An Introduction to the Study of Comparative Religion

by F. B. Jevons

The fundamental opposition between magic and religion I take to be that religion is supposed to promote the interests of the community, and that magic, so far forth as it is nefarious, is condemned by the moral and by the religious feeling of the community. It is the ends for which nefarious magic is used that are condemned, and not the means. The means may be and, as we see, are silly and futile; and, for intellectual progress, their silliness and futility must be recognised by the intellect. But, it is only when they are used for purposes inimical to the public good that they are condemned by religion and morality as nefarious. If therefore we talk of a fundamental opposition between magic and religion, we must understand that the fundamental opposition is that between nefarious magic and religion; neither religion nor morality condemns the desire to increase the food supply or to promote any other interest of the community. Whether a man uses skill that he has acquired, or personal power, or force of will, matters not, provided he uses it for the general good. The question whether, as a cold matter of fact, the means he uses are efficacious is not one which moral fervour or religious ardour is competent by itself to settle: the cool atmosphere and dry light of reason have rather that function to perform; and they have to perform it in the case both of means that are used for the general good and of those used against it.

I take it therefore that what religion is fundamentally opposed to is magic—or anything else—that is used for nefarious purposes.

The question then arises whether we have any reason to believe that magic used for nefarious purposes must have existed before religion. Now by nefarious purposes I mean purposes inconsistent with or destructive of the common good. There can be no such purposes, however, unless and until there is a community, however small, having common interests and a common good. As soon as there exists such a community, there will be a distinction between actions which promote and actions which are destructive of the common good. The one class will be approved, the other disapproved, of by public opinion. Magic will be approved and disapproved of according as it is or is not used in a way inconsistent with the public good. If there is a spirit or a god who is worshipped by the community because he is believed to be concerned with the good of the community, then he will disapprove of nefarious proceedings whether magical or not. But Dr. Frazer's position I take to be that no such spirit or god can come to be believed in, unless there has been previously a belief in magic. Now, that argument either is or is not based on the assumption that magic and religion are but two manifestations, two stages, in the evolution of the same principle. If that is the basis, then what manifested itself at first as magic subsequently manifests itself as religion; and "the transition from magic to religion" implies the priority of magic to religion. But, as we have seen, Dr. Frazer formally postulates, not an identity, but an "opposition of principle" between the two. We must therefore reject the assumption of an identity of principle; and accept the "opposition of principle." But if so, then there must be two principles which are opposed to one another, religion and magic; and we might urge that line of argument consistently enough to show that there can be no magic save where there is religion to be opposed to it.

Now, there is an opposition of principle between magic used for nefarious purposes and religion; and the opposition is that the one promotes social and the other anti-social purposes. Nefarious purposes, whether worked by magic or by other means, are condemned by religion and are nefarious especially because offensive to the god who has the interests of the community at heart. That from the moment society existed anti-social tendencies also manifested themselves will not be doubted; and neither need we doubt that the principle that like produces like was employed from the beginning for social as well as for anti-social purposes. The question is whether, in the stage of animism, the earliest and the lowest stage which science recognises in the evolution of man, there is ever found a society of human beings which has not appropriated some one or more of the spirits by which all things, on the animistic principle, are worked, to the purposes of the community. No such society has yet been proved to exist; still less has any à priori proof been produced to show that such a society must have existed. The presumption indeed is rather the other way. Children go through a period of helpless infancy longer than the young of any other creatures; and could not reach the age of self-help, if the family did not hold together for some years at least. But where there is a family there is a society, even if it be confined to members of the family. There also, therefore, there are social and anti-social tendencies and purposes; and, in the animistic stage, the spirits, by which man conceives himself to be surrounded, are either hostile or not hostile to the society, and are accordingly either worshipped or not worshipped by it. Doubtless, even in those early times, the father and the husband conceived himself to be the whole family; and if that view had its unamiable side—and it still has—it also on occasion had the inestimable advantage of sinking self, of self-sacrifice, in defence of the family.

Thus far I have been concerned to show how, starting from a principle such as that like produces like, about which there is nothing magical in the eyes either of those who believe in magic or of those who have left the belief behind, man might evolve the conception of magic as being the lore or the personal power which enables a man to do what ordinary people cannot do. A few words are necessary as to the decline of the belief. The first is that the belief is rotten before it is ripe. Those applications of the principle that like produces like which are magical are generally precisely those which are false. The fact that they are false has not prevented them from surviving in countless numbers to the present day. But some suspicion of their falsity in some cases does arise; and the person who has the most frequent opportunities of discovering their falsity, the person on whose notice the discovery of their falsity is thrust most pointedly, is the person who deals habitually and professionally in magic. Hence, though it is his profession to work wonders, he takes care as far as may be not to attempt impossibilities. Thus Dr. Haddon (l.c., p. 62) found that the men of Murray Island, Torres Straits, who made a "big wind" by magic, only made it in the season of the southeast trade wind. "On my asking," he says, "whether the ceremony was done in the north monsoon, my informant said emphatically, 'Can't do it in northwest.' That is, the charm is performed only at that season of the year when the required result is possible—indeed when it is of normal occurrence. In this, as in other cases, I found that the impossible was never attempted. A rain charm would not be made when there was no expectation of rain coming, or a southeast wind be raised during the wrong season." The instance thus given to us by Dr. Haddon shows how the belief in magic begins to give way before the scientific observation of fact. The collapse of magic becomes complete when every one sees that the southeast trade wind blows at its appointed time, whether the magic rites are performed or not. In fine, what kills magic regarded as a means for producing effects is the discovery that it is superfluous, when for instance the desired wind or rain is coming, and futile when it is not. And whereas morality and religion only condemn the end aimed at by magic, and only condemn it when it is anti-social, science slowly shows that magic as a means to any end is superfluous and silly.

Science, however, shows this but slowly; and if we wish to understand how it is that the belief in the magician's power has survived for thousands of years down to the present moment amongst numerous peoples, we must remember that his equipment and apparatus are not limited to purely nonsensical notions. On the contrary, in his stock of knowledge, carefully handed down, are many truths and facts not generally known; and they are the most efficacious articles of his stock in trade. Dr. Frazer may not go farther than his argument requires, but he certainly goes farther than the facts will support him, when he says (l.c., p. 83) "for it must always be remembered that every single profession and claim put forward by the magician as such is false; not one of them can be maintained without deception, conscious or unconscious."

If now, in conclusion, we look once more at the subject of magic and look at it from the practical point of view of the missionary, we shall see that there are several conclusions which may be of use to him. In the first place, his attitude to magic will be hostile, and in his hostility to it he will find the best starting-point for his campaign against it to be in the fact that everywhere magic is felt, to a greater or less extent, to be anti-social, and is condemned both by the moral sentiments and the religious feeling of the community. It is felt to be essentially wicked; and in warring against it the missionary will be championing the cause of those who know it to be wrong but who simply dare not defy it. The fact that defiance is not ventured on is essential to the continuance of the tyranny; and what is necessary, if it is to be defied, is an actual concrete example of the fact that when defied it is futile.

Next, where magic is practised for social purposes, where it mimics science or religion and survives in virtue of its power of "protective colouring," it is in fact superfluous and silly; and where the natives themselves are beginning to recognise that the magic which is supposed, for instance, to raise the southeast trade wind won't act at the wrong season, it should not be difficult to get them to see that it is unnecessary at the right season. The natural process which tends thus to get rid of magic may be accelerated by the sensible missionary; and some knowledge of science will be found in this, as in other matters, an indispensable part of his training.