NATURAL MAGIC.

[Letters on Natural Magic, addressed to Sir Walter Scott, Bart., by Sir David Brewster. Murray’s Family Library. London, 1832. Price 5s.]

Natural Magic is the name given to those combinations of natural agencies, which, by the illusion or surprise which they produce, seem to us to possess supernatural power. Nor is the name an inappropriate one, though somewhat strange in sound. Magic, in the ordinary sense of the word, that is, supernatural power in human hands, exists only in the imagination; it is not a thing which has ever really been; it is a mere fancy, the offspring of ignorance and superstition, and nothing more. But if we can actually produce, by natural means, the same effects which the believers in magic say are to be achieved by the aid of spirits or other supernatural agents, we have a right to give the name of magic also to the art by which we do this—adding the epithet natural, to intimate that it is only the products of the magician’s trickery which are imitated, and not his pretended mode of operation. If the impostor who professes to raise a spectre by a charm or incantation, calls the deception a piece of magic, the philosopher who does the same thing by an ingenious arrangement of mirrors, is still entitled to give it the same name.

On this subject Sir David Brewster has here produced a learned, instructive, and amusing work. The only regret or disappointment that the reader feels is on account of the parts of the subject which are only alluded to or slightly touched upon. The examples of the wonders of science given in the present volume are only a selection from a much more abundant store of materials of the same kind. It is a selection, however, very judiciously made, and so as, if not to exhaust the subject, yet to present a view, more or less full, of each of its principal departments. First we have the illusions which affect us through the eye very largely treated of. The appearance of spectres to a brain or nervous system in a diseased or extraordinarily excited state,—the case of persons who are insensible to particular colours,—the tricks of the necromancers with concave mirrors,—the magic lantern and phantasmagoria,—the spectre of the Brocken, and the Fata Morgana,—are included, among many other things, under this head. The illusions depending on the ear, including the modern exhibition of the invisible girl, ventriloquism, the effects produced by the voice on glasses, the phenomena of echoes, &c. are considered in several of the following chapters. Then come two highly interesting chapters on mechanical feats and contrivances—such as remarkable exertions of strength, the automata of the ancients, Degennes’s mechanical peacock, Vaucanson’s duck, which ate and digested its food, Baron Kempelen’s famous automaton chess-player, Duncan’s tambouring machine, Babbage’s calculating engine, &c. Lastly, the volume closes with a rapid survey of several of the most remarkable wonders of Chemistry. The art of breathing fire, that of walking upon red-hot iron, Aldini’s incombustible dresses, the spontaneous combustion of human beings, the effects of the nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, and the very curious subject of certain elastic gases which the author himself has discovered in the cavities of gems, are some of the topics among which the reader is led on through this department.

What we have stated is enough to show what a fund both of amusement and of philosophy the book is. It is an excellent work for a mechanic’s or village library.

The following is, we think, the most extraordinary of all the author’s statements. The work, it is to be recollected, is addressed in the form of letters to Sir Walter Scott:—

One of the most remarkable and inexplicable experiments relative to the strength of the human frame, which 212you have yourself seen and admired, is that in which a heavy man is raised with the greatest facility, when he is lifted up the instant that his own lungs and those of the persons who raise him are inflated with air. This experiment was, I believe, first shown in England a few years ago by Major H., who saw it performed in a large party at Venice under the direction of an officer of the American Navy. As Major H. performed it more than once in my presence, I shall describe as nearly as possible the method which he prescribed. The heaviest person in the party lies down upon two chairs, his legs being supported by the one and his back by the other. Four persons, one at each leg, and one at each shoulder, then try to raise him, and they find his dead weight to be very great, from the difficulty they experience in supporting him. When he is replaced in the chair, each of the four persons takes hold of the body as before, and the person to be lifted gives two signals by clapping his hands. At the first signal he himself and the four lifters begin to draw a long and full breath, and when the inhalation is completed, or the lungs filled, the second signal is given for raising the person from the chair. To his own surprise and that of his bearers, he rises with the greatest facility, as if he were no heavier than a feather. On several occasions I have observed that when one of the bearers performs his part ill, by making the inhalation out of time, the part of the body which he tries to raise is left as it were behind. As you have repeatedly seen this experiment, and have performed the part both of the load and of the bearer, you can testify how remarkable the effects appear to all parties, and how complete is the conviction, either that the load has been lightened, or the bearer strengthened by the prescribed process.

At Venice the experiment was performed in a much more imposing manner. The heaviest man in the party was raised and sustained upon the points of the fore fingers of six persons. Major H. declared that the experiment would not succeed if the person lifted were placed upon a board. He conceived it necessary that the bearers should communicate directly with the body to be raised. I have not had an opportunity of making any experiments relative to these curious facts; but whether the general effect is an illusion, or the result of known or of new principles, the subject merits a careful investigation.

Amongst the descriptions of mechanism calculated to excite popular curiosity, the following is very striking:—

One of the most popular pieces of mechanism which we have seen is the magician, constructed by M. Maillardet, for the purpose of answering certain given questions. A figure, dressed like a magician, appears seated at the bottom of a wall, holding a wand in one hand, and a book in the other. A number of questions ready prepared are inscribed on oval medallions, and the spectator takes any of these which he chooses, and to which he wishes an answer, and having placed it in a drawer ready to receive it, the drawer shuts with a spring till the answer is returned. The magician then rises from his seat, bows his head, describes circles with his wand, and consulting the book as if in deep thought, he lifts it towards his face. Having thus appeared to ponder over the proposed question, he raises his wand, and, striking with it the wall above his head, two folding doors fly open, and display an appropriate answer to the question. The doors again close, the magician resumes his original position, and the drawer opens to return the medallion. There are twenty of these medallions, all containing different questions, to which the magician returns the most suitable and striking answers. The medallions are thin plates of brass of an elliptical form, exactly resembling each other. Some of the medallions have a question inscribed on each side, both of which the magician answers in succession. If the drawer is shut without a medallion being put into it, the magician rises, consults his book, shakes his head, and resumes his seat. The folding-doors remain shut, and the drawer is returned empty. If two medallions are put into the drawer together, an answer is returned only to the lower one. When the machinery is wound up, the movements continue about an hour, during which time about fifty questions may be answered. The inventor stated, that the means by which the different medallions acted upon the machinery, so as to produce the proper answers to the questions which they contained, were extremely simple.

We give, in conclusion, the author’s very just observations on the ultimate effect of inventions which at first sight appear to have no really useful object:—

Ingenious and beautiful as all these pieces of mechanism are, and surprising as their effects appear even to scientific spectators, the principal object of their inventors was to astonish and amuse the public. We should form an erroneous judgment, however, if we supposed that this was the only result of the ingenuity which they displayed. The passion for automatic exhibitions which characterized the eighteenth century, gave rise to the most ingenious mechanical devices, and introduced among the higher orders of artists habits of nice and accurate execution in the formation of the most delicate pieces of machinery. The same combination of the mechanical powers which made the spider crawl, or which waved the tiny rod of the magician, contributed in future years to purposes of higher import. Those wheels and pinions, which almost eluded our senses by their minuteness, reappeared in the stupendous mechanism of our spinning-machines, and our steam-engines. The elements of the tumbling puppet were revived in the chronometer, which now conducts our navy through the ocean; and the shapeless wheel which directed the hand of the drawing automaton has served in the present age to guide the movements of the tambourine engine. Those mechanical wonders which in one century enriched only the conjuror who used them, contributed in another to augment the wealth of the nation; and those automatic toys which once amused the vulgar, are now employed in extending the power and promoting the civilization of our species. In whatever way, indeed the power of genius may invent or combine, and to whatever low or even ludicrous purposes that invention or combination may be originally applied, society receives a gift which it can never lose; and though the value of the seed may not be at once recognized, and though it may lie long unproductive in the ungenial soil of human knowledge, it will some time or other evolve its germ, and yield to mankind its natural and abundant harvest.