and tempest which scattered the mighty army of Brennus the Gaul, at the siege of the celebrated temple of Delphos, were ascribed by the credulous Greeks to the magical incantations of the priests, though the latter gave all the credit to Apollo.21 In modern times, we find no difficulty in imputing them to natural causes, but it must be admitted that, by averting the capture of the Delphian temple, they had all the effect of a miraculous interposition. Apollo, however, offered no such opposition when the rich edifice was despoiled by Nero, and there was neither earthquake nor tempest when it was finally destroyed by Constantine.

Whatever may be thought of the ancient belief in magic, and however inexplicable some of the facts connected with it may appear, we see that the delusion gradually loosened its hold over mankind, dissolving before the light of reason. If we suppose that the powers of darkness designed to use it as a means of enslaving the human race, and keeping it in perpetual bondage, making the universal passion for the mystic and supernatural the strong refuge of superstition, of ignorance, and of barbarism, they have in nothing been more

21 Stra. Del.

signally worsted. The pursuit of such an occult science necessarily fell to the more enlightened classes, to priests, physicians, astronomers, and mathematicians, who, indeed, to magnify themselves, were too likely to invest it with fictitious might, and minister to popular credulity. But though the great majority countenanced imposture, though they might even believe in their assumed powers, their course of study insensibly led them to wiser conclusions, which, if at first suppressed, or only whispered among a few, were destined to spread abroad, and sap the very foundations of the black art.

This result was not to be accomplished in a day: it was the work of a round of ages. The rock is worn by the drop of water: it is the gentle shower, penetrating the earth, that ultimately forms the river. An insect works unmarked in the depths of the sea, raises the coral reef, and, on this foundation, erects islands, promontories, and peninsulas. Just so has it been with the human intellect. Plodding on and on, in the dark, in the abyss of ignorance, for thousands of years it might seem stationary, but all the time it was making way, depositing layer on layer, and imperceptibly rising, till, at last, it reached the surface, breasted the

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waves, and formed the firm ground whereon we stand.

The investigations imposed by astrology were of eminent service to astronomy, involving as they did a close observation of the heavens, of the movements and periods of the celestial bodies, and of all the phenomena of the skies. In the same manner, divination from sacrificial offerings furnished the first rudiments of anatomy. The physician-priest saw in the exposed entrails the internal economy of the animal structure, and, as will be shown in our next chapter, was led to augment his knowledge by examining other animals, dissecting, comparing, and drawing analogies. The diffusion of practical information was a check to the occult sciences; and it is a sure indication of their decline when we find satirical poets, such as Horace and Juvenal, holding them up to derision. They were still more discountenanced by Christianity, in its origin so simple, so pure, and so holy, though Christians soon adopted superstitions of their own, shrines, and relics and charms, from which they expected all the results of magic. Astrology and sorcery, indeed, long maintained their usurpation over human reason; and even so late as the sixteenth century

of the Christian era, they were universally accepted in France, as well in the polished court of Henry the Fourth as in the closet of Catherine de Medicis. But this belongs to a later period; and here we shall only remark, that, even in the midst of the dark ages, a better spirit was not extinct; and when an astrologer who had predicted the success of the Norman expedition was drowned on his passage to England, William the Conqueror shrewdly exclaimed, How little could he know of the fate of others when he could not foresee his own!'

IV.

THE HEALING ART.

THERE was profound import, a store of deep meaning and philosophy, in that admonition of the heathen sage to his pupil-Know Thyself! In those benighted days this important branch of knowledge was altogether obscured; and man was not only unacquainted with his origin and destiny, not only uninstructed as to the mechanism of his mind, but was very imperfectly informed of his physical structure. Of the frame which he brought with him into the world, with which he was through life inseparably linked, and which he carried with him to the grave, he knew little or nothing. Its development, its operations, its diseases, its infirmities, appearing continually before his eyes, in his own experience, and addressing themselves to his own sensibility, were, nevertheless, mysteries as great to him as the revolutions of the sun, or the courses of the planets. Night was not more dark than this unexplored body, which imprisoned, rather