564 THE INTELLECTUAL RISE IN ELECTRICITY. 



We shall go far astray if the great force of such a belief 

 be not kept steadily in view throughout any effort we may 

 make to discover possible knowledge of the ancients l re- 

 garding the nature of lightning or the provision of safe- 

 guards against it. It is useless to search the annals of an 

 intensely religious or superstitious people to discover 

 either physical explanations or material defenses. Equally 

 unavailing is it to assume that a wrong interpretation of 

 " the cause of thunder n could result in an adequate means 

 of protection. The only rational basis for entertaining 

 the notion that some knowledge may have existed in re- 

 mote times must be found in the supposition that chance 

 circumstances under which the lightning-stroke was ap- 

 parently warded off were recognized and reproduced em- 

 pirically. If, for example, it were perceived that the lofty 

 trees of a forest were struck oftener than those of less 

 growth, it would not be difficult to conclude that the 

 erection of high towers, spires, minarets, or obelisks in 

 the vicinity of low buildings might result in providing 

 scape-goats or sacrifices upon which the celestial fire might 

 wreak its vengeance, leaving the more important human 

 habitations unharmed. 2 



Nothing is so difficult as prophecy before, nothing so 

 easy as prophecy after the event; and the history of the 

 lightning-rod has many an instance of the latter. The 

 Temple of Jerusalem, says one archaeologist, 3 was fully 

 protected, because Josephus 4 records that on the roof there 



1 See Salverte: Philosophy of Magic. N. Y., 1847, vol. ii., p. 150, in 

 which there is an extended discussion on the electrical phenomena em- 

 ployed by the magicians, with many references to ancient writings. 



2 Under such a theory as this it may perhaps be possible, for example, 

 to account for the two thousand ancient pagodas, which are now falling 

 into ruin in China, and which, although apparently useless, act as the 

 Chinese geomancers claim, "to drawdown every felicitous omen from 

 above, so that fire, water, wood, earth and metal will be at the service of 

 the people, the soil productive, trade prosperous, and everybody sub- 

 missive and happy." Williams: The Middle Kingdom, ii, 747. 



3 Michaelis: Mag. Scient. de Gottingen, 3d yr., 5th No., 1783. 

 4 Josephus: Bel. Jud. adv. Rom., Lib. v, c. xiv. 





