Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race - Knowledge Rush

46 Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race
[61]
associated with the cult of the dead, for death was looked upon as
the resumption into nature, and as the investment with vague and
uncontrollable powers, of a spiritual force formerly embodied
in the concrete, limited, manageable, and therefore less awful
form of a living human personality. Yet these powers were
not altogether uncontrollable. The desire for control, as well
as the suggestion of the means for achieving it, probably arose
from the first rude practices of the art of healing. Medicine
of some sort was one of the earliest necessities of man. And
the power of certain natural substances, mineral or vegetable,
to produce bodily and mental effects often of a most startling
character would naturally be taken as signal evidence of what
we may call the “magical” conception of the universe. 35 The
first magicians were those who attained a special knowledge
of healing or poisonous herbs; but “virtue” of some sort being
attributed to every natural object and phenomenon, a kind of
magical science, partly the child of true research, partly of poetic
imagination, partly of priestcraft, would in time spring up, would
be codified into rites and formulas, attached to special places
and objects, and represented by symbols. The whole subject has
been treated by Pliny in a remarkable passage which deserves
quotation at length:
Pliny on the Religion of Magic
“Magic is one of the few things which it is important to
discuss at some length, were it only because, being the most
delusive of all the arts, it has everywhere and at all times
been most powerfully credited. Nor need it surprise us that
it has obtained so vast an influence, for it has united in itself
the three arts which have wielded the most powerful sway
over the spirit of man. Springing in the first instance from
Medicine—a fact which no one can doubt—and under cover
35 Thus the Greek pharmakon=medicine, poison, or charm; and I am informed
that the Central African word for magic or charm is mankwala, which also
means medicine.