Part 32 (1/2)

A hundred other similar facts might be cited, which might pa.s.s for magical operations, if we did not know that they are simple contrivances and tricks of art, performed by persons well exercised in such things. It may be that sometimes people have ascribed to magic and the evil spirit operations like those we have just related, and that what have been taken for the spirits of deceased persons were often arranged on purpose by young people to frighten pa.s.sers-by. They will cover themselves with white or black, and show themselves in a cemetery in the posture of persons requesting prayers; after that they will be the first to exclaim that they have seen a spirit: at other times it will be pick-pockets, or young men, who will hide their amorous intrigues, or their thefts and knavish tricks, under this disguise.

Sometimes a widow, or heirs, from interested motives, will publicly declare that the deceased husband appears in his house, and is in torment; that he has asked or commanded such and such things, or such and such rest.i.tutions. I own that this may happen, and does happen sometimes; but it does not follow that spirits never return. The return of souls is infinitely more rare than the common people believe; I say the same of pretended magical operations and apparitions of the demon.

It is remarked that the greater the ignorance which prevails in a country, the more superst.i.tion reigns there; and that the spirit of darkness there exercises greater power, in proportion as the nations we plunged in irregularity, and into deeper moral darkness. Louis Vivez[437] testifies that, in the newly-discovered countries in America, nothing is more common than to see spirits which appear at noonday, not only in the country, but in towns and villages, speaking, commanding, sometimes even striking men. Olaus Magnus, Archbishop of Upsal, who has written on the antiquities of the northern nations, observes that in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Finmark, and Lapland, they frequently see spectres or spirits, which do many wonderful things; that there are even some amongst them who serve as domestics to men, and take the horses and other cattle to pasture.

The Laplanders, even at this day, as well those who have remained in idolatry as those who have embraced Christianity, believe the apparition of the manes or ghosts, and offer them a kind of sacrifice.

I believe that prepossession, and the prejudices of childhood, have much more to do with this belief than reason and experience. In effect, among the Tartars, where barbarism and ignorance reign as much as in any country in the world, they talk neither of spirits nor of apparitions, no more than among the Mahometans, although they admit the apparitions of angels made to Abraham and the patriarchs, and that of the Archangel Gabriel to Mahomet himself.

The Abyssinians, a very rude and ignorant people, believe neither in sorcerers, nor spells, nor magicians; they say that it is giving too much power to the demon, and by that they fall into the error of the Manichaeans, who admit two principles, the one of good, which is G.o.d, and the other of evil, which is the devil. The Minister Becker, in his work ent.i.tled ”The Enchanted World,” (Le Monde Enchante,) laughs at apparitions of spirits and evil angels, and ridicules all that is said of the effects of magic: he maintains that to believe in magic is contrary to Scripture and religion.

But whence comes it, then, that the Scriptures forbid us to consult magicians, and that they make mention of Simon the magician, of Elymas, another magician, and of the works of Satan? What will become of the apparitions of angels, so well noted in the Old and New Testaments? What will become of the apparitions of Onias to Judas Maccabeus, and of the devil to Jesus Christ himself, after his fast of forty days? What will be said of the apparition of Moses at the transfiguration of the Saviour; and an infinity of other appearances made to all kinds of persons, and related by wise, grave, and enlightened authors? Are the apparitions of devils and spirits more difficult to explain and conceive than those of angels, which we cannot rationally dispute without overthrowing the entire Scriptures, and practices and belief of the churches?

Does not the apostle tell us that the angel of darkness transforms himself into an angel of light? Is not the absolute renunciation of all belief in apparitions a.s.saulting Christianity in its most sacred authority, in the belief of another life, of a church still subsisting in another world, of rewards for good actions, and of punishments for bad ones; the utility of prayers for the dead, and the efficacy of exorcisms? We must then in these matters keep the medium between excessive credulity and extreme incredulity; we must be prudent, moderate, and enlightened; we must, according to the advice of St.

Paul, test everything, examine everything, yield only to evidence and known truth.

Footnotes:

[432] Ezek. xxi. 21.

[433] Hosea iv. 12.

[434] Aug. lib. xiv. de Civit. Dei, c. 24.

[435] Galen. de Differ. Sympt.

[436] By M. Fransquin Chanoine de Taul.

[437] Ludov. Vives, lib. i. de Veritate Fidei, p. 540.

CHAPTER XLIX.

THE SECRETS OF PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY TAKEN FOR SUPERNATURAL THINGS.

It is possible to allege against my reasoning the secrets of physics and chemistry, which produce an infinity of wonderful effects, and appear beyond the power of natural agency. We have the composition of a phosphorus, with which they write; the characters do not appear by daylight, but in the dark we see them s.h.i.+ne; with this phosphorus, figures can be traced which would surprise and even alarm during the night, as has been done more than once, apparently to cause maliciously useless fright. _La poudre ardente_ is another phosphorus, which, provided it is exposed to the air, sheds a light both by night and by day. How many people have been frightened by those little worms which are found in certain kinds of rotten wood, and which give a brilliant flame by night.

We have the daily experience of an infinite number of things, all of them natural, which appear above the ordinary course of nature,[438]

but which have nothing miraculous in them, and ought not to be attributed to angels or demons; for instance, teeth and noses taken from other persons, and applied to those who have lost similar parts; of this we find many instances in authors. These teeth and noses fall off directly when the person from whom they were taken dies, however great the distance between these two persons may be.

The presentiments experienced by certain persons of what happens to their relations and friends, and even of their own death, are not at all miraculous. There are many instances of persons who are in the habit of feeling these presentiments, and who in the night, even when asleep, will say that such a thing has happened, or is about to happen; that such messengers are coming, and will announce to them such and such things.

There are dogs that have the sense of smelling so keen that they scent from a good distance the approach of any person who has done them good or harm. This has been proved many times, and can only proceed from the diversity of organs in those animals, some of which have the scent much keener than others, and upon which the spirits which exhale from other bodies act more quickly and at a greater distance than in others. Certain persons have such an acute sense of hearing that they can hear what is whispered even in another chamber, of which the door is well closed. They cite as an example of this, a certain Marie Bucaille, to whom it was thought that her guardian angel discovered what was said at a great distance from her.

Others have the smell so keen that they distinguish by the odor all the men and animals they have ever seen, and scent their approach a long way off. Blind persons pretty often possess this faculty, as well as that of discerning the color of different stuffs by the touch, from horse-hair to playing-cards.