +work (originally published in 1677), entitled _Mutus Liber_, which +consists entirely of plates, without letterpress. Its interest for us +in our present concern is that the alchemist, from the commencement of +the work until its achievement, is shown working in conjunction with a +woman. We are reminded of NICOLAS FLAMEL (1330-1418), who is reputed +to have achieved the _magnum opus_ together with his wife PERNELLE, as +well as of the many other women workers in the Art of whom we read. +It would be of interest in this connection to know exactly what +association of ideas was present in the mind of MICHAEL MAIER when he +commanded the alchemist: "Perform a work of women on the molten white +lead, that is, cook,"[1a] and illustrated his behest with a picture of +a pregnant woman watching a fire over which is suspended a cauldron and +on which are three jars. There is a cat in the background, and a tub +containing two fish in the foreground, the whole forming a very curious +collection of emblems. Mr WAITE, who has dealt with some of these +matters, luminously, though briefly, says: "The evidences with which we +have been dealing concern solely the physical work of alchemy and there +is nothing of its mystical aspects. The _Mutus Liber_ is undoubtedly on +the literal side of metallic transmutation; the memorials of Nicholas +Flamel are also on that side," _etc_. He adds, however, that "It is on +record that an unknown master testified to his possession of the mystery, +but he added that he had not proceeded to the work because he had failed +to meet with an elect woman who was necessary thereto"; and proceeds to +say: "I suppose that the statement will awaken in most minds only a +vague sense of wonder, and I can merely indicate in a few general words +that which I see behind it. Those Hermetic texts which bear a spiritual +interpretation and are as if a record of spiritual experience present, +like the literature of physical alchemy, the following aspects of +symbolism: (_a_) the marriage of sun and moon; (_b_) of a mystical king +and queen; (_c_) an union between natures which are one at the root but +diverse in manifestation; (_d_) a transmutation which follows this union +and an abiding glory therein. It is ever a conjunction between male and +female in a mystical sense; it is ever the bringing together by art of +things separated by an imperfect order of things; it is ever the +perfection of natures by means of this conjunction. But if the mystical +work of alchemy is an inward work in consciousness, then the union +between male and female is an union in consciousness; and if we remember +the traditions of a state when male and female had not as yet been +divided, it may dawn upon us that the higher alchemy was a practice for +the return into this ineffable mode of being. The traditional doctrine +is set forth in the _Zohar_ and it is found in writers like Jacob Boehme; +it is intimated in the early chapters of Genesis and, according to an +apocryphal saying of Christ, the kingdom of heaven will be manifested +when two shall be as one, or when that state has been once again attained. +In the light of this construction we can understand why the mystical adept +went in search of a wise woman with whom the work could be performed; but +few there be that find her, and he confessed to his own failure. The +part of woman in the physical practice of alchemy is like a reflection at +a distance of this more exalted process, and there is evidence that those +who worked in metals and sought for a material elixir knew that there were +other and greater aspects of the Hermetic mystery."[1b] + + +[1a] MICHAEL MATER: _Atalanta Fugiens_ (1617), p. 97. + +[1b] A E. WAITE: "Woman and the Hermetic Mystery," _The Occult Review_ +(June 1912), vol. xv. pp. 325 and 326. + + +So far Mr WAITE, whose impressive words I have quoted at some length; +and he has given us a fuller account of the theory as found in +the _Zohar_ in his valuable work on _The Secret Doctrine in Israel_ +(1913). The _Zohar_ regards marriage and the performance of the sexual +function in marriage as of supreme importance, and this not merely +because marriage symbolises a divine union, unless that expression +is held to include all that logically follows from the fact, +but because, as it seems, the sexual act in marriage may, in fact, +become a ritual of transcendental magic. + +At least three varieties of opinion can be traced from the view of sex +we have under consideration, as to the nature of the perfect man, +and hence of the most adequate symbol for transmutation. +According to one, and this appears to have been JACOB BOEHME'S view, +the perfect man is conceived of as non-sexual, the male and female +elements united in him having, as it were, neutralised each other. +According to another, he is pictured as a hermaphroditic being, +a concept we frequently come across in alchemical literature. +It plays a prominent part in MAIER'S book _Atalanta Fugiens_, +to which reference has already been made. MAIER'S hermaphrodite +has two heads, one male, one female, but only one body, one pair +of arms, and one pair of legs. The two sexual organs, which are +placed side by side, are delineated in the illustrations with +considerable care, showing the importance MAIER attached to the idea. +This concept seems to me not only crude, but unnatural and repellent. +But it may be said of both the opinions I have mentioned, +that they confuse between union and identity. It is the old mistake, +with respect to a lesser goal, of those who hope for absorption +in the Divine Nature and consequent loss of personality. +It seems to be forgotten that a certain degree of distinction is +necessary to the joy of union. "Distinction" and "separation," it +should be remembered, have different connotations. If the supreme +joy is that of self-sacrifice, then the self must be such that it can +be continually sacrificed, else the joy is a purely transitory one, +or rather, is destroyed at the moment of its consummation. +Hence, though sacrificed, the self must still remain itself. + +The third view of perfection, to which these remarks naturally lead, is +that which sees it typified in marriage. The mystic-philosopher +SWEDENBORG has some exceedingly suggestive things to say on the matter +in his extraordinary work on _Conjugial Love_, which, curiously enough, +seem largely to have escaped the notice of students of these high +mysteries. + +SWEDENBORG'S heaven is a sexual heaven, because for him sex is primarily +a spiritual fact, and only secondarily, and because of what it is +primarily, a physical fact; and salvation is hardly possible, according +to him, apart from a genuine marriage (whether achieved here or hereafter). +Man and woman are considered as complementary beings, and it is only +through the union of one man with one woman that the perfect angel results. +The altruistic tendency of such a theory as contrasted with the egotism +of one in which perfection is regarded as obtainable by each personality +of itself alone, is a point worth emphasising. As to the nature of this +union, it is, to use SWEDENBORG'S own terms, a conjunction of the will of +the wife with the understanding of the man, and reciprocally of the +understanding of the man with the will of the wife. It is thus a +manifestation of that fundamental marriage between the good and the true +which is at the root of all existence; and it is because of this +fundamental marriage that all men and women are born into the desire to +complete themselves by conjunction. The symbol of sexual intercourse is +a legitimate one to use in speaking of this heavenly union; indeed, we +may describe the highest bliss attainable by the soul, or conceivable by +the mind, as a spiritual orgasm. Into conjugal love "are collected," says +SWEDENBORG, "all the blessednesses, blissfulnesses, delightsomenesses, +pleasantnesses, and pleasures, which could possibly be conferred upon man +by the Lord the Creator."[1] In another place he writes: "Married partners +[in heaven] enjoy similar intercourse with each other as in the world, but +more delightful and blessed; yet without prolification, for which, or in +place of which, they have spiritual prolification, which is that of love +and wisdom." "The reason," he adds, "why the intercourse then is more +delightful and blessed is, that when conjugial love becomes of the spirit, +it becomes more interior and pure, and consequently more perceptible; +and every delightsomeness grows according to the perception, and grows +even until its blessedness is discernible in its delightsomeness."[1b] +Such love, however, he says, is rarely to be found on earth. + + +[1] EMANUEL SWEDENBORG: _The Delights of Wisdom relating to Conjugial +Love_ (trans. by A. H. SEARLE, 1891), SE 68. + +[1b] EMANUEL SWEDENBORG: _Op. cit_., SE 51. + + +A learned Japanese speaks with approval of Idealism as a "dream where +sensuousness and spirituality find themselves to be blood brothers or +sisters."[2] It is a statement which involves either the grossest and +most dangerous error, or the profoundest truth, according to the +understanding of it. Woman is a road whereby man travels either to God +or the devil. The problem of sex is a far deeper problem than appears at +first sight, involving mysteries both the direst and most holy. It is +by no means a fantastic hypothesis that the inmost mystery of what a +certain school of mystics calls "the Secret Tradition" was a sexual one. +At any rate, the fact that some of those, at least, to whom alchemy +connoted a mystical process, were alive to the profound spiritual +significance of sex, renders of double interest what they have to +intimate of the achievement of the _Magnum Opus_ in man. + + +[2] YONE NOGUCHI: _The Spirit of Japanese Art_ (1915), p. 37. + + + +XI + +ROGER BACON: AN APPRECIATION + +IT has been said that "a prophet is not without honour, save in his own +country." Thereto might be added, "and in his own time"; for, whilst +there is continuity in time, there is also evolution, and England of +to-day, for instance, is not the same country as England of the Middle +Ages. In his own day ROGER BACON was accounted a magician, whose +heretical views called for suppression by the Church. And for many a +long day afterwards was he mainly remembered as a co-worker in the black +art with Friar BUNGAY, who together with him constructed, by the aid of +the devil and diabolical rites, a brazen head which should possess the +power of speech--the experiment only failing through the negligence of +an assistant.[1] Such was ROGER BACON in the memory of the later Middle +Ages and many succeeding years; he was the typical alchemist, where that +term carries with it the depth of disrepute, though indeed alchemy was for +him but one, and that not the greatest, of many interests. + + +[1] The story, of course, is entirely fictitious. For further particulars +see Sir J. E. SANDYS' essay on "Roger Bacon in English Literature," +in _Roger Bacon Essays_ (1914), referred to below. + + +Ilchester, in Somerset, claims the honour of being the place of ROGER +BACON'S birth, which interesting and important event occurred, probably, +in 1214. Young BACON studied theology, philosophy, and what then passed +under the name of "science," first at Oxford, then the centre of liberal +thought, and afterwards at Paris, in the rigid orthodoxy of whose +professors he found more to criticise than to admire. Whilst at Oxford +he joined the Franciscan Order, and at Paris he is said, though this is +probably an error, to have graduated as Doctor of Theology. During +1250-1256 we find him back in England, no doubt engaged in study and +teaching. About the latter year, however, he is said to have been +banished--on a charge of holding heterodox views and indulging in magical +practices--to Paris, where he was kept in close confinement and forbidden +to write. Mr LITTLE,[1] however, believes this to be an error, based on +a misreading of a passage in one of BACON'S works, and that ROGER was not +imprisoned, but stricken with sickness. At any rate it is not improbable +that some restrictions as to his writing were placed on him by his +superiors of the Franciscan Order. In 1266 BACON received a letter from +Pope CLEMENT asking him to send His Holiness his works in writing without +delay. This letter came as a most pleasant surprise to BACON; but he had +nothing of importance written, and in great haste and excitement, +therefore, he composed three works explicating his philosophy, the _Opus +Majus_, the _Opus Minus_, and the _Opus Tertium_, which were completed +and dispatched to the Pope by the end of the following year. This, as +Mr ROWBOTTOM remarks, is "surely one of the literary feats of history, +perhaps only surpassed by Swedenborg when he wrote six theological and +philosophical treatises in one year."[1b] + + +[1] See his contribution, "On Roger Bacon's Life and Works," to _Roger +Bacon Essays_. + +[1b] B. R. ROWBOTTOM: "Roger Bacon," _The Journal of the Alchemical +Society_, vol. ii. (1914), p. 77. + + + +The works appear to have been well received. We next find BACON at +Oxford writing his _Compendium Studii Philosophiae_, in which work he +indulged in some by no means unjust criticisms of the clergy, for which +he fell under the condemnation of his order, and was imprisoned in 1277 +on a charge of teaching "suspected novelties". In those days any knowledge +of natural phenomena beyond that of the quasi-science of the times was +regarded as magic, and no doubt some of ROGER BACON'S "suspected +novelties" were of this nature; his recognition of the value of the +writings of non-Christian moralists was, no doubt, another "suspected +novelty". Appeals for his release directed to the Pope proved fruitless, +being frustrated by JEROME D'ASCOLI, General of the Franciscan Order, +who shortly afterwards succeeded to the Holy See under the title of +NICHOLAS IV. The latter died in 1292, whereupon RAYMOND GAUFREDI, who +had been elected General of the Franciscan Order, and who, it is thought, +was well disposed towards BACON, because of certain alchemical secrets +the latter had revealed to him, ordered his release. BACON returned to +Oxford, where he wrote his last work, the _Compendium Studii Theologiae_. +He died either in this year or in 1294.[1] + + +[1] For further details concerning BACON'S life, EMILE CHARLES: _Roger +Bacon, sa Vie, ses Ouvrages, ses Doctrines_ (1861); J. H. BRIDGES: _The +Life & Work of Roger Bacon, an Introduction to the Opus Majus_ (edited by +H. G. JONES, 1914); and Mr A. G. LITTLE'S essay in _Roger Bacon Essays_, +may be consulted. + + +It was not until the publication by Dr SAMUEL JEBB, in 1733, of the +greater part of BACON'S _Opus Majus_, nearly four and a half centuries +after his death, that anything like his rightful position in the +history of philosophy began to be assigned to him. But let his spirit +be no longer troubled, if it were ever troubled by neglect or slander, +for the world, and first and foremost his own country, has paid him due +honour. His septcentenary was duly celebrated in 1914 at his _alma +mater_, Oxford, his statue has there been raised as a memorial to his +greatness, and savants have meted out praise to him in no grudging +tones.[2] Indeed, a voice has here and there been heard depreciating +his better-known namesake FRANCIS,[3] so that the later luminary +should not, standing in the way, obscure the light of the earlier; +though, for my part, I would suggest that one need not be so +one-eyed as to fail to see both lights at once. + +[2] See _Roger Bacon, Essays contributed by various Writers on the +Occasion of the Commemoration of the Seventh Centenary of his Birth_. +Collected and edited by A. G. LITTLE (1914); also Sir J. E. SANDYS' +_Roger Bacon_ (from _The Proceedings of the British Association_, vol. +vi., 1914). + +[3] For example, that of ERNST DUHRING. See an article entitled "The +Two Bacons," translated from his _Kritische Geschichte der Philosophie_ +in _The Open Court_ for August 1914. + + +To those who like to observe coincidences, it may be of interest that +the septcentenary of the discoverer of gunpowder should have coincided +with the outbreak of the greatest war under which the world has yet +groaned, even though gunpowder is no longer employed as a military +propellant. + +BACON'S reference to gunpowder occurs in his _Epistola de Secretis +Operibus Artis et Naturae, et de Nullitate Magiae_ (Hamburg, 1618) +a little tract written against magic, in which he endeavours to show, +and succeeds very well in the first eight chapters, that Nature and art +can perform far more extraordinary feats than are claimed by the +workers in the black art. The last three chapters are written in an +alchemical jargon of which even one versed in the symbolic language of +alchemy can make no sense. They are evidently cryptogramic, and +probably deal with the preparation and purification of saltpetre, which +had only recently been discovered as a distinct body.[1] In chapter xi. +there is reference to an explosive body, which can only be gunpowder; +by means of it, says BACON, you may, "if you know the trick, produce a +bright flash and a thundering noise." He mentions two of the ingredients, +saltpetre and sulphur, but conceals the third (_i.e_. charcoal) under an +anagram. Claims have, indeed, been put forth for the Greek, Arab, Hindu, +and Chinese origins of gunpowder, but a close examination of the original +ancient accounts purporting to contain references to gunpowder, shows that +only incendiary and not explosive bodies are really dealt with. But +whilst ROGER BACON knew of the explosive property of a mixture in right +proportions of sulphur, charcoal, and pure saltpetre (which he no doubt +accidentally hit upon whilst experimenting with the last-named body), he +was unaware of its projective power. That discovery, so detrimental to +the happiness of man ever since, was, in all probability, due to BERTHOLD +SCHWARZ about 1330. + + +[1] For an attempted explanation of this cryptogram, and evidence that +BACON was the discoverer of gunpowder, see Lieut.-Col. H. W. L. HIME'S +_Gunpowder and Ammunition: their Origin and Progress_ (1904). + + +ROGER BACON has been credited[1] with many other discoveries. In the +work already referred to he allows his imagination freely to speculate +as to the wonders that might be accomplished by a scientific utilisation +of Nature's forces--marvellous things with lenses, in bringing distant +objects near and so forth, carriages propelled by mechanical means, +flying machines . . .--but in no case is the word "discovery" in any +sense applicable, for not even in the case of the telescope does BACON +describe means by which his speculations might be realised. + +[1] For instance by Mr M. M. P. MUIR. See his contribution, on "Roger +Bacon: His Relations to Alchemy and Chemistry," to _Roger Bacon Essays_. + + +On the other hand, ROGER BACON has often been maligned for his beliefs +in astrology and alchemy, but, as the late Dr BRIDGES (who was quite +sceptical of the claims of both) pointed out, not to have believed in +them in BACON'S day would have been rather an evidence of mental +weakness than otherwise. What relevant facts were known supported +alchemical and astrological hypotheses. Astrology, Dr BRIDGES writes, +"conformed to the first law of Comte's _philosophia prima_, as being +the best hypothesis of which ascertained phenomena admitted."[1] And +in his alchemical speculations BACON was much in advance of his +contemporaries, and stated problems which are amongst those of modern +chemistry. + + +[1] _Op. cit_., p.84. + + +ROGER BACON'S greatness does not lie in the fact that he discovered +gunpowder, nor in the further fact that his speculations have been +validated by other men. His greatness lies in his secure grip of +scientific method as a combination of mathematical reasoning and +experiment. Men before him had experimented, but none seemed to have +realised the importance of the experimental method. Nor was he, of +course, by any means the first mathematician--there was a long line of +Greek and Arabian mathematicians behind him, men whose knowledge of the +science was in many cases much greater than his--or the most learned +mathematician of his day; but none realised the importance of mathematics +as an organon of scientific research as he did; and he was assuredly the +priest who joined mathematics to experiment in the bonds of sacred +matrimony. We must not, indeed, look for precise rules of inductive +reasoning in the works of this pioneer writer on scientific method. +Nor do we find really satisfactory rules of induction even in the works +of FRANCIS BACON. Moreover, the latter despised mathematics, and it was +not until in quite recent years that the scientific world came to realise +that ROGER'S method is the more fruitful--witness the modern revolution +in chemistry produced by the adoption of mathematical methods. + +ROGER BACON, it may be said, was many centuries in advance of his time; +but it is equally true that he was the child of his time; this may +account for his defects judged by modern standards. He owed not a +little to his contemporaries: for his knowledge and high estimate of +philosophy he was largely indebted to his Oxford master GROSSETESTE +(_c_. 1175-1253), whilst PETER PEREGRINUS, his friend at Paris, +fostered his love of experiment, and the Arab mathematicians, whose +works he knew, inclined his mind to mathematical studies. He was +violently opposed to the scholastic views current in Paris at his time, +and attacked great thinkers like THOMAS AQUINAS (_c_. 1225-1274) and +ALBERTUS MAGNUS (1193-1280), as well as obscurantists, such as +ALEXANDER of HALES (_ob_. 1245). But he himself was a scholastic +philosopher, though of no servile type, taking part in scholastic +arguments. If he declared that he would have all the works of +ARISTOTLE burned, it was not because he hated the Peripatetic's +philosophy--though he could criticise as well as appreciate at +times,--but because of the rottenness of the translations that were +then used. It seems commonplace now, but it was a truly wonderful +thing then: ROGER BACON believed in accuracy, and was by no means +destitute of literary ethics. He believed in correct translation, +correct quotation, and the acknowledgment of the sources of one's +quotations--unheard-of things, almost, in those days. But even he +was not free from all the vices of his age: in spite of his insistence +upon experimental verification of the conclusions of deductive +reasoning, in one place, at least, he adopts a view concerning lenses +from another writer, of which the simplest attempt at such verification +would have revealed the falsity. For such lapses, however, we can make +allowances. + +Another and undeniable claim to greatness rests on ROGER BACON'S +broad-mindedness. He could actually value at their true worth +the moral philosophies of non-Christian writers--SENECA (_c_. 5 +B.C.- A.D. 65) and AL GHAZZALI (1058-1111), for instance. +But if he was catholic in the original meaning of that term, he was +also catholic in its restricted sense. He was no heretic: the Pope +for him was the Vicar of CHRIST, whom he wished to see reign over +the whole world, not by force of arms, but by the assimilation of all +that was worthy in that world. To his mind--and here he was certainly +a child of his age, in its best sense, perhaps--all other sciences were +handmaidens to theology, queen of them all. All were to be subservient +to her aims: the Church he called "Catholic" was to embrace in her arms +all that was worthy in the works of "profane" writers--true prophets +of God, he held, in so far as writing worthily they unconsciously bore +testimony to the truth of Christianity,--and all that Nature might +yield by patient experiment and speculation guided by mathematics. +Some minds see in this a defect in his system, which limited his aims +and outlook; others see it as the unifying principle giving coherence +to the whole. At any rate, the Church, as we have seen, regarded his +views as dangerous, and restrained his pen for at least a considerable +portion of his life. + +ROGER BACON may seem egotistic in argument, but his mind was humble +to learn. He was not superstitious, but he would listen to common +folk who worked with their hands, to astrologers, and even magicians, +denying nothing which seemed to him to have some evidence in experience: +if he denied much of magical belief, it was because he found it lacking +in such evidence. He often went astray in his views; he sometimes +failed to apply his own method, and that method was, in any case, +primitive and crude. But it was the RIGHT method, in embryo at least, +and ROGER BACON, in spite of tremendous opposition, greater than that +under which any man of science may now suffer, persisted in that method +to the end, calling upon his contemporaries to adopt it as the only one +which results in right knowledge. Across the centuries--or, rather, +across the gulf that divides this world from the next--let us salute +this great and noble spirit. + + + +XII + +THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS + +THERE is an opinion, unfortunately very common, that religious +mysticism is a product of the emotional temperament, and is +diametrically opposed to the spirit of rationalism. No doubt this +opinion is not without some element of justification, and one could +quote the works of not a few religious mystics to the effect that +self-surrender to God implies, not merely a giving up of will, but +also of reason. But that this teaching is not an essential element +in mysticism, that it is, indeed, rather its perversion, there is +adequate evidence to demonstrate. SWEDENBORG is, I suppose, the +outstanding instance of an intellectual mystic; but the essential +unity of mysticism and rationalism is almost as forcibly made evident +in the case of the Cambridge Platonists. That little band of "Latitude +men," as their contemporaries called them, constitutes one of the +finest schools of philosophy that England has produced; yet their +works are rarely read, I am afraid, save by specialists. Possibly, +however, if it were more commonly known what a wealth of sound +philosophy and true spiritual teaching they contain, the case would +be otherwise. + +The Cambridge Platonists--BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE, JOHN SMITH, NATHANAEL +CULVERWEL, RALPH CUDWORTH, and HENRY MORE are the more outstanding +names--were educated as Puritans; but they clearly realised the +fundamental error of Puritanism, which tended to make a man's eternal +salvation depend upon the accuracy and extent of his beliefs; nor could +they approve of the exaggerated import given by the High Church party to +matters of Church polity. The term "Cambridge Platonists" is, perhaps, +less appropriate than that of "Latitudinarians," which latter name +emphasises their broad-mindedness (even if it carries with it something +of disapproval). For although they owed much to PTATO, and, perhaps, more +to PLOTINUS (_c_. A.D. 203-262), they were Christians first and Platonists +afterwards, and, with the exception, perhaps, of MORE, they took nothing +from these philosophers which was not conformable to the Scriptures. + +BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE was born in 1609, at Whichcote Hall, in the parish +of Stoke, Shropshire. In 1626 he entered Emmanuel College, Cambridge, +then regarded as the chief Puritan college of the University. Here his +college tutor was ANTHONY TUCKNEY (1599-1670), a man of rare character, +combining learning, wit, and piety. Between WHICHCOTE and TUCKNEY there +grew up a firm friendship, founded on mutual affection and esteem. +But TUCKNEY was unable to agree with all WHICHCOTE'S broad-minded views +concerning reason and authority; and in later years this gave rise +to a controversy between them, in which TUCKNEY sought to controvert +WHICHCOTE'S opinions: it was, however, carried on without acrimony, +and did not destroy their friendship. + +WHICHCOTE became M.A., and was elected a fellow of his college, in +1633, having obtained his B.A. four years previously. He was ordained +by JOHN WILLIAMS in 1636, and received the important appointment of +Sunday afternoon lecturer at Trinity Church. His lectures, which he +gave with the object of turning men's minds from polemics to the great +moral and spiritual realities at the basis of the Christian religion, +from mere formal discussions to a true searching into the reason of +things, were well attended and highly appreciated; and he held the +appointment for twenty years. In 1634 he became college tutor at +Emmanuel. He possessed all the characteristics that go to make up +an efficient and well-beloved tutor, and his personal influence was +such as to inspire all his pupils, amongst whom were both JOHN SMITH +and NATHANAEL CULVERWEL, who considerably amplified his philosophical +and religious doctrines. In 1640 he became B.D., and nine years after +was created D.D. The college living of North Cadbury, in Somerset, +was presented to him in 1643, and shortly afterwards he married. +In the next year, however, he was recalled to Cambridge, and +installed as Provost of King's College in place of the ejected +Dr SAMUEL COLLINS. But it was greatly against his wish that he +received the appointment, and he only consented to do so on the +condition that part of his stipend should be paid to COLLINS--an +act which gives us a good insight into the character of the man. +In 1650 he resigned North Cadbury, and the living was presented +to CUDWORTH (see below), and towards the end of this year he was +elected Vice-Chancellor of the University in succession to TUCKNEY. +It was during his Vice-Chancellorship that he preached the sermon +that gave rise to the controversy with the latter. About this time +also he was presented with the living of Milton, in Cambridgeshire. +At the Restoration he was ejected from the Provostship, but, having +complied with the Act of Uniformity, he was, in 1662, appointed to the +cure of St Anne's, Blackfriars. This church being destroyed in the +Great Fire, WHICHCOTE retired to Milton, where he showed great kindness +to the poor. But some years later he returned to London, having +received the vicarage of St Lawrence, Jewry. His friends at Cambridge, +however, still saw him on occasional visits, and it was on one such +visit to CUDWORTH, in 1683, that he caught the cold which caused his +death. + +JOHN SMITH was born at Achurch, near Oundle, in 1618. He entered +Emmanuel College in 1636, became B.A. in 1640, and proceeded to M.A. +in 1644, in which year he was appointed a fellow of Queen's College. +Here he lectured on arithmetic with considerable success. He was +noted for his great learning, especially in theology and Oriental +languages, as well as for his justness, uprightness, and humility. +He died of consumption in 1652. + +NATHANAEL CULVERWEL was probably born about the same year as SMITH. +He entered Emmanuel College in 1633, gained his B.A. in 1636, and +became M.A. in 1640. Soon afterwards he was elected a fellow of his +college. He died about 1651. Beyond these scant details, nothing is +known of his life. He was a man of very great erudition, as his +posthumous treatise on _The Light of Nature_ makes evident. + +HENRY MORE was born at Grantham in 1614. From his earliest days he was +interested in theological problems, and his precociousness in this +respect appears to have brought down on him the wrath of an uncle. +His early education was conducted at Eton. In 1631 he entered +Christ's College, Cambridge, graduated B.A. in 1635, and received his +M.A. in 1639. In the latter year he was elected a fellow of Christ's +and received Holy Orders. He lived a very retired life, refusing all +preferment, though many valuable and honourable appointments were offered +to him. Indeed, he rarely left Christ's, except to visit his "heroine +pupil," Lady CONWAY, whose country seat, Ragley, was in Warwickshire. +Lady CONWAY (_ob_. 1679) appears to be remembered only for the fact that, +dying whilst her husband was away, her physician, F. M. VAN HELMONT +(1618-1699) (son of the famous alchemist, J. B. VAN HELMONT, whom we +have met already on these excursions), preserved her body in spirits of +wine, so that he could have the pleasure of beholding it on his return. +She seems to have been a woman of considerable learning, though not free +from fantastic ideas. Her ultimate conversion to Quakerism was a severe +blow to MORE, who, whilst admiring the holy lives of the Friends, regarded +them as enthusiasts. MORE died in 1687. + +MORE'S earliest works were in verse, and exhibit fine feeling. +The following lines, quoted from a poem on "Charitie and Humilitie," +are full of charm, and well exhibit MORE'S character:-- + + "Farre have I clambred in my mind + But nought so great as love I find: + Deep-searching wit, mount-moving might, + Are nought compar'd to that great spright. + Life of Delight and soul of blisse! + Sure source of lasting happinesse! + Higher than Heaven! lower than hell! + What is thy tent? Where maist thou dwell? + My mansion highs humilitie, + Heaven's vastest capabilitie + The further it doth downward tend + The higher up it doth ascend; + If it go down to utmost nought + It shall return with that it sought."[1] + + +[1] See _The Life of the Learned and Pious Dr Henry More . . . by_ +RICHARD WARD, A.M., _to which are annexed Divers Philosophical Poems +and Hymns_. Edited by M. F. HOWARD (1911), pp. 250 and 251. + + + +Later he took to prose, and it must be confessed that he wrote too much +and frequently descended to polemics (for example, his controversy with +the alchemist THOMAS VAUGHAN, in which both combatants freely used abuse). + +Although in his main views MORE is thoroughly characteristic of the +school to which he belonged, many of his less important opinions are +more or less peculiar to himself. + +The relation between MORE's and DESCARTES' (1596-1650) theories as to +the nature of spirit is interesting. When MORE first read DESCARTES' +works he was favourably impressed with his views, though without +entirely agreeing with him on all points; but later the difference became +accentuated. DESCARTES regarded extension as the chief characteristic of +matter, and asserted that spirit was extra-spatial. To MORE this seemed +like denying the existence of spirit, which he regarded as extended, and +he postulated divisibility and impenetrability as the chief characteristics +of matter. In order, however, to get over some of the inherent +difficulties of this view, he put forward the suggestion that spirit is +extended in four dimensions: thus, its apparent (_i.e_. three-dimensional) +extension can change, whilst its true (_i.e_. four-dimensional) extension +remains constant; just as the surface of a piece of metal can be increased +by hammering it out, without increasing the volume of the metal. Here, I +think, we have a not wholly inadequate symbol of the truth; but it remained +for BERKELEY + (1685-1753) to show the essential validity of DESCARTES' +position, by demonstrating that, since space and extension are perceptions +of the mind, and thus exist only in the mind as ideas, space exists in +spirit: not spirit in space. + +MORE was a keen believer in witchcraft, and eagerly investigated all cases +of these and like marvels that came under his notice. In this he was +largely influenced by JOSEPH GLANVIL (1636-1680), whose book on witchcraft, +the well-known _Saducismus Triumphatus_, MORE largely contributed to, +and probably edited. MORE was wholly unsuited for psychical research; +free from guile himself, he was too inclined to judge others to be of +this nature also. But his common sense and critical attitude towards +enthusiasm saved him, no doubt, from many falls into the mire of fantasy. + +As Principal TULLOCH has pointed out, whilst MORE is the most interesting +personality amongst the Cambridge Platonists, his works are the least +interesting of those of his school. They are dull and scholastic, and +MORE'S retired existence prevented him from grasping in their fulness +some of the more acute problems of life. His attempt to harmonise +catastrophes with Providence, on the ground that the evil of certain +parts may be necessary for the good of the whole, just as dark colours, +as well as bright, are essential to the beauty of a picture--a theory +which is practically the same as that of modern Absolutism,[1]--is a +case in point. No doubt this harmony may be accomplished, but in another +key. + + +[1] Cf. BERNARD BOSANQUET, LL.D., D.C.L.: _The Principle of Individuality +and Value_ (1912). + + +RALPH CUDWORTH was born at Aller, in Somersetshire, in 1617. +He entered Emmanuel College in 1632, three years afterwards gained +his B.A., and became M.A. in 1639. In the latter year he was elected +a fellow of his college. Later he obtained the B.D. degree. +In 1645 he was appointed Master of Clare Hall, in place of the ejected +Dr PASHE, and was elected Regius Professor of Hebrew. On 31st March 1647 +he preached a sermon of remarkable eloquence and power before the House +of Commons, which admirably expresses the attitude of his school as +concerns the nature of true religion. I shall refer to it again later. +In 1650 CUDWORTH was presented with the college living of North Cadbury, +which WHICHCOTE had resigned, and was made D.D. in the following year. +In 1654 he was elected Master of Christ's College, with an improvement +in his financial position, there having been some difficulty +in obtaining his stipend at Clare Hall. In this year he married. +In 1662 Bishop SHELDON presented him with the rectory of Ashwell, +in Hertfordshire. He died in 1688. He was a pious man of fine intellect; +but his character was marred by a certain suspiciousness which caused +him wrongfully to accuse MORE, in 1665, of attempting to forestall +him in writing a work on ethics, which should demonstrate that +the principles of Christian morality are not based on any arbitrary +decrees of God, but are inherent in the nature and reason of things. +CUDWORTH'S great work--or, at least, the first part, which alone was +completed,--_The Intellectual System of the World_, appeared in 1678. +In it CUDWORTH deals with atheism on the ground of reason, +demonstrating its irrationality. The book is remarkable for +the fairness and fulness with which CUDWORTH states the arguments +in favour of atheism. + +So much for the lives and individual characteristics of +the Cambridge Platonists: what were the great principles that +animated both their lives and their philosophy? These, I think, +were two: first, the essential unity of religion and morality; +second, the essential unity of revelation and reason. + +With clearer perception of ethical truth than either Puritan +or High Churchman, the Cambridge Platonists saw that true +Christianity is neither a matter of mere belief, nor consists +in the mere performance of good works; but is rather a matter +of character. To them Christianity connoted regeneration. +"Religion," says WHICHCOTE, "is the Frame and TEMPER of our Minds, +and the RULE of our Lives"; and again, "Heaven is FIRST a Temper, +and THEN a Place."[1] To the man of heavenly temper, they taught, +the performance of good works would be no irksome matter imposed merely +by a sense of duty, but would be done spontaneously as a delight. +To drudge in religion may very well be necessary as an initial stage, +but it is not its perfection. + + +[1] My quotations from WHICHCOTE and SMITH are taken from the selection +of their discourses edited by E. T. CAMPAGNAC, M.A. (1901). + + +In his sermon before the House of Commons, CUDWORTH well exposes the +error of those who made the mere holding of certain beliefs the +essential element in Christianity. There are many passages I should +like to quote from this eloquent discourse, but the following must +suffice: "We must not judge of our knowing of Christ, by our skill in +Books and Papers, but by our keeping of his Commandments. . . He is the +best Christian, whose heart beats with the truest pulse towards heaven; +not he whose head spinneth out the finest cobwebs. He that endeavours +really to mortifie his lusts, and to comply with that truth in his life, +which his Conscience is convinced of; is neerer a Christian, though he +never heard of Christ; then he that believes all the vulgar Articles of +the Christian faith, and plainly denyeth Christ in his life.... The great +Mysterie of the Gospel, it doth not lie only in CHRIST WITHOUT US, +(though we must know also what he hath done for us) but the very Pith +and Kernel of it, consists in _*Christ inwardly formed_ in our hearts. +Nothing is truly Ours, but what lives in our Spirits. SALVATION it +self cannot SAVE us, as long as it is onely without us; +no more then HEALTH can cure us, and make us sound, when it is not +within us, but somewhere at distance from us; no more than _Arts +and Sciences_, whilst they lie onely in Books and Papers without us; +can make us learned."[1] + + +[1] RALPH CUDWORTH, B.D.: _A Sermon Preached before the Honourable House +of Commons at Westminster, Mar_. 31, 1647 (1st edn.), pp. +3, 14, 42, and 43. + + +The Cambridge Platonists were not ascetics; their moral doctrine was one +of temperance. Their sound wisdom on this point is well evident in the +following passage from WHICHCOTE: "What can be alledged for Intemperance; +since Nature is content with very few things? Why should any one over-do +in this kind? A Man is better in Health and Strength, if he be temperate. +We enjoy ourselves more in a sober and temperate Use of ourselves."[2] + + +[2] BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE: _The Venerable Nature and Transcendant Benefit +of Christian Religion. Op. cit_., p. 40. + + +The other great principle animating their philosophy was, +as I have said, the essential unity of reason and revelation. +To those who argued that self-surrender implied a giving up of reason, +they replied that "To go against REASON, is to go against GOD: +it is the self same thing, to do that which the Reason of +the Case doth require; and that which God Himself doth appoint: +Reason is the DIVINE Governor of Man's Life; it is the very +Voice of God."[3] Reason, Conscience, and the Scriptures, +these, taught the Cambridge Platonists, testify of one another +and are the true guides which alone a man should follow. +All other authority they repudiated. But true reason is not +merely sensuous, and the only way whereby it may be gained +is by the purification of the self from the desires that draw +it away from the Source of all Reason. "God," writes MORE, +"reserves His choicest secrets for the purest Minds," adding his +conviction that "true Holiness [is] the only safe Entrance +into Divine Knowledge." Or as SMITH, who speaks of "a GOOD LIFE +as the PROLEPSIS and Fundamental principle of DIVINE SCIENCE," +puts it, ". . . if . . . KNOWLEDGE be not attended with HUMILITY +and a deep sense of SELF-PENURY and _*Self-emptiness_, we +may easily fall short of that True Knowledge of God which we +seem to aspire after."[1b] Right Reason, however, they taught, +is the product of the sight of the soul, the true mystic vision. + + +[3] BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE: _Moral and Religious Aphorisms OP. +cit_., p. 67. + +[1b] JOHN SMITH: _A Discourse concerning the true Way +or Method of attaining to Divine Knowledge. Op. cit_., pp. +80 and 96. + + +In what respects, it may be asked in conclusion, is the +philosophy of the Cambridge Platonists open to criticism? +They lacked, perhaps, a sufficiently clear concept of the Church +as a unity, and although they clearly realised that Nature is a +symbol which it is the function of reason to interpret spiritually, +they failed, I think, to appreciate the value of symbols. +Thus they have little to teach with respect to the Sacraments +of the Church, though, indeed, the highest view, perhaps, +is that which regards every act as potentially a sacrament; +and, whilst admiring his morality, they criticised BOEHME as +an enthusiast. But, although he spoke in a very different language, +spiritually he had much in common with them. Compared with what +is of positive value in their philosophy, however, the defects +of the Cambridge Platonists are but comparatively slight. +I commend their works to lovers of spiritual wisdom. + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Bygone Beliefs, by H. Stanley Redgrove + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BYGONE BELIEFS *** + +This file should be named byblf11.txt or byblf11.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, byblf12.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, byblf11a.txt + +Scanned by Charles Keller with OmniPage Professional OCR software + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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