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HE present and the following chapter are devoted to a study of the talismanic virtues attributed to precious
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stones
and gems, as distinguished from the curative powers with which they
were credited. It is sometimes difficult to establish a hard and fast
dividing line between the two classes, as everything that conduces to
the happiness and well-being of man also affects his bodily health, but
a distinction, correct in the main, may be made by regarding the
talismanic use as covering all cases except those in which the stone
was used where to-day some really medicinal substance would be
administered.
A
modern German writer on amulets has proposed to apply the term
"emanism" (Emanismus) to the virtue existing or supposed to exist in
amulets and talismans, and gives as his opinion that their virtue is
neither a spiritual nor a personal one, but the operation of forces,
the latter not being special, mysterious vital forces, but impersonal
physical components and qualities, and that these exercise their
influence by means of emanation. Wundt has held that the very earliest
amulets were parts of the human body, and almost always such parts as
were believed to be the bearers of the soul.1
Radiation
or emanation of energy, without observable loss of substance, is a fact
familiar enough to us to-day, but this phenomenon was not so generally
accepted centuries ago. Still the lodestone always offered a striking
example
1 Karuti, " Der Emanismus," in Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, 45th Jahrgang, 1913, Heft III, Berlin, 1913, pp. 5S9, 560.
313
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