THERE be none of the affections which have been noted to fascinate or to bewitch, but love and envy; they both have vehement wishes, they frame themselves readily into imaginations and suggestions, and they come easily into the eye, especially upon the presence of the objects which are the points that conduce to fascination, if any such there be. We see likewise the Scripture calleth envy an evil eye."
So wrote one of our greatest philosophers, and on the same subject he says: "Of all other affections, it is the most importunate and continual; . . . therefore it is well said: 'Invidia festos dies non agit,' for it is ever working upon some or other. It is also the vilest affection and the most depraved; for which cause it is the proper attribute of the Devil, who is called 'The envious man that soweth tares amongst the wheat by night.'"
As to the word fascination, even in Bacon's time it had acquired its modern sense, implying the influence or effect we now associate with
animal magnetism. Notwithstanding this, the word was used by various writers down to the end of the seventeenth century in its original, technical meaning, as an alternative for "evil eye." Nowadays it has practically lost its older sinister sense, and except among scholars has retained only the pleasant one in which Bacon used it.