II. MAGIC AS A FORM OF THOUGHT
Thorndyke’s History of Magic is an account of the manner and circumstances under which, within the period it covers, not all at once, but gradually, first in one field of knowledge and practice, and then in another—haltingly, painfully, and step by step—the transition from magic to science was made.
Anthropologists have not always agreed as to the precise relation between magic and science. Is magic to be regarded as an earlier and more primitive form of science, or is it not? It is at least true that science, as means of control of the external world, has always found some form of magic in existence, and has always displaced it. But magic is probably never merely a tool or a technique which men use to control and fashion the world after their desire. It is primarily a form of emotional expression, a gesture, or dramatic performance. It has something, also, of the character of a prayer or solemn formulation of a wish, but always with the hope that in some—not quite intelligible—way the formulation of the wish will bring its own fulfilment. Magic ceases to interest us where the relation of the means to ends assumes the definiteness and certainty of a scientific demonstration.
Farmers in some parts of the country still pray for rain—at least they did so up to a few years ago. They will quit doing so, however, as soon as someone invents a sure-fire device for making it.[[64]]
We still believe in magic in medicine and in politics—partly, I suspect, because in those fields science has not been able to give us the positive knowledge it has in other regions of our experience, and partly because in the field of medicine and of politics our solemn formulations of our wishes so frequently bring the results desired. In many cases the method of social reformers in dealing with social evils is not unlike the technique of Christian Science in dealing with bodily and spiritual ailments; it consists mainly in solemnly and ceremonially asserting that a given evil no longer exists. Society formulates its wish, consecrates it—through the solemn referendum of a popular election, perhaps—and writes it on the statute books. As far as the public is concerned, the thing is then finished. Fortunately, this form of magic often works—but unfortunately, it does not work so often as it used to.[[65]]
What has been said indicates that magic may be regarded as a form of thought characteristic of, but not confined to, primitive—or what Professor Ellsworth Faris has called preliterate—man. It suggests, also, that primitive thought and primitive mentality are ordinarily associated with a definite organization of life and experience, perhaps even a definite economic organization of society. We all are disposed to think in magical terms in those regions of our experience that have not been rationalized, and where our control is uncertain and incomplete. The stock exchange and the golf course, where success is uncertain and fortuitous, all tend to breed their own superstition.
“Magic,” as Thorndyke says, “implies a mental state, and so may be viewed from the standpoint of the history of thought.” But magic, if it is a form of thought, is not science; neither is it art. The arts may be said to begin with the lower animals. But in the art with which the beaver constructs a dam and the bird builds a nest there is neither magic nor science.
We can best understand magic and its relation to science if we recall that thought is itself an interrupted act, “a delayed response” to use the language of the behaviorists. There is the impulse to act, which is interrupted by reflection, but eventually the impulse completes itself in action. Magic has the character of thought in so far as it is an impulse that is interrupted and so becomes conscious. But it is not rational thought because it does not foresee and seek to define the relation between the end it seeks and the means necessary to achieve that end. Between ends and means there is always a hiatus in which there is feeling but not clear intuition of how that end is to be achieved.
All human activities tend to assume the character of magic in so far as they become purely traditional and conventional, defined in some sacred formula piously transmitted. It is peculiarly characteristic of modern life, however, that all our inherited forms of behavior tend to become rationalized. It is characteristic of modern life that nothing is accepted merely on authority, every tradition is subject to criticism.
It is only in very recent years that we have achieved scientific agriculture and scientific cooking. On the other hand we have already scientific advertising and scientific “cheering.” “Yelling” at ball games, once so spontaneous, has now become an art, if not a duty.[[66]]