INTRODUCTION. 37
pressions, not by sending them out. Of the same opinion Virgil seems to be in his Bucolics, where he has—
' Some evil-eye hath struck my tender lambs.'
Such
a power of fascination exists not only in man, but in brutes likewise,
as Solinus avers, and Pliny also; and as I have experienced in my own
case, that when" our wolves in Italy are the first to see a man, that
man's voice becomes hoarse, neither is he able to call out in any other
voice, although previously he had no defect in his vocal organs. Nor
does this happen by means of the sight only, but, as above declared,
from another cause, namely the soul of the agent giving the stroke. And
this opinion was accepted by Democritus, who asserted that all things
were full of gods; and by Orpheus likewise, who said that gods were
diffused through all things, and that God was nothing else than that
which forms all things and is diffused in all things. In this sense,
therefore, they believed that souls are gods; and they attributed
virtue to things, through the operation of the soul." (Cam. Leonardi, ii. 2.)
The
theory by which he explains the origin of the " nature-paintings " in
figured Agates, is so characteristic of the philosophy of the times
that it deserves quotation here. " Albertus Magnus, Henry of Saxony,
and many other philosophers, cite instances, and prove that
occasionally there is so great a special power of the constellations
in producing or in giving shape to certain things, that these are
produced not merely in their proper species but also in others of a
different kind: even things that appear impossible, as is evident from
the instances they quote. But at the fact they themselves are not
surprised, inasmuch as they understand its cause ; for all wonder is
the offspring of ignorance. For they maintain that so
