LETTEES ON NATUEAL MAGIC. 



nize all the transformations of the modern phan- 

 tasmagoria. 



It would be an interesting pursuit to embody 

 the information which history supplies respecting 

 the fables and incantations of the ancient super- 

 stitions, and to show how far they can be explained 

 by the scientific knowledge which then prevailed. 

 This task has, to a certain extent, been performed 

 by M. Eusebe Salverte, in a work on the occult 

 sciences which has recently appeared ; but not- 

 withstanding the ingenuity and learning which it 

 displays, the individual facts are too scanty to 

 support the speculations of the author, and the 

 descriptions are too meagre to satisfy the curiosity 

 of the reader.* 



In the following letters I propose to take a 

 wider range, and to enter into more minute and 

 popular details. The principal phenomena of 

 nature, and the leading combinations of arts, which 

 bear the impress of a supernatural character, will 

 pass under our review, and our attention will be 

 particularly called to those singular illusions of 

 sense, by which the most perfect organs either 

 cease to perform their functions, or perform them 

 faithlessly ; and where the efforts and the crea- 

 tions of the mind predominate over the direct 

 perceptions of external nature. 



In executing this plan, the task of selection is 



* We must caution the young reader against some of the 

 views given in M. Salverte's work. In his anxiety to account 

 for everything miraculous by natural causes, he has ascribed 

 to the same origin some of these events in sacred history 

 which Christians canot but regard as the result of divine 

 agency. 



