Yet prophet-like that lone one stood
With dauntless words and high,
That shook the sere leaves from the wood
As if a storm passed by!
Saying, We are twins in death, proud Sun,
Thy face is cold, thy race is run,
’Tis Mercy bids thee go:
For thou ten thousand years
Hast seen the tide of human tears
That shall no longer flow.”
CHAPTER XXVII.
PREDICTION AND PREVENTION.
“Fain would th’ ephemeral pigmies then aspire
To drive, like Phäethon, the sun’s coach of fire,
To grapple with the lightning in the sky,
Or with the restless winds abroad to fly.
Not all the bolts of Jove, nor Phœbus’ wrath,
May fright them from their wild, self-chosen path.
Though poplars wave above ten thousand graves,
And myriad Icari lie beneath the waves,
The rest, as once the Titans, still press on,
And strive to thrust the great gods from their throne.”
VER since man has dwelt upon the earth, there has been a constant effort, not merely to foretell the future, but to control it. So strong is man’s faith in his own capacity, that wizards, jugglers, fakirs and tricksters, and necromancers have always found their vocation a lucrative one. It is easy to make one’s living by imposing upon the credulity of the public. Not merely the American people, but every other people, like to be humbugged. So strong is the tendency to gullibility, that the most extraordinary pretensions are the most readily credited. The capability of the public to judge in such cases is well illustrated by the Grecian story of the famous mimic, whose imitation of the grunt of a pig was so perfect, that thousands came to witness his performance. A countryman remarked that he could do still better, and, concealing a pig under his coat, he stole upon the stage. Pinching the animal’s ear, the pig squealed violently, but the audience hissed the squeak as a miserable fiasco. Whereat the countryman produced the pig, and left the audience pondering the situation.
The same tendency causes men to desire to attribute unusual appearances to causes beyond the domain of natural law. The savage finds thunder and lightning in the discharge of a gun; mysterious magic in a telescope; downright sorcery in quinine; witchcraft and incantation in a written prescription. If one, a little shrewder than his fellows, after long study of an ant’s nest, conceive the idea that they have a regularly constituted community, with a queen at the head, he needs only to suggest such a thing to his neighbors, to be set down as having communications with the Ant Queen; and he may readily aspire to the chieftainship, thence to be known as the Ant Chief. Imagination is so much easier than observation. Doubtless old Numa’s thoughtful air in his daily retreat, gave rise to the tale that he was in consultation with the nymph of a fountain. Any one who had devoted an hour each day to gazing pensively into a stream, might have achieved a like reputation, as the Hindoo fakir is held in high repute for sanctity, because he preserves strict silence and gazes for years at the end of his nose.
So when men achieve new results by natural means, it is preferred to assume otherwise. Good Roger Bacon invented gunpowder by witchcraft. The early chemists were in league with the Evil One. Faust and Gutenberg sold their souls to the devil, in order to get Bibles printed. The Magdeburg physicist, who made a water barometer in which a wooden figure rose or fell as the atmosphere varied, was the devil’s own child. Cows sickened and died at the will of shrivelled dames who rode through the air on broomsticks.
Foreknowledge is always confounded with foreordination. The weather prophet is transformed into a weathermaker. The myth of Aeolus is thus explained. Once a king of the Lipari Isles, by careful observation of the vapor cloud over Stromboli he was enabled to announce changes of weather a day or two in advance, as every observant man in that region can do to-day. The simple subjects attributed his knowledge to supernatural powers, and after his death perpetuated the story of Aeolus, the king of the winds, who dwelt in a cave in one of the islands.
In the time of Elijah, the prophets of Baal were confident of procuring rain by howling, cutting and slashing; while Ahab believed Elijah was responsible for the drought. The negro and the red man to-day show the same characteristics in this respect. The negro rain-maker makes fetich; the red chief, “big medicine,” to bring rains. The reputed success of each is proportioned to his shrewdness in recognizing tokens of change in the weather.