An Introduction to the Study of Comparative Religion

by F. B. Jevons

MAGIC

Of all the topics which present themselves to the student of the science of religion for investigation and explanation there is none which has caused more diversity of opinion, none which has produced more confusion of thought, than magic. The fact is that the belief in magic is condemned alike by science and religion,—by the one as essentially irrational, and by the other as essentially irreligious. But though it is thus condemned, it flourishes, where it does flourish, as being science, though of a more secret kind than that usually recognised, or as being a more potent application of the rites and ceremonies of religion. It is indeed neither science nor religion; it lives by mimicking one or other or both. In the natural history of belief it owes its survival, so long as it does survive, to its "protective colouring" and its power of mimicry. It is, always and everywhere, an error,—whether tried by the canons of science or religion; but it lives, as error can only live, by posing and passing itself off as truth.

If now the only persons deceived by it were the persons who believed in it, students of the science of religion would have been saved from much fruitless controversy. But so subtly protective is its colouring that some scientific enquirers have confidently and unhesitatingly identified it with religion, and have declared that magic is religion, and religion is magic. The tyranny of that error, however, is now well-nigh overpast. It is erroneous, and we may suppose is seen to be erroneous, in exactly the same way as it would be to say that science is magic, and magic science. The truth is that magic in one aspect is a colourable imitation of science: "in short," as Dr. Frazer says (Early History of the Kingship, p. 38), "magic is a spurious system of natural law." That is, we must note, it is a system which is spurious in our eyes, but which, to those who believed in it, was "a statement of the rules which determine the sequence of events throughout the world—a set of precepts which human beings observe in order to compare their ends" (ib., p. 39).

The point, then, from which I wish to start is that magic, as it is now viewed by students of the science of religion, on the one hand is a spurious system of natural law or science, and on the other a spurious system of religion.

Our next point is that magic could not be spurious for those who believed in it: they held that they knew some things and could do things which ordinary people did not know and could not do; and, whether their knowledge was of the secrets of nature or of the spirit world, it was not in their eyes spurious.

Our third point is more difficult to explain, though it will appear not merely obvious, but self-evident, if I succeed in explaining it. It will facilitate the work of explanation, if you will for the moment suppose—without considering whether the supposition is true or not—that there was a time when no one had heard that there was such a thing as magic. Let us further suppose that at that time man had observed such facts as that heat produces warmth, that the young of animals and man resemble their parents: in a word, that he had attained more or less consciously to the idea, as a matter of observation, that like produces like, and as a matter of practice that like may be produced by like. Having attained to that practical idea, he will of course work it not only for all that it is worth, but for more. That is indeed the only way he has of finding out how much it is good for; and it is only repeated failure which will convince him that here at length he has reached the limit, that in this particular point things do not realise his expectations, that in this instance his anticipation of nature has been "too previous." Until that fact has been hammered into him, he will go on expecting and believing that in this instance also like will produce like, when he sets it to work; and he will be perfectly convinced that he is employing the natural and reasonable means for attaining his end. As a matter of fact, however, as we with our superior knowledge can see, in the first place those means never can produce the desired effect; and next, the idea that they can, as it withers and before it finally falls to the ground, will change its colour and assume the hue of magic. Thus the idea that by whistling you can produce a wind is at first as natural and as purely rational as the idea that you can produce warmth by means of fire. There is nothing magical in either. Both are matter-of-fact applications of the practical maxim that like produces like.

That, then, is the point which I have been wishing to make, the third of the three points from which I wish to start. There are three ways of looking at identically the same thing, e.g. whistling to produce a wind. First, we may regard it, and I suggest that it was in the beginning regarded, as an application, having nothing to distinguish it from any other application, of the general maxim that like produces like. The idea that eating the flesh of deer makes a man timid, or that if you wish to be strong and bold you should eat tiger, is, in this stage of thought, no more magical than is the idea of drinking water because you are dry.

Next, the idea of whistling to produce a wind, or of sticking splinters of bone into a man's footprints in order to injure his feet, may be an idea not generally known, a thing not commonly done, a proceeding not generally approved of. It is thus marked off from the commonplace actions of drinking water to moisten your parched throat or sitting by a fire to get warm. When it is thus marked off, it is regarded as magic: not every one knows how to do it, or not every one has the power to do it, or not every one cares to do it. That is the second stage, the heyday of magic.