2. With the Shemites magic takes a lower place. No- where is it even part of religion, yet it is looked upon as a powerful engine, and generally unlawful or lawful according to the aid invoked. Among many of the Shemitic peoples there linger the remnants of a primi- tive fetishism. Sacred trees and stones are reverenced from an old superstition, of which they do not always know the meaning, derived from the nations whose place they have taken. Thus fetishism remains, although in a kind of fossil state. The importance of astrology with the Shemites has tended to raise the character of their magic, which deals rather with the discovery of sup- posed existing influences than with the production of new influences. The onlj' direct association of magic with religion is where the priests, as the educated class, have taken the functions of magicians ; but this is far different from the case of the Nigritians, where the ma- gicians are the only priests. The Shemites, however, when depending on human reason alone, seem never to have doubted the efficacy of magical arts, yet recourse to their aid was not usually with them the first idea of a man in doubt. Though the case of Saul cannot be taken as applying to the whole race, yet, even with the heathen Shemites, prayers must have been held to be of more value than incantations.
MAGIC
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MAGIC
The Iranians assign to magic a still less important position. It can scarcely be traced in the relics of old nature-worship, which they with greater skill than the Egyittians interwove with their more intellectual be- liefs, as the Greeks gave the objects of reverence in Ar- cadia and Crete a place in poetical myths, and the Scan- dinavians animated the hard remains of primitive su- perstition. The character of the ancient belief is utter- ly gone with the assigning of new reasons for the rev- erence of its sacred objects. Magic always maintained some hold on men's minds, but the stronger intellects despised it, like the Roman commander who threw the sacred chickens overboard, and the Greek who defied an adverse omen at the beginning of a great battle. When any, oppressed by the sight of the calamities of mankind, sought to resolve the mysterious problem, they fixed, like /Eschylus, not upon the childish notion of a cliance-government by many conflicting agencies, but upon the nobler idea of a dominating fate. Men of highly sensitive temperaments have always inclined to a belief in magic, and there has therefore been a section of Iranian philosophers in all ages who have paid atten- tion to its practice; but, expelled from religion, it has lield but a low and precarious place in philosophy.
The Hebrews had no magic of their own. It was so strictly forbidden by the law that it could never after- wards have any recognised existence save in times of general heresy or apostasy, and the same was doubtless the case in the patriarchal ages. The magical prac- tices which obtained among the Hebrews were there- fore borrowed from the nations around. The hold they gained was such as we should have expected with a Shemitic race, making allowance for the discredit thrown upon them by the prohibitions of the law. From the first entrance into the Land of Promise until the destruc- tion of Jerusalem we have constant glimpses of magic practiced in secret, or resorted to, not alone by the com- mon, but also by the great. The Talmud abounds in notices of contemporary magic among the Jews, show- ing that it survived idolatry notwithstanding their orig- inal connection, and was supposed to produce real ef- fects. The Koran in like manner treats charms and in- cantations as capable of producing evil consequences when used against a man. It is a distinctive charac- teristic of the Bible that from first to last it warrants no such trust or dread. In the Psalms, the most personal of all the books of Scripture, there is no prayer to be protected against magical influences. The believer prays to be delivered from every kind of evil that could hurt the body or the soul, but he says nothing of the machinations of sorcerers. Here and everywhere mag- ic is passed by, or, if mentioned, mentioned only to be condemned (comp. Psa. cvi, 28). Let those who affirm that they see 'm the Psalms merely human piety, and in Job and Ecclesiastes merely human philosophy, ex- plain the absence in them, and throughout the Scrip- tures, of the expression of superstitious feelings that are inherent in the Shemitic mind. Let them explain the luxuriant growth, in the after-literature of the Hebrews and Arabs, and notably in the Talmud and the Koran, of these feelings with no root in those older writings from which that after-literature was derived. If the Bible, the Talmud, and the Koran be but several ex- pressions of the Shemitic mnid, dilfering only through the effect of time, how can this contrast be accounted for? — the very opposite of what obtains elsewhere: for superstitions are generally strongest in the earlier liter- ature of a race, and gradually fade, unless a condition of barbarism restore their vigor. Tiiose who see in the Bible a divine work can understand how a God- taught ])reachcr coidd throw aside the miserable fears of his race, and boldly tell man to trust iii his Maker aliine. Here, as in all maMcrs, the histiir\- of the Bible confirms its doctrine. In the doctrinal Scriptures mag- ic is passed by with contempt, in the historical Scrip- tures the reasonableness of this contempt is shown. Whenever the practiscrs of magic attempt to combat