The weekly Butte record., 1861-08-03
Is There Anything New?


lates to the alleged plagiarisms of noted
authors. Seneca complained that the ancients
compelled him to take from them what they
could have taken from him. had he lived before
them Goethe said his writings had been fur
nished him by thousand different persons,
and Goldsmith affirmed that he found what
was new was generally false. Fraser's Maga-
zine for this month has an article on The
Propriety of abolishing the Writing of Books y
by Shirley. Saving some few exceptions, we
are sadly afraid" says the London critic,
" there is much truth In the startling PROPOSE
tion of the writer that all our modern litera-
ture is a gigantic plagiarism"
A writer in Chambers Journal cites nume-
rous facts to show that many "new discover
ries are only old inventions" and argues
that nearly all of our great discoveries have
been subject to repeated revivals and extinc-
tions before they attained character of per-
manence. 1t is asserted that no industrial or
scientific discovery can escape that common
law of alternate decadence and revival which
clngs to all human invention and frequently
interposes many centuries of neglect between
its birth and fully developed vitality. This
idea is Illustrated by great number of in
stances, few of which of the most striking
character we quote.
The Chinese, who seem to have hovered on
the confines of innumerable discoveries, from
the earliest period of their history, were fami-
liar, even in ante Christian ages, with modes
of treatment and remedial agents which have
only found their way into European practice
within the last thirty years.
In regard to anIsthetics, the ancients knew
far more than was known to modern nations
till within the last quarter of century, for the
Egyptians and Greeks were acquainted with
several substances which had the property Of
inducing insensibility to pain, by plunging
those who partook of them into lethargic
sleep.
According to some authorities, the great
Descartes killed himself from too rigid an ad-
herence to the homeopathic doctrines, that d
disease should be treated by those agents
which will produce analogous symptoms for,
when he was attacked by raging fever, be
insisted upon taking large and repeated doses
of alcohol mode of treatment which brought
on violent hccoughing, and speedily termina-
ted in death.
The cold water cure had, however, a short
lived notoriety in Nero's time, when the Mar
seilles physician, Dharmis, douched and drench-
ed his patients most successfully with cold
water, and, in other respects, prescribed medi-
cines and treatments not in use among his
contemporaries.
Spiritrapping can lay claim to an antiquity
of several centuries in Europe Animal mag
netism, as is well known, was practiced by the
priesthood of Egypt and Greece from the re
motest antiquity. Table-turning was known
to the Egyptian priesthood probably from the
earliest period of their sway; and from them
the practice passed, in the course of ages, to
the Romans, who, when the fashion of grating
sieves had died away, actually took to tripod
turning, or, as we should now call it, table
turning. This practice they pursued with
such faith in the Interpretation which they
attached to the varied movements of the rota-
ting sieves or tables employed in the process,
that it invoked the bitter invectives of Tertul-
lian, who thundered forth his anathemas against
all persons who, putting their faith in angels
or demons, made goats and even tables
prophesy to them" The ancients, however,
did not employ tableturning as an amusement,
to while away an idle hour, but hedged it with
religious ceremonials, and made it grave and
awe-inspring element of their demoniacal wor-
ship.
Father Kircher, in speaking-two hundred
years ago-of the magnetic fire inherent in
man, pretends that if person were to place
himself, in state of perfect equilibrium, in a
light bark in the open sea, he would, like some
new compass, be naturally disposed to turn his
face toward the North Pole. Our recent Ia
ble-turners have asserted that this tendency to
move towards the North has been observed to
predominant when once the turning tables had
been put in motion.
When we descend from the domain of spiri-
tuaism to the simple matters Of every-day life,
we find that the ancients were in the enjoy
ment of numerous luxures and comforts which
we commonly regard as the fruits of our own
advanced civilization. Thus, for instance
macadamized roads, in all save the name, were
known 10 the Roman dominions two hundred
years before the Christian era, and were not
merely limited to the vicinity of the capital
but were laid down in every province that
succumbed to the valor of the republican arms
Although the Romans, like other ancient
nations, were ignorant of printing as applied
to the multiplication Of books, they were fami-
liar with the use of printing type, which their
potters used for stamping names on their vases;
and we are told that the Emperor Justinian
wishing to append his signature to a public
document, had recourse to a small wooden
tablet, on which the letters of his name were
cut which he traced on paper by following
with the point of his style or pen the various
contours of the carving.