tion probably led him to conclude that things resembling each other or having any seeming connection must be related by strong bonds of sympathy and have power over each other. Since he had already attributed human characteristics to matter, he naturally now observed no distinction between the animate and the inanimate, the material and the spiritual. A wooden image might be used to affect the fate of a human being, or the utterance of alluring and terrifying sounds to produce change in unfeeling and unresponsive matter.
Moreover, as man observed the world about him, he would note many a phenomenon in nature which he could explain only by assuming strange and subtle influences. There was, for instance, the magnet, so different from other stones; the hot spring, so different from other waters; the action of electricity—still a mystery. Such things, too, as a calf with five legs, a dream, a sneeze, appealed to him as peculiar and striking, and perplexed him. He thought that they must have some important significance. His attempt to explain all such phenomena generally led him into magic.
from reading its introduction. Although he has defined magic almost in so many words as the attitude of primitive man towards the universe, he himself interprets magic much more narrowly when he comes to write his book proper, as indeed its title. Magic and Astrology, suggests. In short the thought that science and magic may at one time have mingled does not seem to impress him, and his work is of little aid to one considering our present subject. For instance, he cites Pliny only as an opponent of magic. Maury's work, moreover, comprising in its historical portion but a little over two hundred pages—and these nearly half filled by foot-notes—can hardly be regarded as more than a brief narrative sketch of the subject.
Considerable erudition is displayed in Maury's references, especially those to Greek and Roman writers, and from page 208 to 211. Maury gives a good bibliography of some of the chief secondary works dealing with magic. More was written upon the subject shortly before his time than has been since.
