Carveth Read

“The histories I borrow, I refer them to the consciences of those I take them from.”—Montaigne, I. 20.

§ 1. Antiquity of Magic

Magic, until recently, was somewhat neglected by those who treated of savage ideas. In Sir E.B. Tylor’s Primitive Culture only one chapter is given to Magic, against seven to Animism (belief in the agency of spirits). In Spencer’s Sociology, Part I. is almost wholly devoted to the genesis and development of Animism, without a single chapter on Magic. The importance of early Animism became such an obsession, that travellers observed and reported upon it wherever they went, making only casual references to Magic—much to our loss. The tradition of this way of thinking seems to run back to Hume’s Natural History of Religion, where he traces the development of religion from a primitive belief that all natural activities are like our own, and that everything is possessed and actuated by a spirit. This idea was adopted by Comte, and elaborated in his celebrated law of the three stages of the explanation of Nature as determining the growth of human culture: Fetichism, which ascribes all causation to the particular will of each object, and which by generalisation leads through polytheism to monotheism; Metaphysics, which, giving up the notion of personal will, attributes the activities of things to abstract forces; and Positivism, which, discarding the variety of forces that can never be known, turns to the exact description of the order of phenomena. Mill, in turn, adopted these doctrines from Comte, and gave them currency amongst us, as part of the extraordinary influence which for many years he exerted upon all our thoughts. Hence the priority of Animism to every other theory of things seemed at that time a matter of course.

Recently there have been signs that this conception of primitive thought is giving way to another, namely, that Animism was preceded by Magic. Sir J.G. Frazer puts it, that the idea of Magic is simpler than that of Animism; that Magic is found in full force amongst people whose Animism is feebly developed, and that its beliefs are more uniform throughout the world.[101] Substantially—with qualifications that will appear hereafter—this view of the matter is here accepted. When one comes to argue it, to produce the primitive facts is, of course, impossible. It must even be admitted that such evidence as we have amongst the few facts collected of late years concerning ancient races of men, gives the earlier date to animistic ideas; for if some of the cave-paintings of Aurignacian origin, in which, for example, wild cattle are shown pierced with arrows, may be interpreted as of magical significance; on the other hand, the burial at Le Moustier, still more ancient, shows a regard for the corpse, in the disposal of it and in the things left with it, such as usually goes with the ghost-theory. These discoveries take us back some thousands of years before Menes; but probably leave us far from the beginning of human ideas concerning the supernatural.

If Magic preceded Animism, we must insert a stage of thought at the beginning of Comte’s series, making four instead of three; and the suggestion may perhaps be made to appear plausible, that the Metaphysical stage, the reign of occult forces in explanation, is not a mere residue of Fetichism after the spirit has departed, but rather the re-emergence into daylight of magical ideas of force, that always persisted, but for ages were kept in comparative obscurity by the vogue of Animism.

§ 2. What is Magic?

In his Development of Moral Ideas (II. 47) Prof. Westermarck observes that savages distinguish two classes of phenomena; the natural or familiar, and the supernatural or mysterious. The latter again are divided into the mechanical (Magic) and the volitional (Animism). This seems to be true: it corrects the notion, still common, that the savage explains all natural activities by Animism; recognises that he takes some phenomena as a matter of course, as the animals do; and, as to events that are not a matter of course, rightly marks the distinction between his conceptions of them as either mechanical (due to some uniformly acting force) or volitional (that is, arbitrary or capricious). With the savage, then, there are ongoings of things around him that are perceived to be regular and continuous; and there are others between which connections are imagined to take place, and these either regularly or capriciously: for thus I venture to interpret the difference between the natural and the supernatural; it is the difference between perception-belief and imagination-belief. Common sense, Magic, Animism—these are the three great congeries of ideas that compete for the control of his thoughts and in his interpretation of the world.

Magic may be defined as a connexion of events imagined to be constant and to depend upon the agency of some thing or activity possessing an efficacious quality or force (in fact unreal), and not to depend (as a connexion) upon the will of any particular person.

Whether Magic is ever wrought by the bare wish or will of a human being will be discussed below (§ 6). Here, the proviso that a magical connexion does not depend upon the will of a person, is meant to exclude Animism. For pure Animism involves the belief that a ghost, spirit, or god (though he may work by Magic) can produce an effect by his direct action, without using any visible or invisible means other than his own spiritual body and force. This is not what a magician does: he works by means of a connexion of events known (so he thinks) to himself and often to others. The magical implement (talisman or spell) that he uses has qualities that are magical facts, just as the qualities of his spear are physical facts. He can make a stone spear-head by means of another stone; and he may be able to make a talisman by means of a spell; but the powers of the talisman or of the spell are their own; he cannot create Magic, but only discover and use it. Whether he shall use it, depends upon his choice; but its powers do not; they are inherent, like physical forces. Faust can conjure the devil; but so can Wagner, if he knows the spell: the power of the spell is indifferent to the conjuror. A man may, indeed, be a source of magical power because he is a chief, or has the evil eye, or is taboo for unpurged homicide; but these things do not depend upon his will; he is in the same class with impersonal things that are magical.

A rule of Magic, as describing a uniform connexion of events, resembles what we call a law of nature; and further in this, that it is not supposed to be absolute or unconditional, but a tendency, subject to counteraction by hostile Magic or (perhaps) by demonic force. But it differs from a law of nature in being wholly imaginary and incapable of verification.

To practise Magic is to use some such rule in order to obtain an end desired. This can be attempted by any man, so far as his knowledge reaches; and the greater his knowledge the greater his power, provided he have the courage to act upon it. All stages of proficiency may be traced from the simple layman who swings a bull-roarer to raise the wind, to the wizard who lives by his art, and is feared by all his tribe and far beyond it, or to the erudite magician who controls the demons and vies with the gods.

Magical things, objects or actions, in their simplest forms, are charms, spells and rites; and since the ends for which they can be used are either to protect oneself or to exert power over other persons or things, each of these kinds of magic-thing may be defensive or offensive. A defensive charm is called an amulet; an offensive charm is a talisman. For a defensive spell (say, against sickness or accident) there is, I believe, no appropriate name; offensive spells (say, to control the weather or to curse an enemy) may be called incantations (but the usage is not fixed). Rites (that is, any magic actions that are not spells) may also be defensive (as to touch wood), or offensive (as to point at a man); but we have no names for these different intentions. From these simplest beginnings the whole learning and mystery of Magic seems to have developed.

§ 3. The Beginnings of Magic

The quest of origins is fascinating, because, if successful, it will help us to frame that outline of the history of the world which the philosophic mind regards as a necessary of life. To discuss the beginnings of Magic must necessarily be, in some measure, a speculative undertaking; because the facts are lost. If Magic was practised in the Aurignacian culture (say) 20,000 years ago, how can we get to the back of it? But speculation is not guess-work, if we always keep in view such facts as we have; if we are careful to give notice whenever the facts fail us; if we guide ourselves by scientific principles; and if we make no assumptions merely to suit our case, but only such as are generally admitted in all departments. For example:

(1) We may reasonably assume that the simplest magical beliefs and practices are of the earliest type: and nothing can be simpler than the belief in charms, rites and spells. It is, indeed, difficult to find many of these practices—though some can be produced—in their simplest forms in our records of backward peoples; partly because they have not been enough observed; partly because Magic is apt everywhere to become saturated with Animism; partly because charms, rites and spells are generally, for greater efficacy, compounded with one another. But these considerations do not affect the simplicity of the idea involved in the magical beliefs; which is merely this, that a certain object by its presence, or that an action, or an utterance, by merely entering into the course of events, will serve our purpose. A bare uniformity of connexion—if A, then B—in accordance with the familiar ongoings of Nature and our common activities, is all that is assumed. Many kinds of obstacles stop an arrow or a dart; carrion collects the vultures: so a patterned comb in one’s hair stops the demon of disease; a patterned quiver, or a certain song, brings the monkeys down from the tree-tops.[102] A spell assumes merely that certain objects, or animals, or spirits, must always comply with a wish or command expressed in words, just as another human being often does. It is their supposed uniform coerciveness that makes the words magical. If any form of words ever seems to have been successful, it must be repeated; because to have the same effect the action must be the same. Immersed in an indefinite mass of experiences, the postulate that we call “cause and effect” (unformulated, of course) underlies every action, and therefore underlies Magic; it is the ground of all expectation and of all confidence.

(2) The types of Magic that are the most prevalent are probably the earliest; and these are charms, rites and spells. They are found not only amongst savages, but the world over: even in civilised countries most of the uneducated, many of the half-educated, and not a few of those who have “finished their education,” employ them; whereas more complicated magical practices, except such as have been taken up into religious celebrations, are apt to fall into desuetude. What is universal must be adapted to very simple conditions of existence; these beliefs, therefore, to mental wants and proclivities that are probably primitive; and what conditions can be more simple, or more primitive, or more universal than ignorance of our fate and eagerness to clutch at anything that may give us confidence.

And not only are charms, rites and spells in all ages and everywhere employed in their simplest forms; but analysis of the most elaborate ritual and of nominally animistic practices will discover the same beliefs at the bottom of them. The idea of the amulet or the talisman is found in fetiches, beads, praying-wheels, and equally in a long mimetic dance or a passion-play; whose central purpose always is to avert some evil or to secure some good—success in hunting, or war, or agriculture. Similarly, the spell is involved in all rites, so far as verbal formulÆ are used in them; and in all curses or prayers, so far as their efficacy depends upon a sound form of words.

The persistence of magical beliefs amongst civilised people is, in some measure, due to tradition; though the tradition could not continue effective if there were not in every generation a predisposition to accept it; and how far it is due to tradition, how far to a spontaneous proclivity, in any one who is inclined to believe in charms, rites and spells, he himself must judge as best he can. Superstition having been at one time extremely useful socially, there is some presumption that tribes addicted to it (within limits) had an advantage, and that the disposition became hereditary. It is a recent acquisition compared with the love of climbing; but once ingrained, it must remain till disutility breeds it out. Meanwhile, it is a stain on the human soul. So much of one’s early life is always forgotten that no one can be sure that he was not inoculated with such notions in childhood; especially when we consider that religious practices, taught before they can be well understood, must often wear a magical habit to a child; and that medicines, whose operations nobody used to understand, were on the same foot with Magic. For my own part, bating the last considerations, I cannot remember ever to have heard in childhood any sort of Magic spoken of except with amusement; yet magical beliefs have always haunted me. With Animism it was otherwise. When six or seven years old, I was told by a nursemaid—a convinced adherent of one of the many little sects that have ramified out of Wesleyanism in Cornwall—the most appalling ghost-stories; and these stories, exciting no doubt an ancient disposition, and reinforced by a visualising faculty that nightly peopled the darkness with innumerable spectres, entirely overpowered the teachings of those whom there was better reason to trust, that ghosts are a superstition from which true religion has for ever set us free. The effects lasted into middle age. Andrew Lang said of ghosts that “he did not believe, but he trembled”; and that precisely describes my own state of mind for many years. Now, as to Magic, my impression is that had it been suggested to me in a serious way, and not merely by casual allusions to “luck,” the experience would have stuck in my memory. The first time that I can remember practising rites, I was between ten and eleven years old, living at a small boarding-school. To keep off a dreaded event, I used to go every morning to the pump, fill my mouth with water and spurt it out in a violent stream—three times. This went on for some weeks. To the best of my recollection, the impulse was spontaneous, and I cannot remember why the particular rite was adopted: to spout water out of the mouth may have been symbolic of a pushing away of what was feared; but I do not think I was conscious of that meaning. Nothing further of the kind recurs to me until about the age of fifteen, when, at another school, the master-passion of my life was cricket; and I always practised some rite before going on the field, and carried a charm in my pocket; but I cannot recall what they were. At present, a day rarely passes without my experiencing some impulse to practise Magic. In lighting my first pipe in the morning (for example), if I remember how I lit it, where I struck the match, etc., yesterday, and if no misfortune has happened since, I feel an unmistakable impulse to “light up” again in the same way. No reason is distinctly present to me for acting so, and therefore it is hazardous to analyse the attitude; but it is not merely incipient habit: to the best of my judgment it is this, that such a way of lighting my pipe was one amongst the antecedents of a quiet time, and that it will be well to reinstate as many of them as possible. It is more comfortable to do it than to alter it: one feels more confident.

Inquiry amongst my friends shows that some have similar experiences, and others (both men and women) have not. A questionnaire on such a point might be useful; but difficult to arrange without giving suggestion or exciting bias.[103]

(3) There are causes originating the belief in charms, rites and spells so simple that nothing could be more natural to the primitive human mind. What is more universally powerful in producing belief in the connexion of events, and consequent expectancy of repetition, than an interesting coincidence? If, says Sir E.F. im Thurn,[104] a Carib sees a rock in any way abnormal or curious, and if shortly afterwards any evil happens to him, he regards rock and evil as cause and effect, and perceives in the rock a spirit. This is animistic; but the same tendency to be impressed by coincidence underlies Magic. For example: A hunting party of Esquimos met with no game. One of them went back to the sledges and got the ham-bone of a dog to eat. Returning with this in his hand, he met and killed a seal. Ever afterwards he carried a ham-bone in his hand when hunting.[105] The ham-bone had become a talisman. Such a mental state as the Esquimo’s used to be ascribed to the association of ideas; but it is better to consider it as an empirical judgment. Other circumstances of the event may have been associated in his mind; but as to the ham-bone and the kill, he thinks of them together, and judges that they are connected. Then, having judged that the ham-bone influenced the kill, he carries it with him in future in order to repeat the conditions of success.

We may perhaps discern the moment when Magic first fastened upon the human mind by considering how the use of weapons and snares by the primitive hunter impaired his sense of the mechanical continuity of the work. In a struggle with prey body to body, success or failure was thoroughly understood; but with the use of weapons and snares it became conditional upon the quality of these aids and upon his skill with them: more and more conditional as the number of steps increased between the first preparation and the event; at any one of which unforeseen occurrences might frustrate his plans. Hence an irresistible desire to strengthen and insure every step of his task; and to gratify this desire Magic arose.

That Magic should depend upon the assumption that “things connected in thought are connected in fact” seems unintelligible, until we consider that the thought in which they are connected is a judgment concerning the facts. But how is it possible to judge so foolishly? Absurd association is intelligible; it cannot be helped; but judgment is not a passive process. Well: a logician might interpret the case as a fallacy in applying the inductive canons: the Esquimo had two instances: (a) no ham-bone, no seal; (b) ham-bone, seal: or, again, into the circumstances of his expedition he introduced a ham-bone, and the seal followed. Therefore, the carrying of a ham-bone was the cause of getting a seal. He had not read Mill, and did not know what precautions should be taken before adopting such conclusions. The mind must have begun in this way; and after many thousands of years, the opportunities of error in empirical judgment began to be appreciated, and the canons were formulated. The experience of every man at every stage of life, personal or social (probably evoking an inherited disposition), continually impresses him with the belief in some connexion of antecedent and consequent, that each event arises out of others. But what it is in the antecedent that determines the event can never, in practical affairs, be exactly known. In definite cases, where method is applicable, we may analyse the consequent into the tendencies of forces in amount and direction; or we may sometimes reproduce it by an experiment exactly controlled. But where these resources fail us, as they often do in practical affairs, we are little confident of grasping all, or even the chief conditions of any event that interests us. The savage knows nothing of method, and, therefore, feels less distrust. He learns something of the conditions of success in hunting; this is biologically necessary to him as it is to a tiger; only those survive that learn them. He knows that he must have weapons as efficient as possible, must go to the habitat of his prey, must not be heard, or seen, or smelt. But with all precautions he sometimes fails; therefore there must be some other condition which he does not understand. Hence anything observed, or any word or action, that happens to be followed by success, may have been a means to that success.

And if it once has been, it always will be: not that he thinks of it in this general way. But even animals, as soon as they have learnt a sequence, trust to it. Dogs and cats learn faster than guinea-pigs; monkeys faster than dogs and cats; man quicker still. But in no case would there be any use in learning, if it did not lead to action as if the experience had been generalised. There is no mystery in generalisation; it is spontaneous, and only waits for language to express itself; the difficult thing to acquire is caution. In default of method, the only test of truth is relative constancy in experience—per enumerationem simplicem—faulty but broadly effective; which requires time and practice. Primitive Magic is an incautious, unexpressed generalisation; and the conditions are such that the error cannot be easily detected. As long as a savage follows the instinctive, traditionary and acquired knowledge that he has of hunting, practices based on wrong judgments, but not interfering with the traditionary art, such as the carrying about of a bone, or a crystal, or having a special pattern on his quiver, cannot impair his success; may add to it by increasing his confidence: so that as long as success lasts there is nothing to suggest the falsity of the judgment. A series of failures may make the hunter throw away his talisman, or (at a later stage of Magic) take it to a medicine-man to be redoctored. How many thousands of times may Magic have begun in this way and lost its hold again, before the human mind became chronically infected with it!

Similarly with amulets, anything unusual that a man happens to have about him, when attacked by a leopard or snake, from which he escapes, may be kept as a safeguard against future perils. And with rites: any gesture or action, however irrelevant, that happens to precede a successful effort, may be repeated in order to reinstate all the antecedents of success. So, too, with the origin of spells. It is a common impulse, and quite spontaneous, to accompany an action with words, incentive or expletive. If a hunter does so in driving home his spear successfully, he will next time repeat the words: they then become a spell.[106] First, then, there are practices of carrying about charms, repeating words, repeating actions; next, along with these practices, beliefs grow up as to the nature of their efficacy, their virtue; and much later it is discovered that some of the practices seem to involve certain common principles which the savage had never thought of.

In trying to imagine ourselves in the place of such a man, we must not omit the emotional excitement that determines his judgment. It is the intensity of his desire for success, his anxiety about it, that makes him snatch at, and cling to, whatever may possibly be a means to it: he does not see how it acts, but will take no risks by omitting it. Since what is true of primitive hunting is true of all undertakings—that we know some conditions of success but far from all—and since we are all of us frequently in this position—the wonder is that we resort so little to Magic. That many people do so in London is notorious.

§ 4. Magical Force and Primitive Ideas of Causation

Magic is a uniform connexion of events, depending on some impersonal force that has no real existence. What causes make men believe in such force? In the first place, everything is necessarily conceived of by everybody (and probably in some dim way by the higher animals) as a centre of forces. Its weight, when we try to lift it; inertia, when we push it, or when it is moving and we try to stop it; degree of hardness, when we strike or grasp it; elasticity, when the bent bough of a tree recoils; the sway of torrents and the lift of waves; falling trees, avalanches, water-spouts, hurricanes: all these things a man must think of, as he does of other men and animals, in comparison with his own strength or impotence. Into their actions and reactions he reads such tension and effort as he himself feels in struggling with them, or in grappling one of his own hands with the other; and as their action is full of surprises he does not suppose himself to know all that they can do.

But, further, the strain exhibited by some objects, especially trees; the noises they make, creaking and groaning in the wind; the shrieking and moaning of the wind itself, the threatening and whispering of the sea, thunder and the roar of torrents: all excite EinfÜhlung or empathy, illusory sympathy with things that do not feel. Their voices, more than anything else, I believe, endow them for our imaginations with an inward life, which Mr. Marett has well called Animatism,[107] and which must not be confounded with the Animism that used to be attributed to all children and all savages—the belief that every object is actuated by a spirit, or even that it has a consciousness like our own. What truth there was in that doctrine is fully covered by Animatism.

Again, the savage is acquainted with invisible forces some of which seem to act at a distance. The wind is the great type of invisible force; heat, sound, odour are also invisible, and act at a distance; the light of the camp-fire acts at a distance, spreading across the prairie or into the recesses of the forest; and lightnings issue from the clouds. In dreams, one visits some remote hunting-ground and returns instantly; distance and time are distorted or annihilated; and if you can act where you dream, why not where you intensely imagine yourself?

Hence there are abundant analogues in experience by which the savage can conceive of his talisman as a force-thing that acts invisibly and acts at a distance. Australian medicine-men “threw their joÏas (evil magic) invisibly, ‘like the wind,’ as they said.”[108] The talisman acts at a distance, like a missile; it acts for the person who owns it as his spear does, and is dangerous to others who have not practised with it. Sometimes, indeed, magic things have no owners, and are dangerous to everybody: malignant influence radiating from them, like the heat of a fire or the stench of a corpse. Such are two stones described by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen[109] as marking the place where an old man and two women died for breaking a marriage-taboo. “They are so full of evil magic that if any but old men go near, it kills them. Now and then a very old man goes and throws stones and bushes upon the spot to keep down the evil magic.” It is as if one covered up a fire or a corpse. And, further, magical force may exist in a diffused way, like darkness, heat, cold, epidemic disease, tribal unrest, without necessarily attaching to any particular thing. In the Western Isles of Torres Straits[110] mishaps may be signs of an unlucky state of things in general. A fisherman, usually successful, having once failed at his task, was depressed; but on two women dying in his village soon after, he was consoled; since this showed that failure was not his fault. Currents of this magical force, favourable or unfavourable to things in general, may be seen in the flow and ebb of the tide, the waxing and waning of the moon, and in the course of the seasons. From this way of thinking it is but a step to the conception of mana, as it is called in Melanesia:[111] orenda of the Iroquois, manitou of the Algonquin, wakanda of the Omaha.[112] It is the power of the wonderful and mysterious in the world, which becomes especially manifest in Magic and in the agency of spirits. Similar notions are found in many regions at various stages of culture, but nowhere (I believe) at the lowest stages; so that it is unreasonable to treat it as the first source of ideas of the supernatural. It is too comprehensive a generalisation to find expression amongst savages. The Arunta have got as far as the generalisation of evil Magic under the name of arungquiltha.[113] But mana is a generalisation of all the imaginary forces of superstition, vague and mysterious; as “cause,” in popular use, is a generalisation of all the supposed “forces” of nature.

Rites also act at a distance by invisible force; for this power belongs to gesture-language, and the simplest rites are gestures. And so do spells; for wishes, commands, threats expressed in words, act upon men at a distance by invisible force; and spells are nothing but such expressions conceived of in a particular way, as having that uniform efficacity which is Magic. Spells, being thought of as forces, are reified; so that blessings or curses cling to their objects like garlands, or like contaminating rags.

Magical force, then, is a notion derived from experience of natural forces and employed to account for events that are unusual, wonderful, mysterious, not to be interpreted by that common sense which is the cumulative result of usual occurrences. It is superimposed upon the older and wider presumption of causation, and is expected to manifest itself with the same uniformity; so that, if the laws of it can be discovered, it supplies a basis for the Art of Magic. So far is Magic from being the source of the belief in causation! But I have spoken of the “older and wider presumption of causation”; for (as has been shown) the definite postulate that all the ongoings of the world may be analysed upon the principal of cause and effect, can never come into the minds of primitive men; and even to ourselves it rarely occurs, except in scientific discussions or logical exercises; but we always act as if we trusted in it, and so does a savage, and so does a dog. The presumption is reinforced by every moment’s ordinary experience; and without it no consistency of life is possible. This ungeneralised presumption determines all thoughts and actions, mechanical, animistic, or magical. That the forces implied in superstition are generalised in such concepts as mana before the principle of causation obtains expression, is due to the prepotency of the unusual, wonderful, mysterious in attracting attention.

In our modern analysis of mechanical causation there are four requirements: (1) every event has a cause; (2) causation is uniform; (3) the cause is the assemblage of the indispensable conditions of the effect (and no others); (4) the cause is proportional to the effect. In the savage’s mind these requirements are also obscurely recognised: (1) he seeks a cause for everything: (2) he expects it to act uniformly: (3) he believes in reinstating all the conditions of the effect, as appears from his preparations for hunting, or war, or marriage, or whatever he may have in hand; but he is much more ignorant than we are as to what conditions are indispensable and decisive: (4) he knows vaguely that the cause is proportional to the effect; for (a) he succeeds in making effective weapons, etc., by mechanical means; (b) he is very susceptible to the “size-weight illusion,” twice as much as we are,[114] and this implies the adjustment of effort to a supposed weight; (c) he repeats a spell in order to strengthen it, or unites a talisman, a rite and a spell in one assault, implying that greater force must be directed against greater resistance; and so on.

Causation, then, is universally assumed: how do Animism and Magic influence the latent conception? As to Animism, (1) it palters with the uniformity of causation; for though the ghost or spirit acts from human motives, no one knows exactly what its motives are. It may be cajoled, implored, even threatened; but the result does not always answer desire: there is apparent caprice or free will, with consequent loss of confidence, and an uncomfortable feeling that leads to a reaction in favour of controlling the god, or ghost, by Magic. (2) The ghost is at first merely a man-force disengaged from the visible body, but still having its own body through which it can produce various effects. But the fear of a ghost immediately endows it with superhuman power; and in course of time it becomes more and more powerful, even to omnipotence; so that it can of itself bring about any event; and, therefore, the “assemblage of conditions” becomes unnecessary to causation: there need be no visible conditions: miracles occur; creation out of nothing is possible. (3) For such a power the “proportionality of cause and effect” becomes almost meaningless; but not quite, for there are degrees of spirit-force; and what one cannot do a stronger can.

As to Magic, it has the great merit of (1) preserving the uniformity of causation. But (2) it vitiates the presumption of causation by including in the total antecedent unreal conditions, namely, the forces of rites and spells; and by generating a frame of mind that makes it impossible to eliminate them. The hunter uses all the resources of his art in hunting; he also practises rites and spells. To which does he owe his success? We might suggest that he should try the hunting without the rites; but he is afraid to; and should he try, his positivism would probably break down at the first failure to kill. Well, then, let him try the rites without the hunting; but he is not such a fool: and, if he were, the medicine-man would tell him that, of course, he must “use the means.” (3) Magic impairs the sense of proportionality between cause and effect, by recognising antecedents which are, in their nature, immeasurable. In their admirable work, The Pagan Tribes of Borneo, Messrs. Hose and McDougall remark[115] that it is sometimes said, that people of lowly culture have “no conception of mechanical causation, and that every material object is regarded by them as animated”; but they do not think that this could be truthfully said about any of the peoples of Borneo. In the construction of houses, boats, weapons, traps, they have a nice appreciation of the principles involved. Yet we find[116] that these skilled artisans believe that they can retard an enemy’s boat by hanging under one of its benches a quartz pebble. Similarly, the Boloki of the Congo, having made a good canoe, before launching, strike it on the stern with an axe “to take away the weight.”[117] And the Fijians, still better boat-builders, believe that to put a basket of bitter oranges on a canoe reduces its speed.[118]

Inasmuch as the possibility of action at a distance is still in debate, the savage cannot perhaps upon that tenet be confidently corrected.

If there is any truth in the foregoing account of the latent ideas, or presumptions, of savages concerning causation, it is plain that Magic (and likewise Animism) did not help, but hindered the development of these ideas. Notwithstanding (or, perhaps, because of) certain specious resemblances to science, Magic is, and always has been, the enemy of science.

§ 5. Magic and Mystery

Magic begins with ignorance of some of the conditions of a desired event, and the adoption (on account of coincidence) of anything that fixes one’s attention as contributing to the total antecedent. As the supposed conditions of events grow more and more miscellaneous, the disposition increases to regard anything as a possible cause of anything else. Hence unbounded suspicion whenever an interesting event occurs whose antecedents are not familiar and manifest. The more unusual any occurrence, the more it must excite attention and be apt to arouse suspicion; and the first arrival of travellers or missionaries amongst a wild tribe is an event so unprecedented, that it is likely enough to occasion exaggerated suspicions and behaviour which, when reported, misrepresent the tribe’s normal attitude of mind. For this allowance should be made.

However, in Magic the causation is never traceable; therefore it becomes mysterious. The sense of mystery arises when something excites wonder, wonder gives place to curiosity, curiosity is baffled, and wonder returns with fear. The magical power of an inert object, such as a black pebble or a shark’s tooth, or of a bone that is pointed towards a victim, or of a spear that is swung but not thrown, and nevertheless inflicts a wound, though an invisible one, is something unknown, or mysterious. That is to say, it is a merely imagined action which remains obscure and inscrutable, in comparison with the perceived action of a spear thrown at a deer and slaying it with a visible wound. The savage has adequate practical knowledge of the latter process; of the former only a vague analogical image. He feels the difference, and that the Magic is mysterious; and mystery, being common to all magical processes, and deeply impressive (especially in black Magic), becomes what we call a “fundamental attribute” of Magic, pervading the whole apperceptive mass that is formed by a man’s magic-beliefs. Therefore whatever excites the sense of mystery tends to be assimilated[119] by this apperceptive mass and confirmed as magical; just as the mass of our scientific knowledge assimilates and confirms any proposition that has the attributes of a scientific law. Hence the savage accepts the mysterious remedies of an European doctor as magical; and he is ready to regard as magical, and to fear, anything—a rock, tree, or water-spout—that by any trait excites his sense of mystery. Magic, then, does not arise from mystery; but having come into existence, it appeals to the feeling of mystery; and then whatever else is mysterious tends to become magical.[120]

Magic being mysterious, the more mysterious the more powerful it must be. Hence foreign Magic is more dreaded than the home-made; ancient Magic is more powerful than modern; muttered spells, or formulÆ in a strange language, or in one whose meaning has been lost, are more efficacious than intelligible speech; written characters and numbers have a subduing prestige; verse is more subtle than prose (for poets are everywhere respected); a wizard is more impressive in a mask than when bare-faced, in a fit than when sober; and operations in the dark, that ought to excite scepticism, enhance credulity.

Masses of ideas having this mysterious quality form relatively dissociated systems, which offer resistance to all ideas that want it, and therefore to what we call “explanation.” Hence the conservative, inexpugnable character of Magic and its easy alliance with Mysticism. Resistance to explanation may go the length of denying present experience; as when a man is seen to be slain by a weapon or by a falling tree, and yet his death is ascribed to sorcery: the fear of sorcery having become a fixed idea.

§ 6. Volitional Magic

Magical power inheres in things, rites and spells without regard to the man who uses them; they may be sold or taught, and then serve the new possessor. But much the greater part of all known magical operation depends upon the agency of some person, man or spirit, who sets it going; and rites and spells are from the first, by their nature, personal actions.

In the later stages of Magic, no doubt, it is held that a mere wish or volition may be efficacious: in Cornwall they still tell you, when you are cold or tired, that you “look wisht,” that is, as if you had been ill-wisht and were pining away (this meaning is generally forgotten). But it seems to me improbable that such an idea should be primitive. People who, in inflicting penalties, do not discriminate between accidental and intentional offences, cannot be supposed to ascribe power to a mental process as such; and I have not been able to find in reports of very backward tribes any case of wish-magic unsupported by magical implements. Dr. Haddon says[121] that, among the eastern islanders of Torres Straits, the power of words and the projection of the will are greatly believed in. A youth who makes love procures a piece of black lava shaped significantly, and anoints it with coco-nut oil, etc.; he also anoints his own temples, and thinks as intently as possible about the girl, and repeats a spell whenever he sees her, using the names of Sagaro and Pikaro, wife and mistress of the hero Sida. Now, with this complex apparatus of talisman, rite and spell, how much is left to wishing or the projection of the will? He thinks hard about the girl, no doubt; but that needs no voluntary effort: at least, in this climate, voluntary effort is soon exhausted in trying to think of anything else. Mr. Weeks, in his book Among Congo Cannibals, describing a people of somewhat higher culture, and much more advanced Animism than the natives of Torres Straits, explains the nervousness in the poison ordeal even of those who are innocent of any nefarious practices, by asking—“For who has not at some time wished another’s death?”—and by the admitted doctrine that a man may be full of evil magic without knowing it. From this it seems to be inferable that a mere wish may be effective. But not justly; for a man full of evil magic is an incarnate talisman; and such a man may operate without wishing, as often happens with the evil-eye. At any rate, these casual Congo wishes do not amount to volition; the faintest velleity is enough for the hair-trigger of such explosive personalities. In Japan, too, the angry spirit of a living person may inflict a curse unknown to himself.[122]

Still, with the progress of Magic, deliberate wishes may acquire independent power. A man practising evil Magic, and desiring secrecy, has a strong motive to believe (that is, there is a cause of his believing) that his tacit wish has the power of invisible action at a distance; and the way by which he arrives at that belief is quite clear: for a spell is a magical force; it is also an expressed wish or command; and, if muttered, is more rather than less powerful than when uttered aloud. Why not, then, “sub-muttered,” or merely thought?

From this degenerate notion of will-work we must distinguish the personal power of an accomplished wizard in his whole magical activity. Whatever a man does with a talisman or a spell, as it were with a tool or a weapon, may be done with more or less concentration of energy and proficiency in the performance; and one man will be plainly superior to another. Success depends upon doing one’s best; therefore upon the will. And Magic often needs courage and resource; but in the development of the art it depends still more upon knowledge; wherein the magician is wont to boast himself. For wizardry is the most reputable faculty of primitive scholarship: to know all spells and rites, the arts of divination and medicine, the ancestry and true name of all dangerous things, which gives control over them: and it is a universal belief that knowledge is power.

§ 7. The Evolution of Magic—Direct Magic

From the simple beginnings thus described, Magic, like everything else in the world, proceeds to grow and differentiate. It grows by the lengthening of spells from the briefest wish or command to many verses;[123] by the extension of rites from the waving of a bough to raise the wind to the Australian Intichiuma ceremonies that go on for many days; by the accumulating of charms by the bagful; by the compounding of rites with spells, and by repetition of them three times or some other sacred number. It differentiates by being applied and adapted to more and more purposes: from hunting (if we suppose it to begin there) to war and love; to birth, marriage and death; to the giving of diseases and the curing of them; to the protection of property and to the discovery (or concealment) of theft; to navigation, building, agriculture, the care of flocks and herds, the procuring of rain, renewing the vigour of the sun and binding the influence of the Pleiades. At the same time Magic, originally practised (we may presume) by individuals, comes to engage the concern and co-operation of families, clans and tribes; and a distinction grows up between what we call “white” and “black” Magic: practices that are for the welfare of the tribe, or of some portion of it, and practices designed to gratify private passions without regard to their effect upon the community.

One may notice certain stages (not always serial) in the development of Magic: First, the simple and direct defence of oneself or fellows against other persons or things, storms, diseases, etc.; or, again, direct attack upon such hostile powers—by means of charms, spells or rites. Secondly, indirect or dramatic Magic, operating not upon persons or things themselves, but (expecting the same effect) upon imitations of them, or upon detached parts or appurtenances; as in the well-known device of making a waxen figure of a man and melting it in the fire to his destruction. Thirdly, the alliance of Magic with Animism, leading to sorcery, exorcism and ceremonies associated with Religion—discussed below in the sixth and seventh chapters. Fourthly, the confusion of Magic with Science, as in Astrology and Alchemy—referred to in the seventh and tenth chapters.

Direct magical rites begin in very simple ways, probably with gestures: as to point at a man in threatening; to throw out the open hand in warding off evil; to claw the air behind a man’s back, as Australian women do. It becomes more and more elaborate as the result of much study devoted to a matter of supreme interest: especially after the rise of a professional class of medicine-men, with whom inventions accumulate and become traditionary. Similarly, spells are at first merely wishes, or commands, or warnings. An Australian Wind-doctor cries, “Let the west wind be bound.”[124] The southern Massim of New Guinea have a spell to open a cave—“O rock, be cleft!” and, again, to shut the cave—“O rock, be closed!”[125] Nothing can be simpler. How spells rise into poetry and are combined with rites and charms is shown by a Polynesian example: a man being ill with consumption, which is called Moomoo, a medicine-man is sent for. He comes, sits by the patient, and sings—

Then, rising, he flourishes his spear over the patient’s head, and goes away. No one dares speak or smile.[126]

As to charms, the simplest, and perhaps the earliest, are small pebbles, such as the Australian “bulks,” or crystals.[127] In Papua there are quartz charms so powerful that it is not safe for even the owner to touch them. In that country the qualities that make a thing suitable for a charm are: (1) similarity in contour, or in other ways, to the object to be influenced; (2) rarity; (3) unusual shape in not very uncommon objects:[128] in short, whatever arrests attention. Dr. Codrington says: “A stone takes a man’s fancy; it is like something, clearly not a common stone; there must be mana in it: puts it in his garden; and a good crop proves he was right.”[129] Among the Esquimo, strange or curious objects never before seen are sometimes considered to bring success to the finder; and charms are carried shaped like the animals hunted.[130] Such a taste is very ancient, if the same purpose was served by those animal-shaped stones, retouched to increase the resemblance, which have been found in considerable numbers in France and England.[131] In the bag of a West African sorcerer may be seen a bit of leopard skin, of snake’s skin, hawk’s talons, bone of a dead man, leaves of certain plants, etc.; each having its own virtue, and uniting their powers in the interest of the formidable owner. The Chanson de Roland describes a talisman to which the chief of Charlemagne’s peers must have owed no small part of his prowess—his famous sword:—

I cannot call it fair fighting, and wonder that, thus armed, he should ever have been mortally wounded by the miscreant hordes of Mahum and Tervagant, however numerous.

An influential outgrowth of primitive Magic is the taboo. Taboo is the dangerousness of a person, or thing, or action, or word, conceived of as a motive for not touching or uttering or meddling therewith. The dangerousness may either lie in the nature of a person or thing, or be imposed upon it. A chief, for example, and everything belonging to him, is generally taboo by inherent sacredness: he is, like Mr. Weeks’s Congolese, full of evil magic. The idea of the talisman has thus been extended to include certain men. In many tribes it includes all women; but since to make them always taboo is too much for human nature, they are treated as such only periodically, or when a man is about to be exposed to some further danger, which will be the more likely to injure him when already contaminated by evil magic.[133] This is very clear in a case reported by Prof. Seligman:[134] at Yam warriors were forbidden to sleep with their wives before battle; else “bow and arrow belong other fellow he smell you, he shoot you, you no got luck.” Still, physical consequences (which may explain the superstition) are also considered: a diver for pearl-shell must similarly abstain; because, else, “man he sleepy.” The continence required of women to ensure the safety of their husbands when away at war or hunting may be due to a belief in a “sympathy” or “participation,” as if husband and wife were in some mysterious rapport; but, deeper, there may have been a fetch of policy. When magical taboos are generally recognised and feared, it becomes possible to use them for social purposes: one cannot be sure that every magical observance had its origin in magical belief. Thus the food-rules of Australian tribes consist of taboos upon the enjoyment of certain foods by women and young men, and are plainly devised in the interests of the gerontocracy: so why should not a fiction be founded on Magic in the interest of absent husbands?

The sanctity or dangerousness of the chief is probably due, first, to his being really dangerous; but, secondly, to the biological advantage to a tribe of respecting him, which leads to a selection of those tribes amongst whom respect for the chief arises. As biological adaptation is never more than a moving, oscillating equilibrium, this feeling sometimes becomes excessive, even to the point of insanity. Everything the chief touches becomes taboo; only a few sacred servants can approach him; he may be thus reduced to helplessness. It is one of Nature’s checks upon tyranny. Such is the force of taboo, that a Maori tribesman, being hungry, seeing some food by the wayside, and eating it, on learning that it was the remains of the meal of a sacred chief, immediately fell ill, and died. The offence was fatal—as soon as it was known. The dangerousness of women has been referred to their weakness; association with them must be weakening, and is therefore forbidden when exertion is needed.[135] Prof. Westermarck traces it to a “horror of blood”;[136] very probably; but other things may co-operate towards it. The life of women separates them from men, and brings them into a freemasonry and community of interests, to which men are not admitted; differentiates their mentality, until the result is mysterious and therefore magical: the sexual orgasm, being more like pain than anything that is not pain, at once attractive and revulsive, acquires the same character. Homicides and mourners, again, are liable to be taboo, either because there clings to them the mysterious quality and taint of death (a magical motive), or because they are followed by the ghosts of the departed.

There are unlucky words which it is a social offence to utter: words of ill-omen, but especially names of dead people, demons and sometimes gods; for people are apt to come when they are called, and, if the call is conceived of according to Magic, come they certainly will. There are likewise many actions that seem to us entirely innocent, yet in one or another tribe must be avoided by all who desire a prosperous or only a tranquil life. The Papagoe Indians of Mexico forbid a girl at a certain time to scratch her head, or even to touch her hair with her hand; for which there may be an excuse in the sacredness of the head; but her brother comes at the same time under the same restriction.[137] The case seems to be a type of many taboos, as being due wholly to suspicion and anxiety: an anxious mother who sees her boy scratch his head is reminded of his sister who must not do so; her fears are excited, and she prohibits the action that excites her fear: it is taboo. Writing of a Bantu tribe, M.Jounod says, “Most often taboos are inexplicable.”[138] So are the penalties that await the breach of them: the punishment rarely fits the crime. Premature baldness, failure in hunting or fishing, boils, lameness, dysentery—may avenge the eating of wild duck or marriage within the forbidden circle. And if any such thing happens to a man, he is liable to be accused of having broken a taboo; and that proves the truth of the belief in taboo.

Besides things that are in their magical nature dangerous, and therefore taboo, things inoffensive in themselves can sometimes be made taboo by merely declaring them to be so, or by setting up a symbolic notice that they are so, or by laying a conditional curse upon anybody who meddles with them. They have then become dangerous. This is the common case of making a talisman by means of a spell, transferring to it invisible power. Such practices, especially common in Melanesia, are often useful as a cheap defence of property (in gardens, for instance), but are also a means of exaction and tyranny. The prevalence of taboo amongst savages, by the way, enables them readily to appreciate our great commandment to do no work on Sunday.[139]

§ 8. Indirect or “Sympathetic” Magic

The use of charms, rites and spells, having been established in one department—say, hunting—may be extended to others by analogy, and is confirmed there in the same way, namely, by still doing one’s best. Having obtained the charms and learnt, or invented, the rites and spells, one applies them, but at the same time makes war or love as cunningly as one can, cultivates one’s garden, drives a bargain, and so forth, and ascribes all good results to the Magic. At first, I suppose, all such action was direct, discharged at the person or thing to be influenced. To slay an enemy a bone of a dead man was pointed, or a crocodile’s tooth hurled, in his direction (though, probably, not in his sight). To keep off evil Magic a wish was expressed—“Never sharp barn catch me”;[140] or to drive away a pest a command was issued, as in Borneo: “O rats, sparrows and noxious insects, go feed on the padi of people down river.”[141] But a time came when Magic began also to be carried out by practices indirect and purely dramatic, rites performed and spells recited not at the person or thing to be affected, but upon some substitute, or representative, or symbol; and this must have happened pretty early; for dramatic Magic is met with in Australia. To this sort of Magic belong the widely-diffused methods of operating upon the image of a man or anything assigned to stand for him, or upon hair-clippings, remains of food, or footprints instead of himself; or of tying knots to bind, or untying them to release a curse. With spells the indirect method is less common, but remarkable examples of it occur at a low level of culture. The Yabim of New Guinea, to promote the growth of their taro, tell a story: “Once upon a time, a man labouring in his field complained that he had no taro-shoots. Then came two doves flying from Paum. They had devoured much taro, and they perched upon a tree in the field, and during the night vomited up all the taro. Thus the man got so many shoots that he was even able to sell some of them to other people.”[142] Here, then, a mere story of a wish fulfilled is substituted, as a spell, for the wish itself, and expected to have the same effect upon the crop; and as that is, indeed, true, any failure of it is no more liable to be detected. But such practices seem to us sillier and less promising even than direct Magic. What can be the meaning of them?

The indirectness of a rite makes it more mysterious and magical, and that is a recommendation. Moreover, its dramatic character gives an imaginative satisfaction, which must suffice to initiate such pantomime again and again. Amongst ourselves many people are prone to dramatise every situation of their lives; to act in imagination their loves, their revenges, their opportunities of self-display, and to derive satisfaction from such imaginations even to the weakening of their will—satisfaction without effort or danger. But although this impulse may initiate pantomimic magic, it can hardly maintain it in the absence of any deeper satisfaction. The belief in its efficacy, again, once established, the effect of suggestion upon a victim of black Magic (who by some means is acquainted with what has been done against him) may have consequences that seem to verify the rites; but this can only happen when a belief in the efficacy of such practices already prevails. The power of suggestion depends upon the belief; it cannot create the belief. We must fall back upon coincidence. If, indeed, immediate and complete coincidence were requisite, if, when one practised on an enemy’s life, nothing less than his speedy death would do, coincidences might be too rare to give the requisite confirmation. But if some less injury will be acceptable, and if it need not follow immediately; if a delay of not merely two or three days, but two or three months will bring the event within the limits of satisfaction; and if the degree of injury may vary from death to a bad fall, or some failure in hunting on the victim’s part, or a quarrel with his wife; if even (as often happens) a misfortune to any one of his family may suffice—the confirmatory coincidences will be tolerably frequent. There must, of course, be many disappointments; but these count for little, because the particular practice is supported by a general belief in Magic; because men desire to believe and are afraid to disbelieve; because failures are explained by some error in performing the rites, or by the counteraction of superior Magic, or by the intervention of hostile spirits.

Special reasons for practising and believing in indirect operations of black Magic are their greater secrecy and, therefore, greater safety, and greater gratification of the love of cunning: which last (I think) explains much of the elaboration that marks these performances.

In the development of indirect Magic, very many of its practices seem to involve one or other of the assumptions often called the principles of sympathetic Magic, namely, Mimesis and Participation: (1) that to operate upon a likeness or representation, or by analogy, affects the person, or object, or process imitated or represented as if it were directly assailed; and (2) that a part or appurtenance of any one may, in any magical undertaking, be substituted for the whole. Among savages these principles (as has already been said) are only latent forms of procedure, tacitly assumed, not formulated, and cannot have been the source of the practices, but must gradually have been established by them; but when notions of scientific arrangement came into vogue, they were discovered and explicitly stated by the early physicians and alchemists, in whose thoughts Magic and Science were not clearly differentiated.

It has been supposed that these principles are natural consequences of the laws of the association (or reproduction) of ideas. According to the “law of similarity,” an idea of one thing often makes us think of another that resembles it: hence the thought of an enemy is supposed to make me think of an image of him, or the sight of his image makes me think of him. According to the law “of contiguity,” any two things having been seen or thought of together, thereafter the thought or sight of one of them makes me think of the other: hence the thought of an enemy makes me think of his footprint, or his footprint reminds me of him. Possibly. But must there not have been a long preparation of ideas before the thought of an enemy awakens in me these particular associations rather than many others? And if they should occur to me, how do the laws of association explain my astonishing belief that to put his image in the fire, or to thrust a thorn into his footprint, or to dig it up, carry it home and put it in the oven, will make him lame or afflict him with some wasting disease? There must be some system of ideas to determine these particular judgments.

Some, again, suppose that savages cannot distinguish similarity from identity, part from whole; so that an image appears to them to be in earnest the same thing as a man, or his nail-parings the same as himself. Yet it is certain that in their work-a-day life they do make these distinctions, and that otherwise they could not get on at all. If, then, in certain cases, and in Magic (which is all that concerns us now), they act or speak as if unable to draw such distinctions, it must be from an acquired incapacity in that connection; just as in some cases they suffer from an acquired incapacity to recognise that their beliefs are contradicted by experience; that is to say, some fixed idea or dissociation prevents them from comparing the facts; though sometimes it may be merely that customary forms of speech hinder the expression of distinctions that really exist among their ideas.

It has been suggested that the supposed force of mimetic Magic rests upon the belief that as a man’s shadow or reflection implies his presence, so does his image. And we shall see that, in some cases, this explanation is not far from the mark, though it cannot serve for all cases; inasmuch as the image operated upon in any rite need not be a likeness (of course it never is)—a stick will serve, if declared to stand for the victim; and, moreover, his presence is not needed in carrying out rites that act at a distance. What truth there is in this view has been better expressed by Prof. YrjÖ Hirn:[143] namely, that a unity or solidarity exists between all persons and things that stand to one another in a relationship of contact or similarity, on account of a certain magical virtue; and that this solidarity is not destroyed by any breach of physical continuity. To take away a man’s cloak, or a lock of his hair, or a remnant of his food, does not interrupt the magical continuity which contact has established with the man: something of him, his virtue, remains with it. And in the same way an image of him contains something of his virtue; for to the immature mind, images or pictures are nothing but radiations or decortications of the thing itself, an efflux, like the Epicurean e?d??a. Hence the bones of a saint and his picture convey his virtue to a devotee by the same process: both are conductors of some emanation from himself. There is much truth in this theory.

When Animism is called in to explain Magic, this virtue or emanation of a man is apt to be explained as his soul, or part of it. A savage dislikes being photographed, lest you should take away his soul. M. Jounod says the Bantu regard a photograph as “an unsheathing of soul”;[144] Mr. Dorsey says no Dakota would have his portrait taken lest one of his souls [out of four] should remain in the picture, instead of going after death to spirit-land;[145] Mr. Carl Lumholtz says the Papagoes refused to be photographed, lest part of themselves should be taken away, and remain behind after death.[146] And it is a trick with some sorcerers to keep a looking-glass, in which they pretend to catch the souls of their dupes; and, of course, shadows and reflections are frequently confounded with the soul. So if the use of an image in Magic does not imply the presence of the man himself, generally it does imply the presence of a very important part of him. And this explanation is strengthened by an apparent exception; for some Malays, when they make an image of an enemy to compass his destruction, think it necessary before operating to coax his soul into it by a potent spell.

Must we not infer that these Malays have in some way lost the common belief, and so are put to this extra trouble?

If it be asked how this account of the matter can justify the use of a stick or stone instead of a man’s image, merely assigning it to represent him, the reply (I think) is that the stick is a symbol. Since images are never much like the man, and may be unlike in all degrees, the stick is a sort of limiting case. A symbol is always the remainder, or reminder, of something that once had intrinsic value, as an image, shadow, or reflection has by being or participating in the man’s soul. Besides, it is perhaps a tacit assumption of Magic (as in other departments of life—including Philosophy), “that whatever for one’s purpose it is necessary to assume, is real or true”: the situation demands it.

As to the magical continuity between a man and whatever has been in contact with him, the belief in it may with some confidence be derived from the fact that it retains his odour; and when an animistic explanation is required, it is naturally thought that this odour is his soul or soul-stuff, as the savour of a burnt-offering is its soul-stuff that regales the gods.

Belief in the participation of an image, or part or appurtenance of a man in the man himself, or in his virtue, or in his soul, must give to rites of black Magic a great deal of the subjective satisfaction which is a secret motive of all Magic. The images, or nail-parings, or what not, identify the man to be attacked; they fix the wizard’s attention, vivify his imagination, direct the spell whom to strike (as a dog is set upon a trail), and heighten the joy of imaginary revenge.

There are, however, many cases usually classed as “sympathetic Magic” that cannot without great violence be explained in this way; and I complain of the epithet “sympathetic,” as applied to all indirect Magic, that it implies this explanation. Consider the Mandan buffalo-dances, the hunting dance and the mating dance; these are imitations or dramatic representations of the hunting of buffaloes and of their mating, which they are designed to prosper: can such dances be interpreted as the efflux or decortications of the future hunt or mating? Or, again, the story of the murÆna (quoted above, p. 101) and its resuscitation by the rising tide—is this a radiation of the budding of the taro which it is expected to expedite? Such cases, which are pretty numerous, must be understood upon some other ground than “participation.”

Many rites and observances seem to depend upon the notion of favourable or unfavourable currents of invisible power, which may be taken advantage of, or influenced, to obtain one’s ends, in hunting, or in obtaining rain, or in fertilisation of animals or crops. It is good to plant seed, or begin any undertaking, when the moon is waxing, or the tide rising; for these events show that the set of the current is favourable to increase or prosperity. Again, one may incite the current or strengthen it, as in bringing on rain by throwing water in the air, or by leaping to help the crops to grow. To instigate or assist in such ways the ongoings of Nature is not the same thing as to cause the event: a rain-wizard does not pretend to procure rain in the dry season; the times of ploughing, sowing, reaping (whatever rites may accompany them) are not decided by Magic. Much pantomimic Magic may be best understood as attempting to set up such currents of causation rather than as directly causative. Since instances of cause and effect are observed to repeat themselves, a pantomimic murder, or a hunting dance, or fertility-rites, may be considered as setting an example which Nature is expected to follow: the murÆna-spell promotes vitality by merely describing an example of reinvigoration. The Kai of N.E. New Guinea hold that if a man, by falling on a stump of bamboo in the path, wounds himself to death, it is because a sorcerer, having obtained something infected with his victim’s soul-stuff, has spread it over a pile stuck in the ground, and pretended to wound himself upon it and to groan with pain.[148] The belief implies that such practices are in vogue; and they seem to rely upon the assumption that “what happens once will happen again”; and that who shall repeat the disaster is determined by the presence, among the conditions, of something belonging to the victim in default of himself. It is not by sympathy or participation that the “something infected with his soul-stuff” acts; but by contributing to reinstate as far as possible all the circumstances of a cause like the cause of the man’s death.

In other cases an exemplary cause may be constituted by the substitution of similars that do not imply participation. Dr. Haddon tells us that in the western islands of Torres Straits[149] the Kuman vine breaks up in dry weather, and the segments look like human bones; hence they are employed in Magic. Similarly red ochre or some other stain may be used instead of blood, so that a skeleton may be coloured with it as a means of keeping it alive. In Chinese popular religion, before setting up a new idol, it is first carried to the temple of an older one, who is besought to let a portion of his soul-stuff transmigrate into the new one; then, carried to its own temple and enthroned, its hands, feet, eyes, mouth, nose and ears are smeared with blood, or with red paint, to open its senses and bring its soul into relation with the outer world.[150] Such a substitution of similars is true in one sense; red paint is a substitute for blood as colour: Magic requires that it shall also be a substitute in other ways; and, therefore, it is so. Thus, down and feathers thrown into the air in Australian rain-rites are a substitute for clouds; in Mandan hunting-rites, men disguised in buffalo-skins are a substitute for buffaloes; and thus, by substitution, a cause can always be constituted which, once having been set to work, Nature is constrained to repeat the operation.

Ought we not, then, to recognise two kinds of indirect Magic—the sympathetic, and what may be called the exemplary?[151]

The rise of the wizard as a professional authority introduces many changes into magical practice, and decisively alters its social importance. He sometimes experiments in new rites and spells or in new versions of the old ones; he decides some matters arbitrarily, as in imposing taboos on food; generally, he develops the art in the direction of his professional interests, learning to conjure, act, ventriloquise, suggest, hypnotise, and to provide excuses for failure; he begins to train novices, form a school and establish a tradition which influences the whole life of his tribe. How far arbitrary elements enter into rites it is impossible to say, until some one shall discover (as some one may) marks by which to distinguish them. Meanwhile, there may be many rites, or ritual elements, that cannot be explained on any known principles of Magic, because in fact they are arbitrary: still, such things must usually be an imitation of other magical practices. Prof. Leuba suggests, probably enough, that rites may sometimes be adopted to relieve excitement, such as the dancing of women when the men are at war.[152] It was the custom (e.g.) of Araucanian women; and as they danced, they swept the dust away with their fans, and sang: “As we sweep the dust away, so may our husbands scatter the enemy.” If this was arbitrarily invented, it was by analogy with much mimetic Magic: they set an example of what should happen and confirmed it with a spell.[153]

§ 9. The Dissolution of Magic

In spite of the human mind’s strong proclivity to Magic, the art, after rising to a maximum power and reputation, in course of time loses its influence, and is to be found festering only in the backwater and stagnant pools of society. Its power is not at the zenith in primitive society, but much later, when there are men in command of great wealth who feel insecure, and turn for confidence to diviners and thaumaturgists, whom they bribe heavily to give what they most desire. But by that time Magic is confused with Animism. As civil order and material civilisation prevail, Magic is no longer invoked to increase one’s confidence, because this is ensured by the regularity of ordinary affairs. As positive methods in war, building, commerce are learnt and practised, the magical accompaniments of such undertakings, without being wholly disused, may become less and less important—what we call “survivals,” such as the breaking of a bottle of wine on the bows when launching a ship (it is forgotten that the wine must be red). Or they may be lost altogether without injury to industry; whereas in savage economy there is some risk that a most useful craft, such as pottery, weaving, or canoe-building, may be entirely discontinued, if by the extinction of some group of men or women the rites and songs are forgotten with which such labour had always been made good.[154] For who would trust a pot or a canoe unconsecrated?

The great systematisations of Oneiromancy, Alchemy, Cheiromancy, Astrology, necessarily come forward late in the day, because they involve the constitution of science; but for that reason they are soon discredited by being confronted with the positive sciences; when, without being forgotten, they are relegated to what may be euphemistically called “select circles.”

With the growth of Animism, again, pure Magic becomes comparatively rare; its observances are interpreted according to the fashionable creed, no longer as setting occult, quasi-mechanical forces to work, but as requiring the intervention of a spirit or a god. They become symbolic: ritual now does nothing of itself, but is a sign of what the god does, or is desired to do. Yet Magic often has its revenge upon Animism: enchaining by mysterious uniformities the god himself.

In its own nature Magic comprises qualities that tend to weaken it (at least, to weaken each particular form of it) and to bring about its decline. Magical rites and spells, on whatever scale performed, are things to be repeated, and what is repeated is mechanised and ceases to live. Custom can maintain a practice whilst dispensing with its meaning; slowly the practice (spell or ritual) is slurred and corrupted. Economy, “least effort,” is the enemy of all ceremonial. There is also a tendency to the attenuation of rites on the principle (unconscious, of course) that “the sign of a sign is a sign of the thing signified”; whereby a meaning may be disguised in a symbol for the sake of secrecy, or even for politeness. Prof. Westermarck has shown how, in Morocco, the full rite for averting the evil eye is to throw forward the hand with outspread fingers and to exclaim, “Five in your eye.” But as this is too insulting for common use, you may instead casually mention the number “five”; or if even that be too plain-spoken, you can refer to “Thursday,” which happens to be the fifth day of the week. In this process there is great risk of forgetting the original meaning of the rite or spell; and when this comes to pass, we are left with the empty shells of superstition, such as a dread of “thirteen,” “Friday,” salt-spilling, walking under a ladder; for hardly a soul knows what they mean.