The world-conception of the savage is long-lingering, and its influence does not subside instantaneously with the first appearance of science. The Middle Ages are full of magic, and the belief in it has not died out to this day. The old magic found a rival in science and has in all its aspects, in religion as well as in occultism, in mysticism and obscurantism, treated science as its hereditary enemy. It is now {xvi} succumbing in the fight, but in the meantime a new magic has originated and taken the place of the old, performing miracles as wonderful as those of the best conjurers of former days, nay, more wonderful; yet these miracles are accomplished with the help of science and without the least pretense of supernatural power. The new magic originated from the old magic when the belief in sorcery began to break down in the eighteenth century, which is the dawn of rationalism and marks the epoch since which mankind has been systematically working out a scientific world-conception. In primitive society religion is magic, and priests are magicians. The savage would think that if the medicine-man could not work miracles there would be no use for religion. Religion, however, does not disappear with the faith in the medicine-man’s power. When magic becomes discredited by science, religion is purified. We must know, though, that religious reforms of this kind are not accomplished at once, but come on gradually in slow process of evolution, first by disappointment and then in exultation at the thought that the actualities of science are higher, nobler and better than the dreams of superstition, even if they were possible, and thus it appears that science comes to fulfil, not to destroy. Science has been pressed into the service of magic by ancient pagan priests, who utilized mechanical contrivances in their temples to impress the credulous with the supernatural power of their gods. The magic lantern, commonly supposed to be an invention of the Jesuit Kircher, in 1671, must have been secretly known among the few members of the craft of scientific magic at least as early as the end of the middle ages, for we have an old drawing, which is here reproduced, showing that it was employed in warfare as a means of striking terror in the ranks of the enemy. We have no information as to the success of the stratagem, but we may assume that in the days of a common belief in witchcraft and absolute ignorance of the natural sciences, it must have been quite effective with superstitious soldiers {xvii} [Illustration: MAGIC LANTERN OF JOHANNES DE FONTANA, ABOUT 1420. [The apparatus is quite crude in comparison with modern instruments of the same kind. It possesses no lens, the picture being drawn in an upright position upon cylindrical glass, presumably blackened with the exception of the figure. So far as known this is the oldest record of the use of the magic lantern.