[1446] Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Religion, i. 220 sqq. (vol. xi. of the first collected edition of Hegel’s works, Berlin, 1832). The coincidence was also pointed out to me by my friend Dr. J. M. E. McTaggart.
[1447] Similarly I have pointed out elsewhere (Totemism and Exogamy, i. 169 sq.) that it is the unstable, apparently irregular, incalculable element in nature which the magician particularly aims at controlling, while so far as the course of nature is observed to be stable, regular, and uniform it lies comparatively outside the operations of magic. “To put it generally, the practice of magic for the control of nature will be found on the whole to increase with the variability and to decrease with the uniformity of nature throughout the year. Hence the increase will tend to become more and more conspicuous as we recede from the equator, where the annual changes of natural conditions are much less marked than elsewhere. This general rule is no doubt subject to many exceptions which depend on local varieties of climate. . . . But, on the whole, this department of magic, if not checked by civilisation or other causes, would naturally attain its highest vogue in the temperate and polar zones rather than in the equatorial regions; while, on the other hand, the branch of magical art which deals directly with mankind, aiming for example at the cure or infliction of disease, tends for obvious reasons to be diffused equally over the globe without distinction of latitude or climate” (Totemism and Exogamy, i. 170). The reason why the latter branch of magic tends to be equally prevalent in all parts of the world is, of course, that in all parts of the world human nature is equally unstable, seemingly irregular, and incalculable by comparison with the stability, regularity, and uniformity of nature.
[1448] I have not found the passage of Captain Parry which Hegel here quotes, whether from the English original or from a German translation. I should doubt whether the gallant English explorer would have spoken of an “empirical mode of existence,” which appears to me to savour rather of the professor’s lecture-room than of the captain’s quarter-deck.
[1449] G. W. F. Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, translated by the Rev. E. B. Spiers, B. D., and J. Burdon Sanderson, i. (London, 1895) pp. 290–298. Further, Hegel observes (p. 300) that “magic has existed among all peoples and at every period.”
END OF VOL. I
Printed by R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, Edinburgh.
Works by Sir J. G. FRAZER, D.C.L., LL.D.
THE GOLDEN BOUGH
A STUDY IN MAGIC AND RELIGION
Third Edition, revised and enlarged. 8vo.