Magic in names and in other things / by Edward Clodd.

  • Edward Clodd
Date:
1920
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Magic in names and in other things / by Edward Clodd. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    23/256 page 11
    the contrary, and despite what is proffered in support of them, the mass of evidence in favour of the saying of Statius,1 primus in orbe deos fecit timor, is overwhelming. The emotion of fear, undisciplined by knowledge, has begotten a crowd of dreaded beings, from ghosts to gods. None of them are reasoned products of the mind. “ Fear in sooth takes such a hold of all mortals, because they see many operations go on in earth and heaven, the causes of which they can in no way understand.” 2 Both black and white magic operate through tangible and intangible things. The condition of nervous instability, the confusion between persons and things and between objective and subjective, in other words, between what is external to the mind and what is in the mind itself, all foster belief in the savage that the sorcerer can work evil upon him by obtaining drops of his blood, clippings of his hair or nails; refuse of his food; his saliva, sweat, excreta; his portrait; any piece of his clothing that has his smell in it, even the earth taken from a man’s footprint because it has come into contact with his body. All alike become vehicles of mana. Hence, before dealing with the main subject of this book, the warrant for filling a few pages with 1 Thebais, Bk. III. 661. 2 De Rerum Natura, Bk. I. 151-154.
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