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anything of the harmony of the spheres, which "the Almighty God of Concord has arranged in social order, in the golden bands of rhythm," neither do they perceive the silent tones, and gentle breath, which is powerful in the weak, so that they are often carried away by the elevated song, and the inspiring harmony which all beings raise to God.

SECOND SECTION.

MAGNETISM AMONG THE ANCIENT NATIONS; ESPECIALLY THE
ORIENTALS, EGYPTIANS, AND ISRAELITES.

IMAGO, MAGIA, MAGNES.

ACCORDING to the observations previously made, the poeticmagical element repeats itself under many forms in the souls of individuals and nations, according to their innate national character. The revolutions of time and of peculiar individual existence produce only in outward appearance a varied manifestation in the most obscure and lowest barbarism, and in the most perverted activity of the world; while with the enlightenment of reason and morals the inward being is always and everywhere the same. For the objective is reflected upon the imagination and religious feeling, on all hands according to a common type of nature and the mind. In it the material takes the form of the supernatural; and the supernatural impresses itself upon the material through the imagination. Herein lies the broad realm of poetry, of the eternal magical imagination of the human soul, which is at home in two worlds- -one spiritual and one material, and developes the elements of its activity either in itself or through external impulses. Everything, however, whether it come from its own interior, or from the external world, is but a reflected image-a phenomenon-not a being, a reality; but this semblance the imagination endeavours to represent as a reality. It is, therefore, not strange that man finds such delight in the creations of poetry and of his own ima

gination; neither is it strange that he should always regard the mere semblance as a reality, and its own creations as beautiful, whether they contain truth or fallacy. To draw the distinction requires much experience in the outward world, and self-observation of individual spiritual activity. Where this is wanting, there is in nations, as in individuals, no real acknowledgment of the magical appearances, and their laws, to be found.

As we have seen that the religious feelings are the most profoundly rooted in the subjective mind, and the highest supernatural appears in poetic contemplation, so is it easily understood that the religious culture of individuals and nations is always the first-preceding all other human institutions; for poetry and the feelings find their full expression alone in religion. Faith is rooted in the religious feelings, and expresses itself in religious customs, while the creations of poetry receive their highest dignity as realities, as works of art, as it were, only through religion, which consecrates them as living, radiant truths, as poetry itself inspires the religious feeling with the divine grace. This is the origin of all arts; before science and the embodiment of the inward conceptions of the mind, in all its branchesarchitecture, music, and painting. Magic has also been consecrated with religion, as religious customs have everywhere contained something magical.

As the world extends itself in contrasts, so is time divided in its articulation threefold-creation, being, and decay of everything temporal: youth, maturity, age, are the developments of consecutive existence, which, in its various metamorphoses, always follows certain periods, epochs, and stages. By this the varieties of age are given, in which peculiar physiological and psychological phenomena and mutations take place according to fixed types. Thus the moments follow each other in time, as atoms are placed beside each other in space, and the law of the world's development is therefore nothing else than that the designs of the Eternal should be revealed in being. But as, temporally as well as materially, each single being is limited and finite, so is the development very confined, and is nowhere perfected. It often remains stationary at a certain point, or shows active powers only in certain directions, by which it appears neither to fill up nor

to pass over the normal stages. That which developed itself in the evolution often disappears with the involution, so that the purport is not manifested individually, but in the mass: this mass or generic comprehension, however, contains an endless past, present, and future, according to the extent of time. As regards, therefore, mankind, it will never be perfectly manifested in mere sections of time, either in the past or the present; and as the earthly Acon is also finite, so will probably the perfect mental development of the human mind never be ripened in all respects on the earth, as the present still shows so much partiality, contest and struggling; and the past, as it were, but the outline of a future development. As that which is non-existent still remains an undisclosed unit of the undivisible whole, so does development still slumber in its germ; so arise in the continuous division of the whole-in the unfolding of capabilities-breaks, which are again but units of the undeveloped whole. And thus the past-the period of origin and being -does but contain the element of life in potentia, with occasional varieties of vital activity; the present embrace the past as a heritage, but in another shape, and mostly to other purpose, than the original one; and the future, the period of another decay, draws its strength from the present, and its fruits will, according to the nature of this strength and the yet unknown outward influences, not contain any perfection: that is, an universal development of all capacities and power will not take place, and the ripening of the upspringing endeavours will not be perfect. The purpose becomes perfect in time, but will not be continued in any particular period. (Dr. W. Butte, "Biotomie des Menschen, &c." Bonn, 1829.)

Applying the above remarks to the history of mankind, we find that it may be divided into three principal periods of development, according to the course of time, and especially in respect to magic, as has been clearly pointed out in No. 7 of the "Deutschen Vierteljahrschrift"-1, the Oriental; 2, the Græco-roman; and 3, the Germanic age. Magic has remained the same constitutionally in all periods, but its manifestations took everywhere a peculiar character and variety of form. As in all phenomena of life, so in the East did an universal, unrevealed, inward direction of the senses

take place through magic. The Græco-roman age had annexed the oriental element, but in its more outwardly directed activity the magical unfolded itself in more numerous shapes; less in the simple, all-governing strength of the soul, than in the poetic ornaments, and in certain directions fantastic imaginings of mythology. The Germanic spiritual life took root in the Græco-roman elements, and therefrom arose a highly remarkable process of fermentation, from which new shoots were put forth in all directions. In the peculiar self-power of the Germans, the abundance of materials collected from all sides must naturally sustain this process the longer, because a new life was in the act of being created from the past. Thus the middle ages form the period of germination, the taking root and real commencement of the Germanic time-history. That which then was produced was certainly but an imperfect sucker shooting out from the vital sap of the parent stem; the Greek dæmons, the Oriental Dschinus and Devs, were mixed up with the Jewish angels of light and of darkness, and with the Germanic fairies, elves, and allrunes: what else could arise from this but a wild belief in spirits? But as with the Germanic period a new vital direction commenced, in material respect to the investigations of the universe and nature, and spiritually to the unfolding of the Christian faith, so is it clear that magic cannot be fully understood before the confines of these two directions are fixed, and their true tendency explained, and to a certain degree understood. It is only in modern times that the object of these endeavours to approach truth is felt, and thus we begin to understand more and more the nature of magic and its reality. But as magic is but little acknowledged by the historian, so does the inquirer into nature do but little justice to magnetism; a blind scepticism, and the radical unbelief of incomprehensible things, restrain both from perfectly understanding the wonders, and cause him either to stigmatise them as unsubstantial fabrics of the imagination, and unnatural and supernatural falsities, or to receive them as genuine appearances into the records of physiology.

We shall find the same characteristics of the imagination prevalent in the three periods of Oriental, Greek, and Germanic magic; but here, as in the romance of

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