Bygone Beliefs: being a series of excursions in the byways of thought by Redgrove, H. Stanley (Herbert Stanley), 1887-1943

BLETCHLEY, BUCKS, _December_ 1919.

CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii 1. SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF MEDIAEVAL THOUGHT . . . . . . . . . 1 2. PYTHAGORAS AND HIS PHILOSOPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 3. MEDICINE AND MAGIC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 4. SUPERSTITIONS CONCERNING BIRDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 5. THE POWDER OF SYMPATHY: A CURIOUS MEDICAL SUPERSTITION . . 47 6. THE BELIEF IN TALISMANS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 7. CEREMONIAL MAGIC IN THEORY AND PRACTICE . . . . . . . . . . 87 8. ARCHITECTURAL SYMBOLISM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .111 9. THE QUEST OF THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE. . . . . . . . . . . .121 10. THE PHALLIC ELEMENT IN ALCHEMICAL DOCTRINE. . . . . . . . .149 11. ROGER BACON: AN APPRECIATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .183 12. THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .193

{the LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS are incomplete and raw OCR output!}

PAGE 46. Symbolic Alchemical Design from Mutus Liber (1677) . PLATE: 25, to face p.176 47. Symbolic Alchemical Design illustrating the Work of Woman, from MAIER's Atalanta Fugiens . . . ,, 26, ,, 178 48. Symbolic Alchemica Design, Hermaphrodite, from MAIER's Atalanta Fugiens. . ,, 27, ,, 180 49. ROGER BACON presenting a Book to a King, from a Fifteenth Century Miniature in the Bodleian Library, Oxford . . .,, 28, ,, 184 50. ROGER BACON, from a Portrait in Knole Castle . . ,, 29, ,, 188 51. BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE, from an engraved Portrait by ROBERT WHITE ....30...194 52. HENRY MORE, from a Portrait by DAVID LOGGAN, engraved ad vivum, 1679 . . . ,, 31, ,, 198 53. RALPH CUDWORTH, from an engraved Portrait by VERTUE, after LOGGAN, forming the Frontispiece to CUDWORTH's Treatise Concerning Morality (1731) ,, 32, ,, 3~

BYGONE BELIEFS

I

SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF MEDAEVAL THOUGHT

IN the earliest days of his upward evolution man was satisfied with a very crude explanation of natural phenomena--that to which the name "animism" has been given. In this stage of mental development all the various forces of Nature are personified: the rushing torrent, the devastating fire, the wind rustling the forest leaves--in the mind of the animistic savage all these are personalities, spirits, like himself, but animated by motives more or less antagonistic to him.