In primitive society religion is magic, and priests are magicians. The savage would think that if the medicine-man could not work miracles there would be no use for religion. Religion, however, does not disappear with the faith in the medicine-man’s power. When magic becomes discredited by science, religion is purified. We must know, though, that religious reforms of this kind are not accomplished at once, but come on gradually in slow process of evolution, first by disappointment and then in exultation at the thought that the actualities of science are higher, nobler and better than the dreams of superstition, even if they were possible, and thus it appears that science comes to fulfil, not to destroy.
Science has been pressed into the service of magic by ancient pagan priests, who utilized mechanical contrivances in their temples to impress the credulous with the supernatural power of their gods.
The magic lantern, commonly supposed to be an invention of the Jesuit Kircher, in 1671, must have been secretly known among the few members of the craft of scientific magic at least as early as the end of the middle ages, for we have an old drawing, which is here reproduced, showing that it was employed in warfare as a means of striking terror in the ranks of the enemy. We have no information as to the success of the stratagem, but we may assume that in the days of a common belief in witchcraft and absolute ignorance of the natural sciences, it must have been quite effective with superstitious soldiers {xvii}
MAGIC LANTERN OF JOHANNES DE FONTANA,
ABOUT 1420.
[The apparatus is quite crude in comparison with modern instruments of the same kind. It possesses no lens, the picture being drawn in an upright position upon cylindrical glass, presumably blackened with the exception of the figure. So far as known this is the oldest record of the use of the magic lantern.
Fontana’s lantern was used, as F. M. Feldhaus informs us (Gartenlaube, 1905, Nov. 23, p. 848) by the encignerius or antwere maister, i. e., the master of siege and fortress defenses, who from an appropriate hiding-place projected the image upon a convenient wall in the outside works of a fort so as to let assailants unexpectedly be confronted with the hideous form of a demon.]
{xviii}
While magic as superstition and as fraud is doomed, magic as an art will not die. Science will take hold of it and permeate it with its own spirit, changing it into scientific magic which is destitute of all mysticism, occultism and superstition, and comes to us as a witty play for our recreation and diversion.
It is an extraordinary help to a man to be acquainted with the tricks of prestidigitateurs, and we advise parents not to neglect this phase in the education of their children. The present age is laying the basis of a scientific world-conception, and it is, perhaps, not without good reasons that it has produced quite a literature on the subject of modern magic.