but which are not so easy to express with such good feeling as these letters show.

After the publication of the "Hypothesis," Newton seems to have conversed with Robert Boyle on the subject of its application of chemistry, and in 1679 wrote him a long letter which we must next examine.

CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND.

PHILIP E. B. JOURDAIN.

"Ibid., p. 145.

SOME MEDIEVAL CONCEPTIONS OF MAGIC.*

AGIC is attracting attention to-day. Students of folk-lore and of the history of religon cannot afford to neglect it. Anthropologists have found that it colors much of the life of primitive man, and sociologists have begun to deal with it as an important social manifestation. It occupies no small part of the written remains of Assyria and Babylonia and of the Greek papyri; in fact, its traces are evident throughout the literatures of Hellas and of Rome. The middle ages too, although they have as yet received little attention from serious modern students of magic, were a time when there was a great deal of magic and no little talk about it.

It may help us in forming a satisfactory definition and theory of magic for our own use, if we note some previous definitions of it by men who actually lived in the midst of it and believed in it. In the case of the savage we apply our term "magic" to certain of his practices, but medieval men used the very same word "magic" as we, and on the whole the extant writers of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries discuss magic more fully and directly than those even of the days of the elder Pliny and Apuleius. The present article will set forth a number of discussions of magic or significant allusions thereto in books and writers of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Space will not permit me to give even an idea of the vast collection of *The author has not seen proofs of this article, owing to his absence abroad.

medieval beliefs and practices which one might classify as magic. We must limit ourselves to a few authors who define magic and omit the many who illustrate the thing without designating it by that name.

THE "POLYCRATICUS" OF JOHN OF SALISBURY.

We turn first to Polycraticus,' written about 1159 by John of Salisbury, who studied and taught in various schools of western Europe, then was long employed in official church business, and finally became bishop of Chartres in 1176. The Polycraticus seems designed as somewhat light reading for the cultured public, and treats such "trifles" (nugae) as gambling, hunting, the theater and music. John confesses that the book is little more than a patchwork of others' opinions without acknowledgment of authorities; what he probably prides himself on most is the Latin style and the numerous quotations from classical and Christian authors. In short, it is a conservative work, repeating traditional attitudes in an attractive, dilletante literary form and with such rational criticism as some study of the classics may be supposed to produce when qualified by scrupulous adherence to medieval Christian dogma.

John's discussion of magic is what one might expect from these premises. He gives, except for slight changes in arrangement and wording and the introduction of a few new items of information, a stock definition prevalent among Christian writers at least since the time of Isidore of Seville. In his Etymologies (VIII, 9) Isidore put together from such sources as Pliny the Elder, Jerome, and Augustine an account of the history and character of the magic arts which would fill about five ordinary pages. This passage, somewhat altered by omitting poetical quotations or inserting transitional sentences, was otherwise copied Johannes de Saresberia, "Polycraticus sive De nugis curialium et vestigiis philosophorum," Migne's Patrologia Latina, Vol. 199.

word for word by Rabanus Maurus in his De consanguineorum nuptiis et de magorum praestigiis falsisque divinationibus tractatus, and by Burchard of Worms and Ive of Chartres in their respective Decreta, while Hinemar of Rheims in his De Divortio Lotharii et Tetbergae copied it with more omissions. It was also in substance retained in the Decretum of Gratian, whose epoch-making work in canon law appeared in the twelfth century.

2

This stereotyped theological definition of magic regards it not as one of many superstitions or occult arts, but as a generic term covering various superstitions and occult sciences. Very sweeping are the powers attributed to magicians. "The magicians, so-called on account of the magnitude of their evil deeds, are those who by divine permission agitate the elements, strip objects of their forms, often predict the future, disturb men's minds, despatch dreams, and slay by mere force of incantation." Magic thus includes prediction of the future as well as transformation of nature and bewitching of human beings. It subdivides into praestigia or illusions; maleficia or sorcery, literally "evil deeds"; and "various species of evil mathematica," a word used here in the sense of divination. Varro, "most curious of philosophers," distinguished four kinds of divination from the four elements, namely, pyromancy, aeromancy, hydromancy, and geomancy. Under these four heads, John asserts, are to be classed many subvarieties. His list, however, includes some arts which might better be put under pracstigia or maleficia than under divination. He names necromancers, enchanters, vultivoli (sorcerers employing human effigies of wax or

Migne, Patrologia Latina, Vol. 199, cols. 406-409; 110: 1007-1110; 140: 839ff; 161: 760ff; and 125: 716-729. Moreover, Burchard continues to follow Rabanus word for word for some ten columns after the conclusion of their mutual excerpt from Isidore, while Ivo is identical with Burchard for 15 more columns. I think that I am the first to point out the identity of these five accounts. Professor Burr, in a note to his paper on "The Literature of Witchcraft" (American Hist. Assoc. Papers, IV, 241, 1890) has described the accounts of Rabanus and Hinemar but without explicitly noting their close resemblance, although he characterizes Rabanus's article as "mainly compiled."

clay), pythii or pythonici, imaginarii (who try to control spirits by use of images), specularii (who predict by looking into polished basins, glistening swords and mirrors), interpreters of dreams, chiromancers, arioli, aruspices, astrologers of various sorts, and so on.

We have already heard John speak of the evil deeds of the magicians. In a subsequent discussion in the second book of the Polycraticus,' where he treats more fully and perhaps with more originality the various species of magic, his attitude continues to be one of unvarying, though not always very vehement, condemnation. He occasionally makes criminal charges against magic, such as exposing children to vampires or cutting them up and devouring them, and exclaims, "What shall I say of the necromancers....except that those deserve death who try to obtain knowledge from death?" He occasionally asserts that an occult art is irrational, as when he remarks that the error of chiromancy, "since it is not based on reason, need not be opposed with arguments," or when he sneers with Cicero and Augustine at divination from sneezes and "inane incantations and.... superstitious ligatures," or when he affirms that the reputed nocturnal gatherings of witches are a delusion and that "what they suffer in spirit they most erroneously and wretchedly believe to happen in the flesh."8 But his chief reason for condemning the magic arts is the traditional Christian view, as old as Origen and Augustine, that they are due entirely to the influence of demons.* Scripture forbids them and God does not see fit to grant men such divining or transforming powers which he reserves for himself in signs and miracles. Indeed John's charges that magic is criminal and 'Polycrat., Liber I, Prologus, and Caps. 1-23; Migne, 199: 415-475. Polycrat., II, 17. "Ibid., II, 27. Ibid., II, 17. See too the Canon, Ut episcopi in Burchard's Decreta, Lib. X, Cap. 1.

Idem.

'Ibid., II, 1.

*See my article on "The Attitude of Origen and Augustine Toward Magic," in The Monist, January, 1908.