CHAPTER XL

Apparent miracles performed by Mechanism — Moving floors — Automata — Experiments in the art of flying.
Among the wonders which were invented and com- posed, as experiments and exhibitions for the initiated, we cannot avoid, at the first glance, perceiving that many were the result of an ingenious application of the principles of mechanism and acoustics. The skilful illusions of optics ; of perspective ; the phantasmagoria ; many inventions belonging to hydrostatics and che- mistry; the practical use made of observations of the habits and sensations of animals; and lastly, the employment of those secrets, practised in all ages and always beheld with astonishment, which pre- serve our frail organs and susceptible skins from the ravages of fire — were all called in to assist in deluding the aspirant. We do not discover, it is true, in the writings of the ancients any positive indication of their possession of all this knowledge ; but the effects speak for themselves, and constrain us to admit their existence as causes. We repeat that it is wiser to concur in such views, than boldly to accuse the accounts of such miraculous events of being misrepresentations. The
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marvellous, and apparently impossible, have been robbed of their wonderful character by the progress of science. Much that the ancients assert was done, we possess the means of doing : equivalent means were therefore known to them. I demand of those who would reject this conclusion, to say whether the history of the sciences — that history enveloped in so much darkness — has been handed down to us so detailed and complete that we can with certainty define its extent, or determine its limits? In reference to mechanism, at least, we dare not attempt it. The science of constructing wonderful machines, whose effects seem to overthrow the whole order of nature ; in one word, mechanism — for it is thus that Cassiodorus# defines it — was carried by the ancients to a point of perfection that has never been attained in modern times. We would inquire have their inventions been surpassed in our age ? Certainly not ; and at the pre- sent day, with all the means which the progress of science and modern discoveries have placed in the hands of the mechanic, have we not been assailed by numerous difficulties, in striving to place on a pedestal one of those monolithes that the Egyptians, forty centuries ago, erected in such numbers before their sacred edifices. It is, indeed, sufficient to point to the inventions of Archimedes, to render credible the wonders that are said to have been performed by mechanism in the temples. But
* Cassiodor. Variar. lib. i. cap. xliv. — Cassiodorus, a states- man and learned writer of the sixteenth century, who filled several offices under Theodoric. He lived to the age of one hundred ; but some time before his death he grew tired of public life, and retired to a monastery, where he ended his days, a.d. 562. — Ed.
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let us observe how that great man, misled by the doctrines of Plato, attached only an ordinary value to the most bril- liant applications of science ; holding theory and specula- tive disquisitions in a much higher estimation. It is even believed,* though perhaps incorrectly,! on the evidence of
* Plutarch in Mar cell. § 18 and § 22.
t Cassiodorus (Variar. lib. i. cap. lxv), in commenting upon the works translated from Greek into Latin by Boethius,* positively mentions a Treatise on Mechanism by Archimedes, entitled, "Me- chanicum etiam Archimedem latialem siculis reddidisti." The epithet conferred by Cassiodorus on every author, explains the title or the subject of the translated work: "Pythagoras musicus;" "Plato theologus ;" " Aristotle logicus ; &c." The meaning of the word mechanicus is rendered obvious in the continuation of the letter in which Cassiodorus gives mechanism the definition we have quoted. When it is recollected that Plutarch was not an infallible authority in facts, we shall be inclined to give more weight to the assertion of Cassiodorus, the friend and contemporary of Boethius. It would, at least, be very desirable that a search should be made in all libraries containing manuscripts, for a Translation of the Treatise, the original of which, if it ever existed, has long since disappeared.
a Annius Manlius Torquatus Severius Boethius was born a.d. 455, of an ancient, noble, Roman family. He studied at Athens, and acquired so early a character for learning and genius, that on his return to Rome, it secured for him many friends and admirers, and also the Consulship at the age of thirty-two, when Theodoric reigned in Italy. He devoted the whole of the time which he could spare from the service of the Commonwealth to the cultivation of science. His Treatise upon music was one only of his voluminous labours, the principal of which was entitled, " De consolatione Philosophise," composed in prison, into which he had been thrown by Theodoric, under a false accusation that he attempted to excite discontent against that monarch, and that he sought means to restore freedom to the Romans. He had scarcely
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Plutarch, that he left nothing written on the construction of those machines which had acquired him so much re- nown. Thaumaturgists alone understood the true value of the secrets acquired by the practice of science, yet beheld unmoved the injustice done to the philosophers, who aided them by preserving their means of power in inac- cessible security.
In the infamous mysteries, which were properly and severely denounced by the Roman magistrates, in the year 186 a.c, and which were doubtless derived from more ancient initiations, certain machines were employed to raise up, and cause the disappearance of the unhappy victims, who were said to have been ravished by the Gods.# In a similar manner, in other cases, the aspirant to initiation felt himself suddenly lifted up by some invisible power. We might be astonished that imposture thus exposed should continue to be revered in other mysteries, if human credulity did not everywhere present contradictions as palpable. In order to descend into the Cave of Trophonius, those who came to consult the oracle, placed themselves before an aperture appa- rently too narrow to admit a middle-sized man; yet, as soon as the knees had entered it, the whole body was rapidly drawn in by some invisible power. The mechanism used
finished his Treatise, when Theodoric ordered him to be beheaded, which was done in prison, October 23, a.d. 526. Although a Christian, yet it is remarkable that he refers none of the consola- tions to that faith. Boethius must not be confounded with Boetius, the Scottish historian, who flourished in the fifteenth century, and who was also a writer of undoubted veracity. Eras- mus, speaking of him, says, " he knew not to lie." — Ed, * Tit. Liv. lib. xxix. cap. xiii.
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for this purpose was connected with other machinery, which at the same time enlarged the entrance to the grotto.*
When the sages of India conducted Apollonius to the temple of their God, singing hymns and forming a sacred march, the. earth, which they struck with their staves in cadence, was agitated like a boisterous sea, and raised them up nearly two feet ; then calmed itself and resumed its usual level.f The act of striking with their sticks betrays the necessity of warning workmen, who were placed beneath, to raise a moving stage covered with earth ; an operation readily effected by the aid of mechanism, very easy to be comprehended.
According to Apollonius, it was only the sages of India who could perform this miracle, j Nevertheless, it
* Clavier. Mémoire sur les oracles anciens, pages 149 — 150. The cave of Trophonius was one of the most celebrated oracles of Greece. The individual whose name the cave bore, and who was thus honoured as a God, was, in conjunction with his brother Agamides, the architect of the temple of Apollo at Delphi, and was rewarded by the priests with assassination instead of payment for his labours. The brothers were desired by the God, through the priests, to be cheerful, and to wait eight days for their reward, at the termination of which time, however, they were found dead in their beds.
The person who went to consult the oracle, was obliged to make certain sacrifices ; to bathe in certain rivers ; and to anoint his body with oil. He was then clothed in a linen robe, and, with a cake of honey in his hand, he descended in the manner described in the text into the cave. What passed there was never revealed, but the person on his return generally looked pale and dejected. —Ed.
f Philostrat. De vit. Apoll. lib. in. cap. v.
% Philostrat. De vit. Apoll. lib. vi. cap. vi. Apollonius was, however, a mere narrator of wonders, not very worthy of belief.
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is probable that a similar secret existed in other temples. English travellers,* who visited the remains of the temple of Ceres, at Eleusis, observed that the pavement of the sanctuary is rough and unpolished, and much lower than that of the adjacent portico. It is, therefore, probable that a wooden floor, on a level with the portico, covered the present floor, and concealed a vault destined to admit of the action of machinery beneath the sanctuary for moving the floor. In the soil of an interior vestibule, they observed two deeply indented grooves, or ruts ; and as no carriage could possibly be drawn into this place, the travellers conjectured that these were grooves intended to receive the pullies which served in the mysteries to raise a heavy body ; " perhaps," said they, " a moving floor," In confirmation of their opinion, they perceived further
He was a native of Tyanus, in Cappadocia, and lived in the com- mencement of the Christian era. He travelled by land into India, and on his return propagated accounts of the most incredible pro- digies and miracles which he had witnessed ; but he was a shameless impostor, and one of the many pretenders to miracles in his time. One of the few redeeming acts in the life of Nero was the banishment of our hero and his fellow miracle- workers from Rome. At Athens, Apollonius was initiated into the Eleusian mysteries, and per- formed many pretended miracles before his death, which occurred when he was above one hundred years of age. It is remarkable that Philostratus, his biographer, should have believed a tithe of the wonders he has related in his life : and, notwithstanding the evident falsehoods of Apollonius, such was the superstition and credulity of his period, that temples and statues were erected in his honour, and his appellation was, " the true friend of the Gods !" —Ed.
* The unedited Antiquities of Attica, by the Society of Dilettanti. London, 1817.
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on other grooves, which might have served for the counter-balances to raise the floor ; and they also detected places for wedges, to fix it immoveable at the desired height. These were eight holes fixed in blocks of marble and raised above the ground, four on the right, and four on the left, adapted to receive pegs of large dimensions. The seats, on which a person sitting down finds himself fixed, and without the power of moving from, are not, as was supposed, the invention of the eighteenth century. It is related by the mythologists, that Vulcan presented a throne to Juno, on which the Goddess had no sooner seated herself than she found herself enchained to it.*
Vulcan decorated Olympus with tripods which, with- out any apparent motion, took their places in the banquet hall of the Gods.f Apollonius saw and admired similar tripods amongst the sages of India. % The construction of automata is not a recent invention; and we may venture to relate, on the authority of Ma- crobius,§ that at Antium and in the temple of Hierapolis there were moving statues.
Another proof of the ingenuity of the ancients was the wooden dove, so wonderfully constructed by the phi- losopher Archytas,|l that it flew, and sustained itself for
* Pausanias. Attic, cap. xx.
f Homer. Iliad, lib. xvin. verses 375 — 378.
X Philostrat. De vit. Apoll. lib. vi. cap. vi.
§ Macrobe. Saturnal. lib. i. cap. xxiii.
|| Archytas was a native of Tarentum, in Italy, and nourished 400 years before the birth of our Saviour. He was a contempo- rary of Plato, who had been his pupil. He is said to have been a man distinguished for his mathematical knowledge and discoveries
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some time in the air.# This masterpiece of art naturally reminds us of the desire of man, in all ages, to become a rival of the birds of the air, as swimming and the art of navigating in the waters have enabled him to become the rival of the inhabitants of the rivers and seas. We need not mention the story of Daedalus and Icarus as an example. Daedalus, pursued by Minos, for having be- trayed to Theseus the secret of the windings and openings of the labyrinth of Crete, flew from that island with his son :f but his wings were sails, which he was the first in Greece to apply to barks, whilst the vessels of his per- secutor were only rowed with oars. It is probable that he learned the use of sails in Egypt, as he had borrowed from that country the idea of the construction of the labyrinth. But if we turn our eyes towards the East — which we shall often have occasion to do — an author, although we must admit that he is not much to be relied upon,| describes a statue of Apollo which, when carried in religious ceremonies by the priests of the God, raised itself in the air and fell again on exactly the same spot from which it had been carried — a feat simi- lar to that which may be seen performed by any aeronaut in our public gardens. Narratives, the origin of which
in practical mechanics ; and to have been also a profound states- man and a skilful general. Besides the wooden dove, he invented the screw, the crane, and various hydraulic machines. He perished by shipwreck on the coast of Apulia. — Ed.
* A. Gell. Noct. Attic, lib. x. cap. xin.
f Heraclit. De Politiis. verb. Icarus. It is supposed that their sails were their cloaks elevated on oars, and that the son having exercised less skill than his father, in managing his bark, was wrecked on the coast of Icaria. — Ed.
% Le traité de la déesse de Syrie.
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is certainly very ancient, furnish us, also, with two facts which should not be passed over in silence. The one describes a flying chariot, which a man directed through the air as he pleased, and which was exhibited as a masterpiece of art, and not of magic* The other states that, beneath a balloon was attached a little car, in which a man placed himself, and the balloon shooting up into the air rapidly, transported the traveller wherever he desires to go.f
What shall we conclude from these recitals ? There can be only one conclusion, namely, that the perform- ances of this description of mechanism may probably be assigned to an epoch even more remote than that of Archy- tas ;| and that the Tarentine, the disciple of Pythagoras,
* Les Mille et un Jours. Jours ex — cxv.
t Les Mille et une Nuits, 556e nuit, tome vi, pages 144 — 146.
X It is a curious fact, that notwithstanding the efforts which were made at various periods to enable men to raise themselves in the atmosphere, the first aerial voyage in Europe did not take place until the year 1783, when the Mongolfiers, paper manufacturers at Annonay, near Lyons, raised a paper balloon of 23,000 French cubit feet of capacity, filled with air rarified by heat in a chaffer placed below the mouth of the balloon. It rose with great force and rapidity to an elevation of 10,000 toises ; but, as the air soon cooled, it gradually descended. It was, however, thought impru- dent to risk human life in these balloons, and even in those filled with hydrogen gas, when it was first employed ; but, on the 15th of October, 1783, M. Pilatre de Rozier ascended in a Montgolfier, held by ropes to the height of one hundred feet ; and on the 2nd of November, of the same year, M. Pilatre and the Marquis d'Arlander, left the earth in a free balloon, and descended after travelling 5000 toises. The possibility of travelling in this man- ner being thus established, aerostation has gradually improved ; but, although aeronauts can now rise and descend at pleasure, yet they are not able to direct a balloon in the manner of a vessel : they
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who was himself the disciple of the sages of the East, perhaps only excited the admiration of Italy by secrets acquired in the temples of Memphis or of Babylon.
are, therefore, at the control of every current of air into which the balloon is carried. — Ed.
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