IN the course of my last summer's vacation, which was spent at a small inland village, I came upon an unexpected illustration of the tenacity with which conceptions descended from prehistoric antiquity have now and then kept their hold upon life. While sitting one evening under the trees by the roadside, my attention was called to the unusual conduct of half a dozen men and boys who were standing opposite. An elderly man was moving slowly up and down the road, holding with both hands a forked twig of hazel, shaped like the letter Y inverted. With his palms turned upward, he held in each hand a branch of the twig in such a way that the shank pointed upward; but every few moments, as he halted over a certain spot, the twig would gradually bend downwards until it had assumed the likeness of a Y in its natural position, where it would remain pointing to something in the ground beneath. One by one the bystanders proceeded to try the experiment, but with no variation in the result. Something in the ground seemed to fascinate the bit of hazel, for it could not pass over that spot without bending down and pointing to it.
My thoughts reverted at once to Jacques Aymar and Dousterswivel, as I perceived that these men were engaged in sorcery. During the long drought more than half the wells in the village had become dry, and here was an attempt to make good the loss by the aid of the god Thor. These men were seeking water with a divining-rod. Here, alive before my eyes, was a superstitious observance, which I had supposed long since dead and forgotten by all men except students interested in mythology.
As I crossed the road to take part in the ceremony a farmer's boy came up, stoutly affirming his incredulity,and offering to show the company how he could carry the rod motionless across the charmed spot. But when he came to take the weird twig he trembled with an ill-defined feeling of insecurity as to the soundness of his conclusions, and when he stood over the supposed rivulet the rod bent in spite of him,--as was not so very strange. For, with all his vague scepticism, the honest lad had not, and could not be supposed to have, the foi scientifique of which Littre speaks.[23]
[23] "Il faut que la coeur devienne ancien parmi les aneiennes choses, et la plenitude de l'histoire ne se devoile qu'a celui qui descend, ainsi dispose, dans le passe. Mais il faut que l'esprit demeure moderne, et n'oublie jamais qu'il n'y a pour lui d'autre foi que la foi scientifique.'--LITTRS.
Hereupon I requested leave to try the rod; but something in my manner seemed at once to excite the suspicion and scorn of the sorcerer. "Yes, take it," said he, with uncalled-for vehemence, "but you can't stop it; there's water below here, and you can't help its bending, if you break your back trying to hold it." So he gave me the twig, and awaited, with a smile which was meant to express withering sarcasm, the discomfiture of the supposed scoffer. But when I proceeded to walk four or five times across the mysterious place, the rod pointing steadfastly toward the zenith all the while, our friend became grave and began to philosophize. "Well," said he, "you see, your temperament is peculiar; the conditions ain't favourable in your case; there are some people who never can work these things. But there's water below here, for all that, as you'll find, if you dig for it; there's nothing like a hazel-rod for finding out water."Very true: there are some persons who never can make such things work; who somehow always encounter "unfavourable conditions" when they wish to test the marvellous powers of a clairvoyant; who never can make "Planchette" move in conformity to the requirements of any known alphabet; who never see ghosts, and never have "presentiments," save such as are obviously due to association of ideas. The ill-success of these persons is commonly ascribed to their lack of faith;but, in the majority of cases, it might be more truly referred to the strength of their faith,--faith in the constancy of nature, and in the adequacy of ordinary human experience as interpreted by science.[24] La foi scientifique is an excellent preventive against that obscure, though not uncommon, kind of self-deception which enables wooden tripods to write and tables to tip and hazel-twigs to twist upside-down, without the conscious intervention of the performer. It was this kind of faith, no doubt, which caused the discomfiture of Jacques Aymar on his visit to Paris,[25]
and which has in late years prevented persons from obtaining the handsome prize offered by the French Academy for the first authentic case of clairvoyance.
[24] For an admirable example of scientific self-analysis tracing one of these illusions to its psychological sources, see the account of Dr. Lazarus, in Taine, De l'Intelligence, Vol. I. pp. 121-125.
[25] See the story of Aymar in Baring-Gould, Curious Myths, Vol. I. pp. 57-77. The learned author attributes the discomfiture to the uncongenial Parisian environment; which is a style of reasoning much like that of my village sorcerer, Ifear.
