Magic I take to include all bad ways, and religion all good ways, of dealing with the supernormal—bad and good, of course, not as we may happen to judge them, but as the society concerned judges them. Sometimes, indeed, the people themselves hardly know where to draw the line between the two; and, in that case, the anthropologist cannot well do it for them. But every primitive society thinks witchcraft bad. Witchcraft consists in leaguing oneself with supernormal powers of evil in order to effect selfish and anti-social ends. Witchcraft, then, is genuine magic—black magic of the devil's colour. On the other hand, every primitive society also distinguishes certain salutary ways of dealing with supernormal powers. All these ways taken together constitute religion. For the rest, there will always be a mass of more or less evaporated beliefs, going with practices that have more or less lost their hold on the community. These belong to the folklore which every people has. Under this or some closely related head must also be set down the mass of mere wonder-tales, due to the play of fancy, and without direct bearing on the serious pursuits of life.
The world to which neither magic nor religion belongs, but to which physical science, the knowledge of how to deal mechanically with material things, does belong wholly, is the workaday world, the region of normal, commonplace, calculable happenings. With our telescopes and microscopes we see farther and deeper into things than does the savage. Yet the savage has excellent eyes. What he sees he sees. Consequently, we must duly allow for the fact that there is for him, as well as for us, a "natural," that is to say, normal and workaday world; even though it be far narrower in extent than ours. The savage is not perpetually spook-haunted. On the contrary, when he is engaged on the daily round, and all is going well, he is as careless and happy as a child.
But savage life has few safeguards. Crisis is a frequent, if intermittent, element in it. Hunger, sickness and war are examples of crisis. Birth and death are crises. Marriage is usually regarded by humanity as a crisis. So is initiation—the turning-point in one's career, when one steps out into the world of men. Now what, in terms of mind, does crisis mean? It means that one is at one's wits' end; that the ordinary and expected has been replaced by the extraordinary and unexpected; that we are projected into the world of the unknown. And in that world of the unknown we must miserably abide until, somehow, confidence is restored.
Psychologically regarded, then, the function of religion is to restore men's confidence when it is shaken by crisis. Men do not seek crisis; they would always run away from it, if they could. Crisis seeks them; and, whereas the feebler folk are ready to succumb, the bolder spirits face it. Religion is the facing of the unknown. It is the courage in it that brings comfort.[6]
[Footnote 6: The courage involved in all live religion normally coexists with a certain modesty or humility. I have tried to work out this point elsewhere in a short study entitled The Birth of Humility.]
We must go on, however, to consider religion sociologically. A religion is the effort to face crisis, so far as that effort is organized by society in some particular way. A religion is congregational—that is to say, serves the ends of a number of persons simultaneously. It is traditional—that is to say, has served the ends of successive generations of persons. Therefore inevitably it has standardized a method. It involves a routine, a ritual. Also it involves some sort of conventional doctrine, which is, as it were, the inner side of the ritual—its lining.
Now in what follows I shall insist, in the first instance, on this sociological side of religion. For anthropological purposes it is the sounder plan. We must altogether eschew that "Robinson Crusoe method" which consists in reconstructing the creed of a solitary savage, who is supposed to evolve his religion out of his inner consciousness: "The mountain frowns, therefore it is alive"; "I move about in my dreams whilst my body lies still, therefore I have a soul," and so on. No doubt somebody had to think these things, for they are thoughts. But he did not think them, at any rate did not think them out, alone. Men thought them out together; nay, whole ages of living and thinking together have gone to make them what they are. So a social method is needed to explain them.
The religion of a savage is part of his custom; nay, rather, it is his whole custom so far as it appears sacred—so far as it coerces him by way of his imagination. Between him and the unknown stands nothing but his custom. It is his all-in-all, his stand-by, his faith and his hope. Being thus the sole source of his confidence, his custom, so far as his imagination plays about it, becomes his "luck." We may say that any and every custom, in so far as it is regarded as lucky, is a religious rite.
Hence the conservatism inherent in religion. "Nothing," says Robertson Smith, "appeals so strongly as religion to the conservative instincts." "The history of religion," once exclaimed Dr. Frazer, "is a long attempt to reconcile old custom with new reason, to find a sound theory for absurd practice." At first sight one is apt to see nothing but the absurdities in savage custom and religion. After all, these are what strike us most, being the curiosity-hunters that we all are. But savage custom and religion must be taken as a whole, the bad side with the good. Of course, if we have to do with a primitive society on the down-grade—and very few that have been "civilizaded," as John Stuart Mill terms it, at the hands of the white man are not on the down-grade—its disorganized and debased custom no longer serves a vital function. But a healthy society is bound, in a wholesale way, to have a healthy custom. Though it may go about the business in a queer and roundabout fashion, it must hit off the general requirements of the situation. Therefore I shall not waste time, as I might easily do, in piling up instances of outlandish "superstitions," whether horrible and disgusting, from our more advanced point of view, or merely droll and silly. On the contrary, I would rather make it my working assumption that, with all its apparent drawbacks, the religion of a human society, if the latter be a going concern, is always something to be respected.
In considering, however, the relation of religion to custom, we are met by the apparent difficulty that, whereas custom implies "Do," the prevailing note of primitive religion would seem rather to consist in "Do not." But there is really no antagonism between them on this account. As the old Greek proverb has it, "There is only one way of going right, but there are infinite ways of going wrong." Hence, a nice observance of custom of itself involves endless taboos. Since a given line of conduct is lucky, then this or that alternative course of behaviour must be unlucky. There is just this difference between positive customs or rites, which cause something to be done, and negative customs or rites, which cause something to be left undone, that the latter appeal more exclusively to the imagination for their sanction, and are therefore more conspicuously and directly a part of religion. "Why should I do this?" is answered well-nigh sufficiently by saying, "Because it is the custom, because it is right." It seems hardly necessary to add, "Because it will bring luck." But "Why should I not do something else instead?" meets, in the primitive society, with the invariable answer, "Because, if you do, something awful will happen to us all." What precise shape the ill-luck will take need not be specified. The suggestion rather gains than loses by the indefiniteness of its appeal to the imagination.