M. Paul Huvelin, after asserting with similar confidence

that poetry,^ the plastic arts,* medicine, mathematics, astron- omy, and chemistry "have easily discernable magic sources," states that he will demonstrate that the same is true of law.*^ Very recently, however, there has been something of a reac- tion against this tendency to regard the life of primitive man as made up entirely of magic and to trace back every phase of civilization to a magical origin. But R. R. Marett still sees a higher standard of value in primitive man's magic than in his warfare and brutal exploitation of his fellows and believes that the "higher plane of experience for which mana stands is one in which spiritual enlargement is appre- ciated for its own sake." ^
Of the five classics included in the Confucian Canon, The Book of Changes (I Citing or Yi-King), regarded by
^ Jules Combarieu, La musigue Art, London, 1900, Chapter xx,
et la magie, Paris, 1909, p. v. "Art and Magic." J. Capart,
^ Ibid., pp. 13-14. Primitive Art in Egypt.
"Among the , early Arabs . p_ Huvelin, Magie et droit in-
AT'^ M r^'^'f utterance ai^idud, Paris, 1907, in Annee
(Macdonald (1909). p. 16), and Sociologique, X, v-i?^; see too
the poet a wizard m league with ^.^ ^^/ /^^^^^^^^^ magiques et le
spirits (Nicholson, A Uterary droit romain, Ukcon,iW
History of the Arabs, 1914, p. 72). '
*Sce S. Reinach, "L'Art et la ' R. R. Marett, Psychology and
Magie," in LAnthropologie, XIV Folk-Lore, 1920, Chapter iii on
(1903), and Y. Hirn, Origins of "Primitive Values."
I INTRODUCTION 7
some as the oldest work in Chinese literature and dated back as early as 3000 B.C., in its rudimentary form appears to have been a method of divination by means of eight possible combinations in triplets of a line and a broken line. Thus, if a be a line and h a broken line, we may have acui', bbb, aab, bba, abb, baa, aba, and bah. Possibly there is a connection with the use of knotted cords which, Chinese writers state, preceded written characters, like the method used in ancient Peru. More certain would seem the resem- blance to the medieval method of divination known as geomancy, which we shall encounter later in our Latin authors. Magic and astrology might, of course, be traced all through Chinese history and literature. But, contenting ourselves with this single example of the antiquity of such arts in the civilization of the far east, let us turn to other ancient cultures which had a closer and more unmistakable influence upon the western world.
Of the ancient Egyptians Budge writes, "The belief in Magic in magic influenced their minds . . . from the earliest to the Egypt, latest period of their history ... in a manner which, at this stage in the history of the world, is very difficult to understand." -^ To the ordinary historical student the evi- dence for this assertion does not seem quite so overwhelm- ing as the Egyptologists would have us think. It looks thinner when we begin to spread it out over a stretch of four
^ E. A. Wallis Budge, Egyptian berspriiche fur Mutter und Kind,
Magic, 1899, p. vii. Some other 1901. F. L. Griffith and H.
works on magic in Egypt are: Thompson, The Demotic Magical
Groff, Etudes sur la sorcellerie, Papyrus of London and Leiden,
memoires presentes a I'institut 1904. See also J. H. Breasted,
egyptien, Cairo, 1897; G. Busson, Development of Religion and
Extrait d'un memoire sur fori- Thought in Ancient Egypt, New
gine egyptienne de la Kabhale, in York, 1912.
Compte Rendu du Congres Scien- The following later but briefer
tiHque International des Catho- treatments add little to Budge:
liques, Sciences Religieuses, Paris, Alfred Wiedemann, Magie und
1891, pp. 29-51. Adolf Erman, Life Zauberei im Alten ALgypten, Leip-
w Ancient Egypt, English transla- zig, 1905, and Die Amulette der
tion, 1894, "describes vividly the alten ^gyptcr, Leipzig, 1910, both
magical conceptions and practices." in Der Alte Orient; Alexandre
F. L. Griffith, Stories of the High Moret, La magic dans tEgypte
Priests of Memphis, Oxford, 1900, ancienne, Paris, 1906, in Musee
contains some amusing demotic Guimet, Annates, Bibliotheque de
tales of magicians. Erman, Zau- vulgarisation. XX. 241-81.
8
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap.
Magic and
Egyptian religion.
Mortuary magic.
thousand years, and it scarcely seems scientific to adduce details from medieval Arabic tales or from the late Greek fiction of the Pseudo-Callisthenes or from papyri of the Christian era concerning the magic of early Egypt. And it may be questioned whether two stories preserved in the Westcar papyrus, written many centuries afterwards, are alone "sufficient to prove that already in the Fourth Dynasty the working of magic was a recognized art among the Egyptians." ^
At any rate we are told that the belief in magic not only was predynastic and prehistoric, but was "older in Egypt than the belief in God." ^ In the later religion of the Egyp- tians, along with more lofty and intellectual conceptions, magic was still a principal ingredient.^ Their mythology was affected by it * and they not only combated demons with magical formulae but believed that they could terrify and coerce the very gods by the same method, compelling them to appear, to violate the course of nature by miracles, or to admit the human soul to an equality with themselves.^
Magic was as essential in the future life as here on earth among the living. Many, if not most, of the observances and objects connected with embalming and burial had a magic purpose or mode of operation; for instance, the "magic eyes placed over the opening in the side of the body through which the embalmer removed the intestines," ® or the mannikins and models of houses buried with the dead. In the process of embalming the wrapping of each bandage was accompanied by the utterance of magic words. '^ In "the oldest chapter of human thought extant" — the Pyramid
* Budge (1899), p. 19. At pp. 7- 10 Budge dates the Westcar Papy- rus about 1550 B. C. and Cheops, of whom the tale is told, in 3800 B. C. It is now customary to date the Fourth Dynasty, to which Cheops belonged, about 2900-2750 B. C. Breasted, History of Egypt, pp. 122-3, speaks of a folk tale preserved in the Papyrus Westcar some nine (?) centuries after the fall of the Fourth Dynasty.
* Budge, p. ix.
° Budge, pp. xiii-xiv.
* For magical myths see E. Na- ville, The Old Egyptian Faith, English translation by C. Camp- bell, 1909, p. 23;^ et seq.
* Budge, pp. 3-4; Lenormant, Chaldean Magic, p. 100; Wiede- mann (1905), pp. 12, 14, 31-
" So labelled in the Egyptian Museum at Cairo. 'Budge, p. 185.
I INTRODUCTION 9
Texts written in hieroglyphic at the tombs at Sakkara of Pharaohs of the fifth and sixth dynasties (c, 2625-2475 B.C.), magic is so manifest that some have averred "that the whole body of Pyramid Texts is simply a collection of magical charms." ^ The scenes and objects painted on the walls of the tombs, such as those of nobles in the fifth and sixth dynasties, were employed with magic intent and were meant to be realized in the future life; and with the twelfth dynasty the Egyptians began to paint on the insides of the coffins the objects that were formerly actually placed within.^ Under the Empire the famous Book of the Dead is a collection of magic pictures, charms, and incantations for the use of the deceased in the hereafter,^ and while it is not of the early period, we hear that "a book with words of magic power" was buried with a pharaoh of the Old King- dom. Budge has "no doubt that the object of every reli- gious text ever written on tomb, stele, amulet, coffin, papy- rus, etc., was to bring the gods under the power of the de- ceased, so that he might be able to compel them to do his will." * Breasted, on the other hand, thinks that the amount and complexity of this mortuary magic increased greatly in the later period under popular and priestly influence.^
Breasted nevertheless believes that magic had played Magic in a great part in daily life throughout the whole course of dailyhfe. Egyptian history. He writes, "It is difficult for the modern mind to understand how completely the belief in magic pene- trated the whole substance of life, dominating popular cus- tom and constantly appearing in the simplest acts of the daily household routine, as much a matter of course as
^Breasted (1912), pp. 84-5, 93-5. Day," Breasted, History of Egypt,
Systematic study" of the Pyra- p. 175.
mid Texts has been possible "only *r> ^ o
since the appearance of Sethe's cudge, p. 2S.
great edition,"— DiV Altsgypti- ^History of Egypt, p. 175; pp.
schen Pyramidentexte, Leipzig, 249-50 for the further increase in
l5K)8-i9io, 2 vols. mortuary magic after the Middle
^ Budge, pp. 104-7. Kingdom, and pp. 369-70, 390, etc.,
Many of them are to enable for Ikhnaton's vain effort to sup-
the dead man to leave his tomb at press this mortuary magic. See
will; hence the Egyptian title, also Breasted (1912), pp. 95-6, 281.
'The Chapters of Going Forth by 292-6, etc.
10
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap.
Power of words, images, amulets.
Magit in Egyptian medicine.
sleep or the preparation of food. It constituted the very atmosphere in which the men of the early oriental world lived. Without the saving and salutary influence of such magical agencies constantly invoked, the life of an ancient household in the East was unthinkable." ^
Most of the main features and varieties of magic known to us at other times and places appear somewhere in the course of Egypt's long history. For one thing we find the ascription of magic power to words and names. The power of words, says Budge, was thought to be practically un- limited, and "the Egyptians invoked their aid in the smallest as well as in the greatest events of their life." ^ Words might be spoken, in which case they "must be uttered in a proper tone of voice by a duly qualified man," or they might be written, in which case the material upon which they were written might be of importance.^ In speaking of mortuary magic we have already noted the employment of pictures, models, mannikins, and other images, figures, and objects. Wax figures were also used in sorcery,^ and amulets are found from the first, although their particular forms seem to have altered with dififerent periods.^ Scarabs are of course the most familiar example.
Egyptian medicine was full of magic and ritual and its therapeusis consisted mainly of "collections of incan- tations and weird random mixtures of roots and refuse." ® Already we find the recipe and the occult virtue conceptions, the elaborate polypharmacy and the accompanying hocus- pocus which we shall meet in Pliny and the middle ages. The Egyptian doctors used herbs from other countries and preferred compound medicines containing a dozen ingredi- ents to simple medicines."^ Already we find such magic
^Breasted (1912), pp. 290-1.
* Budge, pp. xi, 170-1.
* Budge, p. 4.
* Budge, pp. 67-70, yz, 77- ' Budge, pp. 27-28, 41, 60.
' From the abstract of a paper on The History of Egyptian Medi- cine, read by T. Wingate Todd at the annual meeting of the Ameri-
can Historical Association, 1919. See also B. Holmes and P. G. Kitterman, Medicine in Ancient Egypt', the Hieratic Material, Cincinnati, 1914, 34 pp., reprinted from The Lancet-Clinic.
' See H. L. Liiring, Die Uber die medicinischcn Kenntnisse der al- ien Algypter berichtenden Papyri
r INTRODUCTION ii
log-Jc as that the hair of a black calf will keep one from growing gray.^ Already the parts of animals are a favorite ingredient in medical compounds, especially those connected with the organs of generation, on which account they were presumably looked upon as life-giving, or those which were recommended mainly by their nastiness and were probably thought to expel the demons of disease by their disagreeable properties.
In ancient Egypt, however, disease seems not to have Demons been identified with possession by demons to the extent that disease, it was in ancient Assyria and Babylonia. While Breasted asserts that "disease was due to hostile spirits and against these only magic could avail," ^ Budge contents himself with the more cautious statement that there is "good reason for thinking that some diseases were attributed to . . . evil spirits . , . entering . . . human bodies . . . but the texts do not afford much information" ^ on this point. Certainly the beliefs in evil spirits and in magic do not always have to go together, and magic might be employed against disease whether or not it was ascribed to a demon.
In the case of medicine as in that of religion Breasted Magic takes the view that the amount of magic became greater in science- the Middle and New Kingdoms than in the Old Kingdom. This is true so far as the amount of space occupied by it in extant records is concerned. But it would be rash to assume that this marks a decline from a more rational and scientific attitude in the Old Kingdom. Yet Breasted rather gives this impression when he writes concerning the Old Kingdom that many of its recipes were useful and rational, that "medicine was already in the possession of much empirical wisdom, displaying close and accurate observation," and that what "precluded any progress toward real science was the belief in magic, which later began to dominate all the
verglichen mit den medic. Schrif- in Zeitschrift f. cegypt. Sprache,
ten griech. u. romischer Autoren, XII (1874), p. 106. M. A. Ruffer,
Leipzig, 1888. Also Joret, I Palaeopathology of Egypt, ig2i.
(1897) 310-11, and the article ^History of Egypt, p. loi.
there cited by G. Ebers, Ein Ky- ^ Ibid, p. 102.
phirecept aus dem Papyrus Ebers, " Budge, p. 206.
12
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap.
Magic
and
industry.
Alchemy.
practice of the physician." ^ Berthelot probably places the emphasis more correctly when he states that the later medical papyri "include traditional recipes, founded on an em- piricism which is not always correct, mystic remedies, based upon the most bizarre analogies, and magic practices that date back to the remotest antiquity." " The recent efforts of Sethe and Wilcken, of Elliot Smith, Miiller, and Hooten to show that the ancient Egyptians possessed a considerable amount of medical knowledge and of surgical and dental skill, have been held by Todd to rest on slight and dubious evidence. Indeed, some of this evidence seems rather to suggest the ritualistic practices still employed by uncivil- ized African tribes. Certainly the evidence for any real scientific development in ancient Egypt has been very meager compared with the abundant indications of the preva- lence of magic. ^
Early Egypt was the home of many arts and industries, but not in so advanced a stage as has sometimes been sug- gested. Blown glass, for example, was unknown until late Greek and Roman times, and the supposed glass-blowers depicted on the early monuments are really smiths engaged in stirring their fires by blowing through reeds tipped with clay.** On the other hand, Professor Breasted informs me that there is no basis for Berthelot's statement that "every sort of chemical process as well as medical treatment was executed with an accompaniment of religious formulae, of prayers and incantations, regarded as essential to the success of operations as well as the cure of maladies." ^
Alchemy perhaps originated on the one hand from the practices of Egyptian goldsmiths and workers in metals, who experimented with alloys,^ and on the other hand from
*Petrie, "Egypt," in EB, p. 7Z-
* Berthelot (1885), p. 235. See E. B. Havell, A Handbook of In- dian Art, 1920, p. II, for a com- bination of "exact science," ritual, and "magic power" in the work of the ancient Aryan craftsmen.
'Berthelot (1889), pp. vi-vii.
^History of Egypt, p. lOi.
' Archeologic et Hist aire des Sciences, Paris, 1906, pp. 232-3.
* Professor Breasted, however, feels that the contents of the new Edwin Smith Papyrus will raise our estimate of the worth of Egyp- tian medicine and surgery : letter to me of Jan. 20, 1922.
I INTRODUCTION 13
the theories of the Greek philosophers concerning world- grounds, first matter, and the elements.^ The words, alchemy and chemistry, are derived ultimately from the name of Egypt itself, Kamt or Qemt, meaning literally black, and applied to the Nile mud. The word was also applied to the black powder produced by quicksilver in Egyptian metallurgical processes. This powder. Budge says, was sup- posed to be the ground of all metals and to possess mar- velous virtue, "and was mystically identified with the body which Osiris possessed in the underworld, and both were thought to be sources of life and power." ^ The analogy to the sacrament of the mass and the marvelous powers ascribed to the host by medieval preachers like Stephen of Bourbon scarcely needs remark. The later writers on alchemy in Greek appear to have borrowed signs and phrase- ology from the Egyptian priests, and are fond of speaking of their art as the monopoly of Egyptian kings and priests who carved its secrets on ancient steles and obelisks. In a treatise dating from the twelfth dynasty a scribe recom- mends to his son a work entitled Chemi, but there is no proof that it was concerned with chemistry or alchemy.* The papyri containing treatises of alchemy are of the third century of the Christian era.
Evidences of divination in general and of astrology in Divina- particular do not appear as early in Egyptian records as astrology, examples of other varieties of magic. Yet the early date at which Egypt had a calendar suggests astronomical inter- est, and even those who deny that seven planets were dis- tinguished in the Tigris-Euphrates Valley until the last millennium before Christ, admit that they were known in Egypt as far back as the Old Kingdom, although they deny the existence of a science of astronomy or an art of astrology then.^ A dream of Thotmes IV is preserved from 1450 B.C. or thereabouts, and the incantations employed by magicians
'Berthelot (1885), pp. 247-78; E. ''Berthelot (1885), p. 10.
O.^v. Lippmann (1919), pp. 118-43. •• Lippmann C1919), pp. 181-2,
Budge, pp. 19-20. and the authorities there cited.
14 MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap.
in order to procure divining dreams for their customers attest the close connection of divination and magic.^ BeHef in lucky and unlucky days is shown in a papyrus calendar of about 1300 B.C.,^ and w^e shall see later that "Egyptian Days" continued to be a favorite superstition of the middle ages. Tables of the risings of stars which may have an astro- logical significance have been found in graves, and there were gods for every month, every day of the month, and every hour of the day,^ Such numbers as seven and twelve are fre- quently emphasized in the tombs and elsewhere, and if the vaulted ceiling in the tenth chamber of the tomb of Sethos is really of his time, we seem to find the signs of the zodiac under the nineteenth dynasty. If Boll is correct in suggest- ing that the zodiac originated in the transfer of animal gods to the sky,* no fitter place than Egypt could be found for the transfer. But there have not yet been discovered in Egypt lists of omens and appearances of constellations on days of disaster such as are found in the literature of the Tigris-Euphrates valley and in the Roman historians. Budge speaks of the seven Hathor goddesses who predict the death that the infant must some time die, and affirms that "the Egyptians believed that a man's fate . . . was decided be- fore he was born, and that he had no power to alter it." ^ But I cannot agree that "we have good reason for assigning the birthplace of the horoscope to Egypt," ® since the evidence seems to be limited to the almost medieval Pseudo-Callis- thenes and a Greek horoscope in the British Museum to which is attached the letter of an astrologer urging his pupil to study the ancient Egyptians carefully. The later Greek and Latin tradition that astrology was the invention of the divine men of Egypt and Babylon probably has a basis of fact, but more contemporary evidence is needed if Egypt is to contest the claim of Babylon to precedence in that art.
^ Budge, pp. 214-5. Annales du service des antiquites
* Budge, pp. 225-8; Wiedemann dc I'Egyptc, I (1900), 79-90.
(1905), p. g. *F. Boll in Neue Jahrb. (1908),
•Wiedemann (1905), pp. 7,8,11. p. 108.
See also G. Daressy, Une ancienne " Budge, pp. 222-3.
liste des decans egyptiens, in " Budge, p. 229.
INTRODUCTION
15
In the written remains of Babylonian and Assyrian civilization ^ the magic cuneiform tablets play a large part and give us the impression that fear of demons v^as a lead- ing feature of Assyrian and Babylonian religion and that daily thought and life were constantly affected by magic. The bulk of the religious and magical texts are preserved in the library of Assurbanipal, king of Assyria from 668 to 626 B.C. But he collected his library from the ancient temple cities, the scribes tell us that they are copying very ancient texts, and the Sumerian language is still largely employed.^ Eridu, one of the main centers of early Su- merian culture, "was an immemorial home of ancient wis- dom, that is to say, magic." ^ It is, however, difficult in the library of Assurbanipal to distinguish what is Baby- lonian from what is Assyrian or what is Sumerian from vvhat is .Semitic. Thus we are told that "with the exception of some very ancient texts, the Sumerian literature, con- sisting largely of religious material such as hymns and incantations, shows a number of Semitic loanwords and grammatical Semitisms, and in many cases, although not always, is quite patently a translation of Semitic ideas by Semitic priests into the formal religious Sumerian lan- guage." 4
The chief point in dispute, over which great controversy has taken place recently among German scholars, is as to the antiquity of both astronomical knowledge and astrologi- cal doctrine, including astral theology, among the dwellers in the Tigris-Euphrates region. Briefly, such writers as Winckler, Stiicken, and Jeremias held that the religion of the early Babylonians was largely based on astrology and that all their thought was permeated by it, and that they had probably by an early date made astronomical observa- tions and acquired astronomical knowledge which was lost
* Some works on the subject of ^Thompson, Semitic Magic, pp.
magic and religion, astronomy and xxxvi-xxxvii ; Fossey, pp. 17-20. astrology in Babylonia and ^ Farnell, Greece and Babylon,
Assyria will be found in Appendix p. 102.
I at the close of this chapter. ■* Prince, "Sumer and Sumeri-
ans," in EB.
The
sources for Assyrian and Baby- lonian magic.
Was
astrology Sumerian or Chal- dean?
i6
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap.
The num- ber seven in early Babylonia.
in the decline of their culture. Opposing this view, such scholars as Kugler, Bezold, Boll, and Schiaparelli have shown the lack of certain evidence for either any consid- erable astronomical knowledge or astrological theory in the Tigris-Euphrates Valley until the late appearance of the Chaldeans. It is even denied that the seven planets were distinguished in the early period, much less the signs of the zodiac or the planetary week,^ which last, together with any real advance in astronomy, is reserved for the Hellenistic period.
Yet the prominence of the number seven in myth, re- ligion, and magic is indisputable in the third millennium before our era. For instance, in the old Babylonian epic of creation there are seven winds, seven spirits of storms, seven evil diseases, seven divisions of the underworld closed by seven doors, seven zones of the upper world and sky, and so on. We are told, however, that the staged towers of Babylonia, which are said to have symbolized for millen- niums the sacred Hebdomad, did not always have seven stages.^ But the number seven was undoubtedly of frequent occurrence, of a sacred and mystic character, and virtue and perfection were ascribed to it. And no one has succeeded in giving any satisfactory explanation for this other than the rule of the seven planets over our world. This also applies to the sanctity of the number seven in the Old Testa- ment ^ and the emphasis upon it in Hesiod, the Odyssey, and other early Greek sources.^
anthrop. Gesellsch. in Wien, XXI (1901), 225-74; see also Hehn, Sieben::ahl und Sabbat bei den
^Webster, Rest Days, pp. 215-22, with further bibliography. See Orr (1913), 28-38, for an inter- esting discussion in English of the problem of the origin of solar and lunar zodiac.
"Lippmann (1919), pp. 168-9.
* Although Schiaparelli, Astron- omy in the Old Testament, 1905, PP- V, 5, 49-51. 135, denies that "the frequent use of the number seven in the Old Testament is in any way connected with the plan- ets." I have not seen F. von Andrian, Die Sicbenzahl im Geis- tesleben der Volker, in Mittcil. d.
Babyloniern und im alien Testa- ment, 1907. J. G. Frazer (1918), I, 140, has an interesting passage on the prominence of the number seven "alike in the Jehovistic and in the Babylonian narrative" of the flood.
* Webster, Rest Days, pp. 211-2. Professor Webster, who kindly read this chapter in manuscript, stated in a letter to me of 2 July 1921 that he remained convinced that "the mystic properties as-
INTRODUCTION
17
However that may be, the tendency prevaiHng at present is to regard astrology as a relatively late development intro- duced by the Semitic Chaldeans. Lenormant held that writing and magic were a Turanian or Sumerian (Acca- dian) contribution to Babylonian civilization, but that astronomy and astrology were Semitic innovations. Jas- trow thinks that there was slight difference between the religion of Assyria and that of Babylonia, and that astral theology played a great part in both ; but he grants that the older incantation texts are less influenced by this astral theology. L. W. King says, "Magic and divination bulk largely in the texts recovered, and in their case there is noth- ing to suggest an underlying astrological element." ^
Whatever its date and origin, the magic literature may be classified in three main groups. There are the astrological texts in which the stars are looked upon as gods and pre- dictions are made especially for the king,^ Then there are the tablets connected with other methods of foretelling the future, especially liver divination, although interpretation of dreams, augury, and divination by mixing oil and water were also practiced.^ Fossey has further noted the close connection of operative magic with divination among the Assyrians, and calls divination "the indispensable auxiliary of magic." Many feats of magic imply a precedent knowl- edge of the future or begin by consultation of a diviner, or a favorable day and hour should be chosen for the magic rite.*
Third, there are the collections of incantations, not how- ever those employed by the sorcerers, which were pre-
cribed to the number seven" can only in part be accounted for by the seven planets ; "Our Ameri- can Indians, for example, hold seven in great respect, yet have no knowledge of seven planets." But it may be noted that the poet- philosophers of ancient Peru com- posed verses on the subject of as- trology, according to Garcilasso (cited by W. I. Thomas, Source Book for Social Origins, 1909, p.
293)-
* L. W. King, History of Baby- lon, 1915, p. 299.
^Fossey (1902), pp. 2-3.
' Farnell, Greece and Babylon, pp. 301-2. On liver divination see Frothingham, "Ancient Oriental- ism Unveiled," American Journal of Archaeology, XXI (1917) 55, 187, 313, 420.
* Fossey, p. 66.
Incanta- tion texts older than the astro- logical.
Other divination than astrology.
i8
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap.
Incanta- tions against sorcery and demons.
A speci- men incan- tation.
sumably illicit and hence not publicly preserved — in an incantation which we shall soon quote sorcery is called evil and is said to employ "impure things" — but rather defen- sive measures against them and exorcisms of evil demons.^ But doubtless this counter magic reflects the original pro- cedure to a great extent. Inasmuch as diseases generally were regarded as due to demons, who had to be exorcized by incantations, medicine was simply a branch of magic. Evil spirits were also held responsible for disturbances in nature, and frequent incantations were thought necessary to keep them from upsetting the natural order entirely.^ The various incantations are arranged in series of tablets : the Maklu or burning, Ti'i or headaches, Asakki marsuti or fever, Labartu or hag-demon, and Nis kati or raising of the hand. Besides these tablets there are numerous ceremonial and medical texts which contain magical practice.^ Also hymns of praise and religious epics which at first sight one would not classify as mcantations seem to have had their magical uses, and Farnell suggests that "a magic origin for the practice of theological exegesis may be obscurely traced." * Good spirits are represented as employing magic and exorcisms against the demons.^ As a last resort when good spirits as well as human magic had failed to check the demons, the aid might be requisitioned of the god Ea, re- garded as the repository of all science and who "alone was possessed of the magic secrets by means of which they could be conquered and repulsed." ^
The incantations themselves show that other factors than the power of words entered into the magic, as may be illus- trated by quoting one of them.
"Arise ye great gods, hear my complaint. Grant me justice, take cognizance of my condition. I have made an image of my sorcerer and sorceress;
^Fossey, p. i6. * Greece and Babylon, p. 296.
JLenormant, pp. 35. \f, }58. »Lenormant, pp. 146-7.
Thompson, Semitic Magic, pp. ' ^^ ^
xxxviii-xxxix. ^ Ibid, p. 158.
1 INTRODUCTION 19
I have humbled myself before you and bring to you my cause,
Because of the evil they have done,
Of the impure things which they have handled.
May she die ! Let me live !
May her charm, her witchcraft, her sorcery be broken.
May the plucked sprig of the hinu tree purify me;
May it release me; may the evil odor of my mouth be scattered to the winds.
May the mashfakal herb which fills the earth cleanse me.
Before you let me shine like the kankal herb,
Let me be brilliant and pure as the lardn herb.
The charm of the sorceress is evil;
May her words return to her mouth, her tongue be cut off.
Because of her witchcraft may the gods of night smite her,
The three watches of the night break her evil charm.
May her mouth be wax ; her tongue, honey.
May the word causing my misfortune that she has spoken dissolve like wax.
May the charm she had wound up melt like honey.
So that her magic knot be cut in twain, her work de- stroyed." ^
It is evident from this incantation that use was made Materials of magic images and knots, and of the properties of trees and
devices
and herbs. Magic images were made of clay, wax, tallow, employed
and other substances and were employed in various ways. *" *^^
. magic.
Thus directions are given for making a tallow image of an enemy of the king and binding its face with a cord in order to deprive the person whom it represents of speech and will- power.^ Images were also constructed in order that disease demons might be magically transferred into them,^ and sometimes the images are slain and buried.^ In the above incantation the magic knot was employed only by the sor- ceress, but Fossey states that knots were also used as
^Jastrow, Religion of Babylon 'Ibid., p. 161.
and Assyria, pp. 283-4. * Zimmern, Beitrdge, p. 173. * Fossey, p. 399.
20 MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap.
counter-charms against the demons.^ In the above incan- tation the names of herbs were left untranslated and it is not possible to say much concerning the pharmacy of the Assyrians and Babylonians because of our lack of a lexicon for their botanical and mineralogical terminology.^ How- ever, from what scholars have been able to translate it appears that common rather than rare and outlandish sub- stances were the ones most employed. Wine and oil, salt and dates, and onions and saliva are the sort of things used. There is also evidence of the employment of a magic wand.^ Gems and animal substances were used as well as herbs ; all sorts of philters were concocted ; and varied rites and cere- monies were employed such as ablutions and fumigations. In the account of the ark of the Babylonian Noah we are told of the magic significance of its various parts; thus the mast and cabin ceiling were made of cedar, a wood that counteracts sorceries.*
One remarkable corollary of the so-called Italian Renais-
?nr!\of' sance or Humanistic movement at the close of the middle
mric'""" ^ges with its too exclusive glorification of ancient Greece
"'^^'''' and Rome has been the strange notion that the ancient
Hellenes were unusually free from magic compared with
other periods and peoples. It would have been too much to
claim any such immunity for the primitive Romans, whose
entire religion was originally little else than magic and whose
daily life, public and private, was hedged in by superstitious
observances and fears. But they, too, were supposed to
have risen later under the influence of Hellenic culture to
a more enlightened stage,^ only to relapse again into magic
in the declining empire and middle ages under oriental
influence. Incidentally let me add that this notion that m
the past orientals were more superstitious and fond of
^Fossey, p. 83. , form.
'Ibid., pp. 89-91. F. Kuchler, ^Lenormant, p. 190-
Beitrdge sur Kenntnis dcr Assyr.- * Jbid n 159
Babyl. Median; Texte mit Urn- '',.,, a ;. f^nt^ th^f thev
schrift, Uebersetzung und Kom- ' So enlightened in fact that they
menU Leipzig, 1904. treats of spoke with some scorn of th
twenty facsimile pages of cunei- "levity" and lies of the UrecKS.
INTRODUCTION
21
marvels than westerners in the same stage of civilization and that the orient must needs be the source of every super- stitious cult and romantic tale is a glib assumption which I do not intend to make and which our subsequent investiga- tion will scarcely substantiate. But to return to the sup- posed immunity of the Hellenes from magic; so far has this hypothesis been carried that textual critics have repeatedly rejected passages as later interpolations or even called entire treatises spurious for no other reason than that they seemed to them too superstitious for a reputable classical author. Even so specialized and recent a student of ancient astrol- ogy, superstition, and religion as Cumont still clings to this dubious generalization and affirms that "the limpid Hellenic genius always turned away from the misty speculations of magic." ^ But, as I suggested some sixteen years since, "the fantasticalness of medieval science was due to 'the clear light of Hellas' as well as to the gloom of the 'dark ages, ^
It is not difficult to call to mind evidence of the presence of magic in Hellenic religion, literature, and history. One has only to think of the many marvelous metamorphoses in and Greek mythology and of its countless other absurdities; of "*^*°^y' the witches, Circe and Medea, and the necromancy of Odysseus ; or the priest-magician of Apollo in the Iliad who could stop the plague, if he wished ; of the lucky and unlucky days and other agricultural magic in Hesiod.^ Then there were the Spartans, whose so-called constitution and method of education, much admired by the Greek philosophers, were largely a retention of the life of the primitive tribe with its ritual and taboos. Or we remember Herodotus and his childish delight in ambiguous oracles or his tale of seceders from Gela brought back by Telines single-handed because he "was possessed of certain mysterious visible symbols of the powers beneath the earth which were deemed to be of
^ Oriental Religions in Roman ^ E. E. Sikes, Folk-lore in the
Paganism, Chicago, 191 1, p. 189. Works and Days of Hesiod. in
The Classical Review. VII (1893). ^Thorndike (1905), p. 63. 390.
Magic in mytli, literature.
22
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap.
Simul- taneous in- crease of learning and occult science.
Magic ori- gin urged for Greek religion and drama.
wonder-working power." ^ We recall Xenophon's punc- tilious records of sacrifices, divinations, sneezes, and dreams; Nicias, as afraid of eclipses as if he had been a Spartan; and the matter-of-fact mentions of charms, philters, and incan- tations in even such enlightened writers as Euripides and Plato. Among the titles of ancient Greek comedies magic is represented by the Goetes of Aristophanes, the Mandragorizomene of Alexis, the Pharmacomantis of An- axandrides, the Circe of Anaxilas, and the Thettcde of Menander.^ When we candidly estimate the significance of such evidence as this, we realize that the Hellenes were not much less inclined to magic than other peoples and periods, and that we need not wait for Theocritus and the Greek romances or for the magical papyri for proof of the existence of magic in ancient Greek civilization.^
If astrology and some other occult sciences do not appear in a developed form until the Hellenistic period, it is not because the earlier period was more enlightened, but because it was less learned. And the magic which Osthanes is said to have introduced to the Greek world about the time of the Persian wars was not so much an innovation as an improvement upon their coarse and ancient rites of Goetia.'^
This magic element which existed from the start in Greek culture is now being traced out by students of anthro- pology and early religion as well as of the classics. Miss Jane E. Harrison, in Themis, a study of the social origins of Greek religion, suggests a magical explanation for many a myth and festival, and even for the Olympic games and Greek drama.^ The last point has been developed in more
^ Freeman, History of Sicily, I, IOI-3, citing Herodotus VII, 153.
' Butler and Owen, Apulei Apologia, note on 30, 30.
* For details concerning opera- tive or vulgar magic among the ancient Greeks see Hubert, Magia, in Daremberg-Saglio ; Abt, Die Apologie dcs Apulcius von Madaura und die antike Zau- berei, Giessen, 1908; and F.
B. Jevons, "Grseco-Italian Magic," p. 93-, in Anthropology and the Classics, ed. R. Marett; and the article "Magic" in ERE.
* I think that this sentence is an approximate quotation from some ancient author, possibly Diogenes Laertius, but I have not been able to find it.
"J. E. Harrison, Themis, Cam- bridge, 1912. The chapter head-
I INTRODUCTION 23
detail by F, M. Comford's Origin of Attic Comedy, where much magic is detected masquerading in the comedies of Aristophanes.^ And Mr. A. B. Cook sees the magician in Zeus, who transforms himself to pursue his amours, and contends that "the real prototype of the heavenly weather- king was the earthly" magician or rain-maker, that the pre-Homeric "fixed epithets" of Zeus retained in the Homeric poems "are simply redolent of the magician," and that the cult of Zeus Lykaios was connected with the belief in werwolves.^ In still more recent publications Dr. Rendel Harris ^ has connected Greek gods in their origins with the woodpecker and mistletoe, associated the cult of Apollo with the medicinal virtues of mice and snakes, and in other ways emphasized the importance in early Greek religion and culture of the magic properties of animals and herbs.
These writers have probably pressed their point too far, but at least their work serves as a reaction against the old attitude of intellectual idolatry of the classics. Their views may be offset by those of Mr, Famell, who states that "while the knowledge of early Babylonian magic is begin- ning to be considerable, we cannot say that we know anything definite concerning the practices in this department of the Hellenic and adjacent peoples in the early period with which we are dealing." And again, "But while Baby- lonian magic proclaims itself loudly in the great religious literature and highest temple ritual, Greek magic is barely mentioned in the older literature of Greece, plays no part at all in the hymns, and can only with difficulty be dis- covered as latent in the higher ritual. Again, Babylonian
ings briefly suggest the argument: on Ritual Forms preserved in
"i. Hymn of the Kouretes ; 2. Greek tragedy; 9. Daimon to
Dithyramb, Aqco|xevov, and Drama ; Olympian; 10. The Olympians;
3. Kouretes, Thunder-Rites and 11. Themis."
Mana ; 4. a. Magic and Tabu, b. ^ F. M. Cornf ord, Origin of
Medicine-bird and Medicine-king; Attic Comedy, 1914, see especially
S. Totemism, Sacrament, and Sac- pp. 10, 13, 55, 157, 202, 22,2-
rifice ; 6. Dithyramb, Spring Fes- ^ A. B. Cook, Zeus, Cambridge,
tival, and Hagia Triada Sarcoph- 1914, pp. 134-5, 12-14, 66-76.
agus ; 7. Origin of the Olympic ^ Rendel Harris, Picus who is
Games (about a year-daimon) ; 8. also Zeus, 1916; The Ascent of
Daimon and Hero, with Excursus Olympus, 1917.
24 MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap.
magic is essentially demoniac ; but we have no evidence that the pre-Homeric Greek was demon-ridden, or that demon- ology and exorcism were leading factors in his consciousness and practice." Even Mr. Farnell admits, however, that "the earliest Hellene, as the later, was fully sensitive to the magico-divine efficacy of names." ^ Now to believe in the power of names before one believes in the existence of demons is the best possible evidence of the antiquity of magic in a society, since it indicates that the speaker has confidence in the operative power of his own words without any spiritual or divine assistance. Magic in Moreover, in one sense the advocates of Greek magic
Greek phi- \^2JVQ. not gone far enough. They hold that magic lies back of the comedies of Aristophanes; what they might contend is that it was also contemporary with them.^ They hold that classical Greek religion had its origins in magic ; what they might argue is that Greek philosophy never freed itself from magic. "That Empedocles believed himself capable of magical powers is," says Zeller, "proved by his own writings." He himself "declares that he possesses the power to heal old age and sickness, to raise and calm the winds, to summon rain and drought, and to recall the dead to life." ^ H the pre-Homeric fixed epithets of Zeus are redolent of magic, Plato's Timaeus is equally redo- lent of occult science and astrology; and if we see the weather-making magician in the Olympian Zeus of Phidias, we cannot explain away the vagaries of the Timaeus as flights of poetic imagination or try to make out Aristotle a modern scientist by mutilating the text of the History of Animals.
' Farnell, Greece and Babylon, Ancients, in Folk-lore, 1890, and
pp. 292, lyS-g. E. H. Klatsche, The Supernatural
' See Ernest Riess, Superstitions in the Tragedies of Euripides, in
and Popular Beliefs in Greek University of Nebraska Studies,
Tragedy, in Transactions of the 1919.
American Philological Associa- ' See Zeller, Pre-Socratic Phi- tion, vol. 27 (1896), pp. 5-34; and losophy, II (1881), 119-20, for fur- On Ancient superstition, ibid. 26 ther boasts by Empedocles himself (1895), 40-55. Also J. G. Frazer, and other marvels attributed to Some Popular Superstitions of the him by later authors.
I INTRODUCTION 25
Toward magic so-called Plato's attitude in his Laws is Plato's cautious. He maintains that medical men and prophets and ^ttitude diviners can alone understand the nature of poisons (or magic and spells) which work naturally, and of such things as incan- ^^^^^ °^^* tations, magic knots, and wax images; and that since other men have no certain knowledge of such matters, they ought not to fear but to despise them. He admits nevertheless that there is no use in trying to convince most men of this and that it is necessary to legislate against sorcery.^ Yet his own view of nature seems impregnated, if not actually with doctrines borrowed from the Magi of the east, at least with notions cognate to those of magic rather than of modern science and with doctrines favorable to astrology. He humanized material objects and confused material and spiritual characteristics. He also, like authors of whom we shall treat later, attempted to give a natural or rational explanation for magic, accounting, for example, for liver divination on the ground that the liver was a sort of mirror on which the thoughts of the mind fell and in which the images of the soul were reflected ; but that they ceased after death.^ He spoke of harmonious love between the elements as the source of health and plenty for vegetation, beasts, and men, and their "wanton love" as the cause of pestilence and disease. To understand both varieties of love "in rela- tion to the revolutions of the heavenly bodies and the seasons of the year is termed astronomy," ^ or, as we should say, astrology, whose fundamental law is the control of inferior creation by the motion of the stars. Plato spoke of the stars as "divine and eternal animals, ever abiding," * an expression which we shall hear reiterated in the middle ages. "The lower gods," whom he largely identified with the heavenly bodies, form men, who, if they live good lives, return after death each to a happy existence in his proper star.^ Such a doctrine is not identical with that of nativities
^Laws, XI, 933 (Steph.). * Timaeus, p. 40 (Steph.) ; Jow-
'Timacus, p. 71 (Steph.). ett, III, 459. 'Symposium, p. 188 (Steph.) ;
in Jowett's translation, I, 558. ^ Ibid., pp. 41-42 (Steph.).
26
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap.
Aristotle on stars and spirits.
Folk-lore in the History of Animals.
and the horoscope, but hke it exalts the importance of the stars and suggests their control of human life. And when at the close of his Republic Plato speaks of the harmony or music of the spheres of the seven planets and the eighth sphere of the fixed stars, and of "the spindle of Necessity on which all the revolutions turn," he suggests that when once the human soul has entered upon this life, its destiny is henceforth subject to the courses of the stars. When in the Timaeiis he says, "There is no difficulty in seeing that the perfect number of time fulfills the perfect year when all the eight revolutions . . . are accomplished together and attain their completion at the same time," ^ he seems to suggest the astrological doctrine of the magnns annus, that history begins to repeat itself in every detail when the heavenly bodies have all regained their original positions.
For Aristotle, too, the stars were "beings of superhuman intelligence, incorporate deities. They appeared to him as the purer forms, those more like the deity, and from them a purposive rational influence upon the lower life of the earth seemed to proceed, — a thought which became the root of medieval astrology." ^ Moreover, "his theory of the subordinate gods of the spheres of the planets . . . pro- vided for a later demonology." ^
Aside from bits of physiognomy and of Pythagorean superstition, or mysticism, Aristotle's History of Animals contains much on the influence of the stars on animal life, the medicines employed by animals, and their friendships and enmities, and other folklore and pseudo-science.* But
^ Timaeus, p. 39 (Steph.) ; Jowett, III, 458.
'W. Windelband, History of Philosophy, English translation by J. H. Tufts, 1898, p. 147.
'Windelband, History of An- cient Philosophy, English transla- tion by H. E. Cushman, 1899.
■Tor a number of examples, which might be considerably mul- tiplied if books VII-X are not
rejected as spurious, see Thorn- dike (1905), pp. 62-3. T. E. Lones, Aristotle's Researches in Natural Science, London, 1912, 274 pp., discusses "Aristotle's method of investigating the natu- ral sciences," and a large number of Aristotle's specific statements showing whether they were cor- rect or incorrect. The best trans- lation of the History of Animals is by D'Arcy W. Thompson, Ox- ford 1910, with valuable notes.
1 INTRODUCTION 27
the oldest extant manuscript of that work dates only from
the twelfth or thirteenth century and lacks the tenth book.
Editors of the text have also rejected books seven and nine,
the latter part of book eight, and have questioned various
other passages. However, these expurgations save the face
of Aristotle rather than of Hellenic science or philosophy
generally, as the spurious seventh book is held to be drawn
largely from Hippocratic writings and the ninth from
Theophrastus.^
There is another point to be kept in mind in any com- Differing
parison of Egypt and Babylon or Assyria with Greece in "lodes
the matter of magic. Our evidence proving the great part mission of
played by magic in the ancient oriental civilizations comes oriemal
directly from them to us without intervening tampering or and Greek • -1 r 1 1 • 1 T^ literature.
alteration except m the case of the early periods. But classical literature and philosophy come to us as edited by Alexandrian librarians ^ and philologers, as censored and selected by Christian and Byzantine readers, as copied or translated by medieval monks and Italian humanists. And the question is not merely, what have they added ? but also, what have they altered? what have they rejected? Instead of questioning superstitious passages in extant works on the ground that they are later interpolations, it would very likely be more to the point to insert a goodly number on the ground that they have been omitted as pagan or idola- trous superstitions.
Suppose we turn to those writings which have been j^Qj-e unearthed just as they were in ancient Greek; to the papyri, i^agical the lead tablets, the so-called Gnostic gems. How does the of directly proportion of magic in these compare with that in the Qreek"'^^^^ indirectly transmitted literary remains? If it is objected remains. that the magic papyri ^ are mainly of late date and that
* See the edition of the History the Hbrary of Assurbanipal. of Animals by Dittmeyer (1907), 'A list of magic papyri and of p. vii, where various monographs publications up to about 1900 deal- will be found mentioned. ing with the same is given in
^ Perhaps pure literature was Hubert's article on Magia in
over-emphasized in the Museum Daremberg-Saglio, pp. 1503-4. See
at Alexandria, and magic texts in also Sir Herbert Thompson and
28 MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap.
they are found in Egypt, it may be replied that they are as old as or older than any other manuscripts we have of classical literature and that its chief store-house, too, was in Egypt at Alexandria, As for the magical curses written on lead tablets,^ they date from the fourth centur}' before our era to the sixth after, and fourteen come from Athens and sixteen from Cnidus as against one from Alexandria and eleven from Carthage. And although some display extreme illiteracy, others are written by persons of rank and education. And what a wealth of astrological manu- scripts in the Greek language has been unearthed in Euro- pean libraries by the editors of the Catalogus Codicum Graecoriini Astrologorum! ^ And occasionally archaeolo- gists report the discovery of magical apparatus ^ or of repre- sentations of magic in works of art. Progress In thus contending that Hellenic culture was not free
among"he from magic and that even the philosophy and science of the Greeks. ancient Greeks show traces of superstition, I would not, how- ever, obscure the fact that of extant literary remains the Greek are the first to present us with any very considerable body either of systematic rational speculation or of classified collection of observed facts concerning nature. Despite the rapid progress in recent years in knowledge of prehistoric man and Egyptian and Babylonian civilization, the Hellenic
F. L. Griffith, The Magical De- lent, Defixionum tabulae, etc.,
motic Papyrus of London and Paris, 1904, 568 pp. R. Wiinsch,
Leiden, 3 vols., 1909-1921; Cata- Defixionum Tabcllae Atficae, iSgy,
logue of Demotic Papyri in the and Scthianische I'crfiuchungsta-
Jolin Rylands Library, Manch^s- feln aus Rom (390-420 A.D.),
ter, zvitii facsimiles and complete Leipzig, 1898.
translations, 1909, 3 vols. Grenfell ,„• or. • 1
(1921), p. 159, says, "A corpus of Since 1898 various volumes
the magical papyri was projected ^"^ ^^l^.^ have appeared under the
in Germany by K. Preisendanz ^ditorship of Cuinont Kroll Boll,
before the war, and a Czech Ohvieri. Bassi and others Much
scholar, Dr. Hopfner, is engaged ^^ ^he material noted is of course
upon the difficult task of eluci- POst-classical and Byzantine, and
dating them " °^ Christian authorship or Ara-
' W. C. Battle, Magical Curses ^'^ °"Sin.
Written on Lead Tablets, in ' For example, see R. Wiinsch,
Transactions of the American Antikcs Zaubergcrdt aus Per-
Philological Association, XXVI gamou, in Jahrb. d. kaiserl.
(1895), pp. liv-lviii, a synopsis of deutsch. archccol. Instit., suppl. VI
a Harvard dissertation. Audol- (1905), p. 19.
I INTRODUCTION 29
title to the primacy in philosophy and science has hardly been called in question, and no earlier works have been discovered that can compare in medicine with those ascribed to Hippocrates, in biology with those of Aristotle and Theophrastus, or in mathematics and physics with those of Euclid and Archimedes. Undoubtedly such men and writ- ings had their predecessors, probably they owed something to ancient oriental civilization, but, taking them as we have them, they seem to be marked by great original power. Whatever may lie concealed beneath the surface of the past, or whatever signs or hints of scientific investigation and knowledge we may think we can detect and read between the lines, as it were, in other phases of older civilizations, in these works solid beginnings of experimental and mathe- matical science stand unmistakably forth.
"An extraordinarily large proportion of the subject Archime- matter of the writings of Archimedes," says Heath, "repre- Aristotle sents entirely new discoveries of his own. Though his range of subjects was almost encyclopaedic, embracing geometry (plane and solid), arithmetic, mechanics, hydro- statics and astronomy, he was no compiler, no writer of text-books. . . . His objective is always some new thing, some definite addition to the sum of knowledge, and his com- plete originality cannot fail to strike anyone who reads his works intelligently, without any corroborative evidence such as is found in the introductory letters prefixed to most of them. ... In some of his subjects Archimedes had no fore- runners, e. g., in hydrostatics, where he invented the whole science, and (so far as mathematical demonstration was concerned) in his mechanical investigations." ^ Aristotle's History of Animals is still highly esteemed by historians of biology ^ and often evidences "a large amount of personal
^T. L. Heath, The Works of Aristotle's Researches in Natural
Archimedes, Cambridge, 1897, pp. Science, London, 1912. Professor
xxxix-xl. W. A. Locy, author of Biology
^ On "Aristotle as a Biologist" and Its Makers, writes me (May- see the Herbert Spencer lecture by 9, 1921) that in his opinion G. H. D'Arcy W. Thompson, Oxford, Lewes, Aristotle; a Chapter from 1913. 31 pp. Also T. E. Lones, the History of Science, London,
30
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap.
Exagger- ated view of the scientific achieve- ment of the Hellen- istic age.
observations," ^ "great accuracy," and "minute inquiry," as in his account of the vascular system ^ or observations on the embryology of the chick.^ "Most wonderful of all, perhaps, are those portions of his book in which he speaks of fishes, their diversities, their structure, their wanderings, and their food. Here we may read of fishes that have only recently been rediscovered, of structures only lately reinves- tigated, of habits only of late made known." ^ But of the achievements of Hellenic philosophy and Hellenistic science the reader may be safely assumed already to have some notion.
But in closing this brief preliminary sketch of the period before our investigation proper begins, I would take excep- tion to the tendency, prevalent especially among German scholars, to center in and confine to Aristotle and the Hellenistic age almost all progress in natural science made before modern times. The contributions of the Egyptians and Babylonians are reduced to a minimum on the one hand, while on the other the scientific writings of the Roman
1864, "dwells too much on Aris- totle's errors and imperfections, and in several instances omits the quotation of important positive observations, occurring in the chapters from which he makes his quotations of errors." Professor Locy also disagrees with Lewes' estimate of De generatione as Aristotle's masterpiece and thinks that "naturalists will get more satisfaction out of reading the Historia animalium" than either the De generatione or De partihus. Thompson (1913), p. 14, calls Aristotle "a very great naturalist."
^ This quotation is from Pro- fessor Locy's letter of May 9, 192 1.
^ The quotations are from a note by Professor D'Arcy W. Thomp- son on his translation of the Historia animalium, III, 3. The note gives so good a glimpse of both the merits and defects of the Aristotelian text as it has reached us that I will quote it here more fully:
"The Aristotelian account of the vascular system is remarkable for its wealth of details, for its great accuracy in many particulars, and for its extreme obscurity in others. It is so far true to nature that it is clear evidence of minute in- quiry, but here and there so remote from fact as to suggest that things once seen have been half forgotten, or that supersti- tion was in conflict with the result of observation. The account of the vessels connecting the left arm with the liver and the right with the spleen ... is a surviving ex- ample of mystical or superstitious belief. It is possible that the ascription of three chambers to the heart was also influenced by tradition or mysticism, much in the same way as Plato's notion of the three corporeal faculties."
* Professor Locy called my at- tention to it in a letter of May 17, 1921. See also Thompson (1913), p. 14.
* Thompson (1913), p. 19.
I INTRODUCTION 31
Empire, which are extant in far greater abundance than those of the Hellenistic period, are regarded as inferior imita- tions of great authors whose works are not extant; Posi- donius, for example, to whom it has been the fashion of the writers of German dissertations to attribute this, that, and every theory in later writers. But it is contrary to the law of gradual and painful acquisition of scientific knowledge and improvement of scientific method that one period of a few centuries should thus have discovered everything. We have disputed the similar notion of a golden age of early Egyptian science from which the Middle and New King- doms declined, and have not held that either the Egyptians or Babylonians had made great advances in science before the Greeks. But that is not saying that they had not made some advance. As Professor Karpinski has recently written: "To deny to Babylon, to Egypt, and to India, their part in the development of science and scientific thinking is to defy the testimony of the ancients, supported by the dis- coveries of the modern authorities. The efforts which have been made to ascribe to Greek influence the science of Egypt, of later Babylon, of India, and that of the Arabs do not add to the glory that was Greece. How could the Baby- lonians of the golden age of Greece or the Hindus, a little later, have taken over the developments of Greek astron- omy? This would only have been possible if they had arrived at a state of development in astronomy which would have enabled them properly to estimate and appreciate the work which was to be absorbed. . . . The admission that the Greek astronomy immediately affected the astronomical theories of India carries with it the implication that this science had attained somewhat the same level in India as in Greece. Without serious questioning we may assume that a fundamental part of the science of Babylon and Egypt and India, developed during the times which we think of as Greek, was indigenous science." ^
*L. C. Karpinski, "Hindu Science," in The American Mathematical Monthly, XXVI (1919), 298-300.
32 MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap, i
Nor am I ready to admit that the great scientists of the early Roman Empire merely copied from, or were distinctly inferior to, their Hellenistic predecessors. Aristarchus may have held the heliocentric theory ^ but Ptolemy must have been an abler scientist and have supported his incorrect hypothesis with more accurate measurements and calcula- tions or the ancients would have adopted the sounder view. And if Herophilus had really demonstrated the circulation of the blood, so keen an intelligence as Galen's would not have cast his discovery aside. And if Ptolemy copied Hipparchus, are we to imagine that Hipparchus copied from no one? But of the incessant tradition from authority to authority and yet of the gradual accumulation of new matter from personal observation and experience our ensuing sur- vey of thirteen centuries of thought and writing will afford more detailed illustration.
* Sir Thomas Heath, Aristar- the fixed stars remain unmoved
chus of Samos, the Ancient and that the earth revolves round
Copernicus: a history of Greek the sun in the circumference of a
astronomy to Aristarchus to- circle." Such evidence seems
gether with Aristarchus's treatise, scarcely to warrant applying the
"On the Sizes and Distances of title of "The Ancient Copernicus"
the Sun and Moon," a new Greek to Aristarchus. And Heath
text with translation and notes, thinks that Schiaparelli (/ precur-
Oxford, 1913, admits that "our sori di Copernico nell' antichita,
treatise does not contain any sug- and other papers) went too far
gestion of any but the geocentric in ascribing the Copernican hy-
view of the universe, whereas pothesis to Heraclides of Pontus.
Archimedes tells us that Aristar- On Aristotle's answer to Pythag-
chus wrote a book of hypotheses, oreans who denied the geocentric
one of which was that the sun and theory see Orr (1913), pp. 100-2.
APPENDIX I
SOME WORKS ON MAGIC, RELIGION, AND ASTRONOMY IN BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA
The following books deal expressly with the magic of Assyria and Babylonia :
Fossey, C. La magie assyrienne; etude suivie de textes magiques, Paris, 1902.
King, L. W. Babylonian Magic and Sorcery, being "The Prayers of the Lifting of the Hand," London, 1896.
Laurent, A. La magie et la divination chez les Chaldeo-Assyr- iens, Paris, 1894.
Lenormant, F, Chaldean Magic and Sorcery, English transla- tion, London, 1878.
Schwab, M., in Proc. Bibl. Archaeology (1890), pp. 292-342, on magic bowls from Assyria and Babylonia.
Tallquist, K. L. Die Assyrische Beschworungsserie Maqlu, Leip- zig, 1895-
Thompson, R. C. The Reports of the Magicians and Astrologers of Nineveh and Babylon in the British Museum, London, 1900. Texts and translations — all but three are astrological. The Devils and Evil Spirits of Babylonia, London, 1904. Semitic Magic, London, 1908.
Weber, O. Damonenbeschworung bei den Babyloniern und As- sy rern, 1906. Eine Skizze (37 pp.), in Der Alte Orient.
Zimmern. Die Beschwdrungstafeln Surpu.
Much concerning magic will also be found in works on Babylonian and Assyrian religion.
Craig, J. A. Assyrian and Babylonian Religious Texts, Leipzig,
1895-7. Curtiss, S. L Primitive Semitic Religion Today, 1902. Dhorme, P. Choix des textes religieux Assyriens Babyloniens,
1907.
La religion Assyro-Babylonienne, Paris, 1910. Gray, C. D. The Samas Religious Texts.
33
34 MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE
Jastrow, Morris, The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, Boston,
1898. Revised and enlarged as Religion Babyloniens und As-
syriens, Giessen, 1904. Jeremias. Babylon. Assyr. Vorstellungen von dem Leben nach
Tode, Leipzig, 1887.
Holle und Paradies, and other w^orks. Knudtzon, J. A. Assyrische Gebete an den Sonnengott, Leipzig,
1893. Lagrange, M. J. £tudes sur les religions semitiques, Paris, 1905. Langdon, S, Sumerian and Babylonian Psalms, Paris, 1909. Reisner, G. A. Sumerisch-Babylonische Hymnen, Berlin, 1896. Robertson Smith, W. Lectures on the Religion of the Semites,
London, 1907. Roscher, Lexicon, for various articles. Zimmern. Babylonische Hymnen und Gebete in Auswahl, 32 pp.,
1905 (Der Alte Orient).
Beitrage zur Kenntniss der Babyl. Religion, Leipzig, 1901.
On the astronomy and astrology of the Babylonians one may consult:
Bezold, C. Astronomic, Himmelschau und Astrallehre bei den
Babyloniern. (Sitzb. Akad. Heidelberg, 191 1, Abh. 2). Boissier. A. Documents assyriens relatifs aux presages, Paris,
I 894- I 897.
Choix de textes relatifs a la divination assyro-babylonienne,
Geneva, 1905-1906. Craig, J. A. Astrological-Astronomical Texts, Leipzig, 1892. Cumont, F. Babylon und die griechische Astrologie. (Neue
Jahrb. fiir das klass. Altertum, XXVH, 1911). Epping, J., and Strassmeier, J. N. Astronomisches aus Babylon,
1889. Ginzel, F. K. Die astronomischen Kentnisse der Babylonier, 1901. Hehn, J. Siebenzahl und Sabbat bei den Babyloniern und im
Alten Testament, 1907. Jensen, P. Kosmologie der Babylonier, 1890, Jeremias. Das Alter der babylonischen Astronomic, 1908.
Handbuch der altorientalischen Geisteskultur, 1913. Kugler, F. X. Die Babylonische Mondrechnung, 1900.
Sternkunde und Sterndienst in Babel, Freiburg, 1907-1913. To
be completed in four vols.
Im Bannkreis Babels, 1910. Oppert, J. Die astronomischen Angaben der assyrischen Keilin-
APPENDIX I 35
schriften, in Sitzb. d. Wien. Akad. Math.-Nat. Classe, 1885, pp.
894-906.
Un texte Babylonien astronomique et sa traduction grecque par