48 
doubt equally well founded. And even now, the popular name 
for scrofula in England is ,the Kings evil.* 
The words of Henri Martin: ,monarchic and national pride 
contributing’, suggest the idea that the eraze of the Bugonia 
may also have been fostered by some similar sentimental mo- 
tive. From the existing records, we may describe this motive 
as follows: All nature, for the ancients, seemed permeated 
with Divinity, and in this universal deification — oxen, bees 
and honey are treated with a particular tenderness, and often 
connected with feasts, altars and Divinity itself. I have quoted 
from Aelian, a passage in that sense, which I have chosen for 
the motto of the present essay. The episode of Aristaeus, al- 
ready referred to by me, is replete with the same spirit. And 
the same is the case with the passage from Varro (de re 
rustica, II, 5), which I have reproduced on p. 21. 
The book of Robert-Tornow, De apium mellisque apud ve- 
teres significatione et symbolica et mythologica etc. 1893 (com- 
pare my List of authorities) was written for the very purpose 
of illustrating this particular feature of the life of the ancients, 
and contains a multitude of illustrations about the sanctity of 
bees and honey (1). 
This suggestion of a sentimental side of the Bugonia, as 
partly explanatory of the persistency of the craze, I offer only 
tentatively, without attaching much importance to it. My prin- 
cipal object in bringing forward the mediaeval superstition was 
to show that the depth of human credulity is unfathomable, 
and that the Bugonia of the ancients was by no means the 
most grotesque exhibition of it. On the other hand it would 
carry me too far to examine human folly, and illusions in 
general, in the light of essential ingredients of human hapiness. 
Erasmus of Rotterdam has written a celebrated book on this 
subject, the deep and true meaning of which has not yet, it 
(1) Tornow mentions among others the celebrated rhetorician Libanius, 
contemporary of emperor Julian (4th century A. D.) as having composed a book 
»Bovis laudes*, (The praise of Oxen) in which he also speaks of the honey 
procured from them. 
