SUPERSTITIONS AND THEIR SOURCES ' 7
The following passage from the "Faithful Lapidary" of Thomas Nicols,5
who wrote in the middle of the seventeenth century, illustrates the
prevailing opinion in England at that time as to the virtues of
precious stones :
Perfectionem effectue contineri in causa. But
it cannot truly be so spoken of gemms and pretious stones, the effects
of which, by Lapidists are said to be, the making of men rich and
eloquent, to preserve men from thunder and lightning, from plagues and
diseases, to move dreams, to procure sleep, to foretell things to come,
to make men wise, to strengthen memory, to procure honours, to hinder
fascinations and witchcrafts, to hinder slothfulness, to put courage
into men, to keep men chaste, to increase friendship, to hinder
difference and dissention, and to make men invisible, as is feigned by
the Poet concerning Gyges ring, and affirmed by Albertus and others
concerning the ophthalmitis lapis, and many other strange
things are affirmed of them and ascribed to them, which are contrary to
the nature of gemms, and which they as they are materiali, mixt,
inanimate bodies neither know nor can effect, by the properties and
faculties of their own constitutions: because they being naturall
causes, can produce none other but naturall effects, such as are all
the ordinary effects of gemms: that is, such effects as flow from their
elementary matter, from their temper, form and essence; such as are the
operations of hot and cold, and of all the first qualities, and all
such accidents as do arise from the commixtion of the first qualities:
such as are hardnesse, heavinesse, thicknesse, colour, and tast. These
all are the naturall faculties of gemms, and these are the known
effects of the union of their matter, and of the operation of the first
qualities one upon another.
The
long-continued concentration of vision on an object tends to produce a
partial paralysis of certain functions of the brain. This effect may be
noted in the helplessness of a bird when its gaze is fixed upon the
glittering eyes of a serpent, or in the unwilling obedience yielded by
a lion or some other wild animal when forced to look into the intent
eyes of its trainer. In the same way those who gaze for a long time and
without inter-
' Niçois, " Faithful Lapidary," London, 1659, pp. 32, 33.
