CHAPTER IV.
Legislative Exorcism; or, The Belief in Word-Magic.
For ages, mankind were believers in magic. One of the phases was Exorcism, or a pretended exercise of supernatural power, through certain words of magic import. “Healing words,” says Van Helmont, “were used against the devil and all diseases.” And it is asserted by the Zendavesta that “many cures are performed by words.” That the magic power of words was a belief of the Greeks and Romans, is evident from their literature. Thus it is said of Plotin, that while in Sicily he cured Porphyrius of a fever, “by wonder-working words.” We are told how Orpheus’ song calmed the storm, and how Ulysses “stopped the bleeding of wounds by the use of certain words.” They also tell us, that with words, Cato cured sprains; Marcus Varrus removed tumors; and Servilius Novianno restored sight to the eyes. It is gravely stated by Pliny that Cato did not alone use the words, “motas, daries, dardaries, astaries,” but likewise a green branch, four or five feet long, which he split in two, and caused to be held over the injured limb. A similar power was ascribed to the philosopher, Pythagoras. And if “ye olden chronicle” is to be credited, the curses of Peter of Amiens and Bernard of Clairvaux, “produced fearful spasms and sufferings, whilst their blessings restored speech to the dumb and health to the sick.”
The belief in magic is not general in our age of the world. It has gradually retired before the march of reason and the light of scientific truth. That all nature, organic and inorganic, animate and inanimate, is subject to a universal law of cause and effect, is now a truism to every educated person. Science has forever destroyed the curative influence of phrases. Reason sternly excludes verbal formulæ from the realm of physical causation. That any mere words may be used against disease or injury is now denied by enlightened opinion the world over. In medicine, therefore, Exorcism is a thing of the past.
One aspect of the superstition still remains, as an obstacle to the progress of humanity; the possibility of legislating morality into men. Law-givers still cling to the power of “exorcism” by statute. Their blind creed is: “beatification and education by law.” “To them, laws are the cows, whose teats mankind should suck. To them, men are as dough, which their wisdom would knead.” This adoration of the law and legislators was systematically inculcated by the 18th century publicists: Montesquieu, Robespierre, Rousseau, and St. Just. They seem to teach that “the law cannot come out of us, but must be poured into us.” But, as Erlanger has said with truth, he who undertakes to give institutions to a people must feel within himself the capacity to change human nature, to metamorphose every man, to transmute the constitution of each individual, to strengthen them; in one word, “he must take from mankind their own powers, and impart to them a foreign power.”
Statesmen should recognize with Carpenter, that “society is the gigantic growth of centuries, moving on in a resistless and orderly march, with the precision and fatality of an astronomic orb.” The huge being marches on with elephantine tread. The liberal sits on its front and the conservative on its rear; but both are swept along, whether they will or not, and both are shaken off ere long, inevitably, into the dust. One reformer shouts “this way,” and another cries “that,” but down comes the great foot and crushes both, indifferently; the man who thought he was right, and the man who found he was wrong; crushing, alike, him who would facilitate, and him who would impede its progress. At least, it should be kept in mind, “that laws are made by the people, and not the people by the laws.” Modern society is so burdened by an enormous and complex overgrowth of law, that the necessity for its existence is now a prevailing notion, to the end that men may be kept in order: that, without the oppressive institution, people would not follow a systematic life. On the other hand, all observation of civilized races discovers the directly opposite. The instinct of man is to regularity of life, and law is but a result or expression of this. “As well attribute the organization of a crab to the influence of its shell, as ascribe the orderly life of a nation to the action of its laws.” The law may have a purpose, but to believe it will preserve order is illusive. This it certainly does not effect, even with all its machinery of police, courts and prisons. Fichte said: “The object of all government is to render government superfluous.” The same idea has been expressed by Whitman and Paine. Moreover, “if external authority, of any kind, has a final purpose, it must be to establish and consolidate an internal authority. When this process is complete, government, in the ordinary sense, is already rendered superfluous.”
The world has been slow (or loath) to learn the only proper functions of government. This must be clear to every reader of Bruce Smith, Lieber and Dick. In the governments of oriental antiquity, political authority was clothed with a super-eminent and absolute jurisdiction over the whole life of its subjects; “the manners of their subjects, their rank, their condition, mode of life, and daily occupations, were all fixed by the law.”
And, in the opinion of Grecian philosophers, the state was everything, the individual nothing. In their judgment, the government should not permit any individual to waste his power and energy, nor should he be allowed to misdirect it. They insisted the law must first devise the model of a perfect citizen; and then, by a system of discipline, mould, or rather distort, into agreement therewith, the character of every citizen. The powers of state, therefore, should embrace individual life in its entirety; from infancy to mature age, “in all conditions and relations, whether domestic, religious, social, industrial or political.”
Such teachings had their illustration in the administration of Greek governments. In Sparta, for example, under the reign of Lycurgus, the citizen belonged to the state, rather than to the family. The individual Athenian did not have a right the Archons were “bound to respect.” Draco punished even laziness with death, and Solon prohibited costly sacrifices at funerals. In Greece, Lycurgus seems to have been the first legislator against luxury. He enacted, for example, that no Spartan should own a house, or household article, which had been made with a finer implement than an axe or a saw; and that no cook should use any other spice than salt and vinegar. Our authorities are Ephorus and Diogenes Laertius. The sumptuary prohibitions of Solon, according to Plutarch, were aimed at the female passion for dress, as well as the pomp of funerals. He likewise placed surveillance over the luxury of banquets.
The Dorian races were disposed to austere and rigid habits of life. A Laconian could not lawfully attend a drinking entertainment. In Lacedæmonia, frugality and simplicity were the object of the pheiditia. Gold and silver were interdicted, and their legislation permitted the use of iron money alone. In Magna Græcia, the Pythagoreans encouraged the sumptuary policy. Zaleucus, the Locrian legislator, enacted that no woman should appear in public wearing gold ornaments, or embroidered apparel, unless her designs were unchaste.
Roman statesmen were not wiser, in their day, than those of Greece. From the time of the Kings, they sought by law to regulate luxurious tendencies. We find it in the law of the Twelve Tables: “Do not carve the wood which is to serve for a funeral pile. Have no weeping women to tear their cheeks; no gold, no coronets.” Certain foreign articles of luxury were prohibited about 189 B. C. An important part of the legislation of Sulla, Cæsar, Crassus, Antony, Augustus and Tiberius, related to the expenditures for food, funerals and games of chance. Says Plutarch: “The Romans thought the liberty ought not to be left to each private citizen to marry at will, to choose his manner of life, to make feasts; in short, to follow his desires and his tastes, without being subject to the judgment and supervision of anyone.” The Oppian Law forbade matrons to have more than a half-ounce of gold, to wear garments of diversified color, or to use carriages in Rome. Following a revolt of the Women, in 195 B. C., this law was abrogated. Inspired by Cato, the Censor, fourteen years later, the Orchian Law was promulgated. It limited the table expenses, as did the Fannian Law twenty years after. The Lex Orchia limited the number of guests to be present at a feast. The general cost of entertainment was fixed by the Lex Fannia. A limit of one hundred asses was established for some festivals, and thirty asses for others. Ordinary entertainments were restricted to ten asses. The Didian Law extended to all Italy.