It may be well to review and further emphasize some of the chief features of John’s rather rambling discussion. Despite its frequent quotations from classic poets and moralists, it is theological in tone and content to a degree perhaps greater than I have succeeded in suggesting, for to repeat all its scriptural passages would be tedious. There is even some theological jealousy and suspicion of natural science shown. John perhaps more nearly duplicates the attitude of Augustine than that of any other writer. Magic is represented as inevitably associated with, and the work of, demons. John sometimes charges the magic arts with being irrational or injurious, but these charges are in a way but corollaries of his main thesis. The arts must be harmful since demons are concerned with them, while the influence of demons seems the only rational explanation for their existence. John repeats the old Isidorian definition of magic but he adds some current superstitions and shows that the magic arts are far from having fallen into disuse. Finally he shows us how vain must have been all the ecclesiastical thunders and warnings of demons and damnation, like his own, directed against magic, from the fact that not merely kings of the past like Saul and Pharaoh, but clergy of the present themselves--a priest and a deacon, a chancellor and an archbishop of England--practice or patronize such arts. Sometimes John’s own condemnation of them seems a bit perfunctory; he takes more relish, it seems at times, in describing them. Again, as in the case of astrology, he evidently feels that his opposition will be of little avail. FOOTNOTES: [461] _Johannis Sarisberiensis Episcopi Carnotensis Policratici sive de nugis curialium et vestigiis philosophorum libri VIII._ Recog. C. C. I. Webb. 2 vols. Oxford, 1909. The work is also contained in Migne, PL vol. 199. For John’s life see DNB. All references are to book and chapter of the _Polycraticus_ unless otherwise stated. [462] The most recent discussion of it is by R. L. Poole, “The Masters of the Schools at Paris and Chartres in John of Salisbury’s Time,” in EHR XXXV (1920), 321-42. [463] _Metalog._ II, 10. [464] I, 9. [465] At II, 18 he makes the same distinction. [466] For Isidore’s account see PL 82, 310-14. [467] _Polycrat_. II, prologus. “Alacres itaque exeant nugae nostrae quas serenitas tua prodire iubet in publicum, ut conjectores, mathematicos, cum quibusdam aliis nugatoribus introducant; quia quibus dedisti egrediendi audaciam, securitatis quoque fiduciam praestabis.” The following words, “Connectantur ergo inferiora superioribus” seem to mean that the second book goes on where the first left off, but perhaps the suggestion of astrological doctrine is an intentional play upon words on John’s part. [468] II, 12. [469] _De doctrina Christiana_, II, 20 in Migne, PL vol. 34. [470] Thus, it will be recalled, Marcellus Empiricus and Alexander of Tralles labelled their superstitious recipes.