SeeLife and Letters, by Canon MacDonnell (2 vols. 1896).
SeeLife and Letters, by Canon MacDonnell (2 vols. 1896).
MAGELLAN, FERDINAND(in Sp.Fernando Magallanes, in Port.Fernão de Magalhães) (c.1480-1521), the first circumnavigator of the globe, was born at Sabrosa in the Villa Real district of the Traz-os-Montes province of Portugal. He was a son of Pedro de Magalhães, and belonged to the fourth order of Portuguese nobility (fidalgos de cota de armas). He was brought up as one of the pages of Queen Leonor, consort of King John (João) II “the Perfect.” In 1495 he entered the service of Manuel “the Fortunate,” John’s successor, and in 1504 enlisted as a volunteer for the Indian voyage of the first Portuguese viceroy in the East, Francisco d’Almeida. He sailed on the 25th of March 1505; was wounded at Cannanore on the 16th of March 1506; was then sent with Nuno Vaz Pereira to Sofala to build a Portuguese fortress at that place; returned to India early in 1508; and was again wounded at the battle of Diu on the 3rd of February 1509. At Cochin (Aug. 19, 1509) he joined Diogo Lopes de Sequeira on his famous voyage intended for the Spice Islands, when the Portuguese almost fell victims to Malay treachery at Malacca. In this crisis he fought bravely and skilfully (though it is not true, as often asserted, that he discovered the Malay plot); and before the 10th of October 1510 he had been rewarded for his many services with the rank of captain. He again distinguished himself at the taking of Malacca by Albuquerque (July-Aug., 1511), and was then sent on by the viceroy with Antonio d’Abreu to explore the Spice Islands (Moluccas). Leaving Malacca at the end of December 1511, this squadron sailed along the north of Java, passed between Java and Madura, left Celebes on their left, coasted by the Gunong Api volcano, touched at Bura, and so reached Amboyna and Banda. At the last-named they foundsuch abundance of spices that they came straight back to Malacca without visiting Ternate, as had been intended.
Magellan returned to Portugal in 1512. On the 14th of July of that year he was raised to the rank offidalgo escudeiro; and in 1513 he accompanied a Portuguese expedition against Azamor in Morocco. The city was taken on the 28th-29th of August 1513; but Magellan was subsequently wounded, and lamed for life, in a sortie; he was also accused of trading with the Moors. The accusation was subsequently dropped, but Magellan fell into disfavour with King Manuel, who let him understand that he would have no further employment in his country’s service (after the 15th of May 1514). Magellan formally renounced his nationality, and went to offer his services to the court of Spain. He reached Seville on the 20th of October 1517, and thence went to Valladolid to see Charles V. With the help of Juan de Aranda, one of the three chief officials of the India House at Seville, and of other friends, especially Diogo Barbosa, a Portuguese like himself, naturalized as a Spaniard, who had acquired great influence in Seville, and whose daughter he now married, he gained the ear of Charles and of the powerful minister, Juan Rodriguez de Fonseca, bishop of Burgos, the persistent enemy of Columbus, the steady supporter of his great successor. Magellan proposed to reach the Spice Islands of the East Indies by the west; for that purpose he hoped to discover a strait at the extreme south of South America, and is said to have declared himself ready to sail southwards to 75° to realize his project. Ruy Faleiro the astronomer, another Portuguese exile, aided him in the working out of his plan, and he found an invaluable financial ally in Christopher de Haro, a member of a great Antwerp firm, who owed a grudge to the king of Portugal. On the 22nd of March 1518, Magellan and Faleiro, as joint captains-general, signed an agreement with Charles V., by which one-twentieth of the clear profits were to fall to them; further, the government of any lands discovered was vested in them and their heirs, with the title ofAdelantados. On the 10th of August 1519, the fleet of five vessels, under Magellan’s command, left Seville and dropped down the Guadalquivir to S. Lucar de Barrameda, at the mouth of the river, where they remained more than five weeks. On the 20th of September the armada put to sea. Of the vessels which composed it, the “Trinidad” was the flagship, and the “Vittoria” the only one which accomplished the circumnavigation. The crew, officers, volunteers, &c., numbered about 270-280, of whom the names of 268 are preserved; 237 of these received pay; at least 37 were Portuguese, 30 or more Italians (mostly Genoese), 19 French, 1 English, 1 German. Only 31 returned in the “Vittoria”; 4 survivors of the crew of the “Trinidad” reappeared later. Antonio Pigafetta of Vicenza, an Italian gentleman who has left the best history of the voyage, went as a volunteer in Magellan’s suite. Faleiro stayed behind, having cast his horoscope and found that the venture would be fatal to him. The fleet was well armed, and the total cost of equipment was 8,751,000 maravedis, or £5032 (equal to over £50,000 in present value). Three-quarters were defrayed by the Spanish Crown, one-quarter by Christopher Haro and his friends. Before starting, Magellan made his will and addressed a memorandum to Charles V., assigning geographical positions connected with the controversy he was intending to settle: viz., the proper drawing of a demarcation-line between the spheres of Spain and Portugal in the East Indies, and the inclusion of the Moluccas within the Spanish sphere.
Steering south-west and calling at Teneriffe (Sept. 26-Oct. 3), Magellan sighted South America at Cape St Augustine, near Pernambuco on the 29th of November; thence he followed the east coast of the New World down to the La Plata estuary, which he examined in the hope of finding a passage at this point (Jan. 11-Feb. 6, 1520). On the 31st of March following, he arrived at Port St Julian (in 49° 20′ S.) where he wintered. Here he crushed a formidable mutiny (April 1-2), and made acquaintance with the natives, whom he calledPatagonians(“Big Feet”), whose great size and lofty stature are magnified by Pigafetta to gigantic proportions. Leaving Port St Julian on the 24th of August 1520, he discovered on the 21st of October the cape of the Eleven Thousand Virgins, the eastern entrance of the long-sought passage. Through this strait, 360 m. long, often narrow and very tortuous, fringed by snow-clad mountains, he guided his armada for thirty-eight days, weakened by the desertion of one vessel (the “S. Antonio”). On the 21st of November a council of pilots and captains was held to consider the continuation of the voyage, and on the 28th of November the fleet rounded Cabo Deseado, the “desired” western terminus of the strait, variously called by the first discoverers, “Victoria Strait,” “Strait of the Patagonians,” “of all Saints,” “of the Eleven Thousand Virgins,” or “of Magellan,” now only known by the last of these names. To the south of the passage lay the forbidding land “stark with eternal cold,” which from the many fires here observed Magellan named “Tierra del Fuego.” The expedition now entered the “Great South Sea,” first sighted by Vasco Nuñez de Balboa (q.v.), which, from the steady and gentle winds that drove the fleet across the immeasurable expanse, was by Magellan called “Pacific.” For ninety-eight days Magellan crossed this sea, almost beyond the grasp of man’s mind for vastness (as Maximilian of Transylvania puts it), from Cabo Deseado to the Ladrones. On the whole transit he discovered only two islands, sterile and uninhabited, which he called “St Paul’s” (Jan. 24, 1521) and “Shark Island” (Feb. 3). The first of these has been identified with Puka Puka in the Tuamotu Archipelago, the second with Flint Island in the Manihiki group; neither identification seems convincing. For most of these ninety-eight days the explorers had no fresh provisions, little water (and that bad), and putrid biscuit; the ravages of scurvy became terrible. The worst anticipations of Magellan (“he would push on, if they had to eat the leather of the rigging”) were realized; ox-hides, sawdust, and rats became coveted food. At last, on the 6th of March 1521, the Ladrones (so named by Magellan from the thievish habits of the natives) came in sight, Guam being probably the first port of call. Here the fleet rested, watered, revictualled and refitted; on the 9th of March they started again westward; and on the 16th of March sighted the southern point of Samar Island in the archipelago, since 1542 called the Philippines, but named by Magellan, its first discoverer, after St Lazarus. On the 7th of April the squadron arrived at Cebu, south-west of Samar, in the heart of the Philippines; here Magellan contracted a close friendship and alliance with the treacherous native sovereign, who professed Christianity the better to please and utilize his Catholic friends. Undertaking an expedition to conquer, for the Catholic faith and the king of Cebu, the neighbouring island of Mactan, Magellan was killed there in a fight with the islanders (April 27, 1521). The king of Cebu after this got into his power several of the leading personages of the squadron, including Juan Serrano, one of the two admirals elected to replace Magellan, and murdered them. The survivors, burning one of the three remaining vessels, left the Philippines, and made their way to the Moluccas (Nov. 6), visiting Borneo on the way (July 9-Sept. 27, 1521). At Tidor a heavy cargo of cloves was taken in; the “Trinidad,” becoming leaky, stayed behind with her crew; and the “Vittoria,” under Juan Sebastian del Cano, proceeded to Europe alone (Dec. 21, 1521). To double the Cape of Good Hope the “Vittoria” reached between 40° and 41° S. (April 7-16, 1522) and suffered from contrary winds, heavy seas, scurvy and starvation. In the Cape Verde Islands (July 9-15, 1522) thirteen of the crew were detained prisoners by the Portuguese. Only thirty-one men returned with del Cano to Seville in the first vessel that had ever made the tour of the earth. Though Magellan had not quite reached the Spice Islands when he fell at Mactan, his task had then been accomplished. He had already reached and passed the longitude of the Moluccas, where he had already been; the way home from the Philippines by the Indian Ocean and the Cape of Good Hope was perfectly known to the Portuguese, himself included. Magellan’s name has never received its due recognition ingeneral history. It ranks with those of Columbus, Marco Polo, and Henry the Navigator. The circumnavigation of the globe is as great an event as the discovery of America. Magellan achieved what Columbus planned—the linking of west Europe with east Asia by direct transit over the western ocean. Had America not intervened, the project of 1492 must have failed; by 1519 European pioneers had formed a more adequate notion of the task and its magnitude.
Magellan’s Straits, the Magellanic clouds (not first observed by him), and Magellan’s Land—a name long given to Patagonia and that hypothetical southern continent of which Tierra del Fuego was considered only a portion, and now again bestowed by Chile on her territory in the extreme south—preserve the memory of the first circumnavigator. The largest of the oceans has also kept the flattering name given to it by the man who first crossed it.
No record of his exploits was left by Magellan himself; and contemporary accounts are less detailed and consistent than could be wished. The best is that of Antonio Pigafetta, a volunteer in the fleet. It is printed in Ramusio, and exists in four early MS. copies, one in Italian and three in French. The latter was perhaps the original language of this work, which was addressed by Pigafetta, as a knight of Rhodes, to the Frenchman Villiers de l’Isle Adam, grand master of the order of the Hospital of St John. But this view is rejected by J. A. Robertson (see below), who believes the Ambrosian MS. to be the ultimate text. See thePrimo viaggio intorno al mondo, otherwise theNavigation et descouvrement de la Indie supérieure faicte par moi Anthoyne Pigapheta, Vincentin, chevallier de Rhodes, probably published in 1524 (in August of that year Pigafetta obtained leave to print his book in Venice). Of the three French MSS., two are in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris (5650 and 24,224 Fr.), the latter is wrongly supposed by Thomassy, followed by Lord Stanley of Alderley, to have been the copy presented by Pigafetta to the regent of France, Marie Louise of Savoy, mother of Francis I. The third French MS., often called the MS. of Nancy, first noticed by Thomassy in 1841, was bought by Sir Thomas Phillipps at Libri’s sale, and became MS. Phillipps 16,405. The Italian MS. is in the Ambrosian library at Milan. From this Carlo Amoretti, prefect of the Ambrosiana, published his Italian edition of Pigafetta in 1800; a French translation of this, by Amoretti himself, was issued by H. J. Jansen, 1801. An English version of Pigafetta was made by Richard Eden in hisDecades of the Newe Worlde(London, 1555). The earliest printed edition, apparently a summary of the Italian MS., was issued in French by Simon de Colines of Paris about 1525. The earliest Italian edition is of 1534 (or 1536).Other authorities are: (1) The narrative of an unknown Portuguese in Ramusio’sNavigationi et viaggi; (2) theDerroteroor Log-Book in the Seville Archives, supposed to be the work of Francisco Albo,contramaestreof Magellan’s flagship, the “Trinidad”: this consists mainly of nautical observations; (3) the narrative of the so-called Genoese pilot, written in excellent Portuguese, and printed in vol. iv. of theCollecão de noticiasof the Lisbon Academy; (4) variousinformacionesand other papers in the Seville Archives, especially bearing on the mutiny; (5) the letter of Maximilian of Transylvania, under-secretary to Charles V., to the cardinal of Salzburg; (6) the references in Correa and Herrera, often based on good information, and adding points of interest to other records. Of these (1)-(3), (5), and an instance of (6) are translated in the Hakluyt Society’s volume. Magellan’s two wills (i) executed at Belem on the 17th of December 1504, on the eve of his departure with Almeida, (ii) executed at Seville on the 24th of August, 1519, just before starting on his voyage round the world, are both of some value for his life.See also Lord Stanley of Alderley,The First Voyage round the World by Magellan, translated from ... Pigafetta, &c., Hakluyt Society (London, 1874); Diego de Barros Arana,Vida e viagems de Fernão de Magalhães, a trans. of the Spanish life by Fernando de Magalhães Villas Boas (Lisbon, 1881); F. H. H. Guillemard,Life of Magellan(London, 1890);Magellan ... the original text of the Ambrosian MS. (of Pigafetta), with English translation, notes, bibliography, &c., by J. A. Robertson (Cleveland, U.S.A., 1906). Before the appearance of this indispensable work, the best edition of Pigafetta had been in vol. iii. part 5 of theRaccolta di documenti e studi pubblicati nella r. commissione colombiana, edited by Andrea da Mosto (Rome, Ministry of Public Instruction, 1894).
No record of his exploits was left by Magellan himself; and contemporary accounts are less detailed and consistent than could be wished. The best is that of Antonio Pigafetta, a volunteer in the fleet. It is printed in Ramusio, and exists in four early MS. copies, one in Italian and three in French. The latter was perhaps the original language of this work, which was addressed by Pigafetta, as a knight of Rhodes, to the Frenchman Villiers de l’Isle Adam, grand master of the order of the Hospital of St John. But this view is rejected by J. A. Robertson (see below), who believes the Ambrosian MS. to be the ultimate text. See thePrimo viaggio intorno al mondo, otherwise theNavigation et descouvrement de la Indie supérieure faicte par moi Anthoyne Pigapheta, Vincentin, chevallier de Rhodes, probably published in 1524 (in August of that year Pigafetta obtained leave to print his book in Venice). Of the three French MSS., two are in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris (5650 and 24,224 Fr.), the latter is wrongly supposed by Thomassy, followed by Lord Stanley of Alderley, to have been the copy presented by Pigafetta to the regent of France, Marie Louise of Savoy, mother of Francis I. The third French MS., often called the MS. of Nancy, first noticed by Thomassy in 1841, was bought by Sir Thomas Phillipps at Libri’s sale, and became MS. Phillipps 16,405. The Italian MS. is in the Ambrosian library at Milan. From this Carlo Amoretti, prefect of the Ambrosiana, published his Italian edition of Pigafetta in 1800; a French translation of this, by Amoretti himself, was issued by H. J. Jansen, 1801. An English version of Pigafetta was made by Richard Eden in hisDecades of the Newe Worlde(London, 1555). The earliest printed edition, apparently a summary of the Italian MS., was issued in French by Simon de Colines of Paris about 1525. The earliest Italian edition is of 1534 (or 1536).
Other authorities are: (1) The narrative of an unknown Portuguese in Ramusio’sNavigationi et viaggi; (2) theDerroteroor Log-Book in the Seville Archives, supposed to be the work of Francisco Albo,contramaestreof Magellan’s flagship, the “Trinidad”: this consists mainly of nautical observations; (3) the narrative of the so-called Genoese pilot, written in excellent Portuguese, and printed in vol. iv. of theCollecão de noticiasof the Lisbon Academy; (4) variousinformacionesand other papers in the Seville Archives, especially bearing on the mutiny; (5) the letter of Maximilian of Transylvania, under-secretary to Charles V., to the cardinal of Salzburg; (6) the references in Correa and Herrera, often based on good information, and adding points of interest to other records. Of these (1)-(3), (5), and an instance of (6) are translated in the Hakluyt Society’s volume. Magellan’s two wills (i) executed at Belem on the 17th of December 1504, on the eve of his departure with Almeida, (ii) executed at Seville on the 24th of August, 1519, just before starting on his voyage round the world, are both of some value for his life.
See also Lord Stanley of Alderley,The First Voyage round the World by Magellan, translated from ... Pigafetta, &c., Hakluyt Society (London, 1874); Diego de Barros Arana,Vida e viagems de Fernão de Magalhães, a trans. of the Spanish life by Fernando de Magalhães Villas Boas (Lisbon, 1881); F. H. H. Guillemard,Life of Magellan(London, 1890);Magellan ... the original text of the Ambrosian MS. (of Pigafetta), with English translation, notes, bibliography, &c., by J. A. Robertson (Cleveland, U.S.A., 1906). Before the appearance of this indispensable work, the best edition of Pigafetta had been in vol. iii. part 5 of theRaccolta di documenti e studi pubblicati nella r. commissione colombiana, edited by Andrea da Mosto (Rome, Ministry of Public Instruction, 1894).
(C. R. B.)
MAGELLANIC CLOUDS(named after Ferdinand Magellan), two cloud-like condensations of stars in the southern constellation of Mensa about 69° S. Dec. and between 5° and 5° 40′ of R. A. They are remarkable in the resemblance of their stars as regards spectra and physical constitution to the stars of the Milky Way, though entirely detached from that object.
MAGENTA,a town of Lombardy, Italy, in the province of Milan, 16 m. by rail W. of Milan city, 364 ft. about sea-level situated in the midst of rice-fields. Pop. (1901), 8012. It manufactures silks and matches, and is famous for the battle (1859) in which the allied French and Piedmontese defeated the Austrians (seeItalian Wars). A memorial chapel and a monument were erected on the battle-field in 1862. A crimson-purple aniline dye, discovered about the time of the battle, was given from it the name of “magenta.”
MAGGIORE, LAGO(Lacus Verbanusof the Romans; Fr.Lac Majeur; Ger.Langensee), the most extensive of the lakes that extend along the foot of the Alps in Lombardy, N. Italy. Its area is about 83 sq. m., its length 37 m., its greatest width 5½ m., and its greatest depth 1198 ft., while its surface is 646 ft. about sea-level. It is mainly formed by the Ticino (Tessin) River, flowing in at the north and out at the south end, on its way to join the Po, but on the west the lake receives a very important tributary, the Toce or Tosa River, which flows down through the Val d’Ossola from the mountains around the Simplon Pass. Other important affluents are the Maggia (N.W.) and the Tresa (E.). The upper end of the lake (about 16 sq. m.) is in the Swiss canton of Ticino (Tessin). Locarno, at the northern or Swiss end, is 14 m. by rail S.W. of Bellinzona on the St Gotthard line. There is a railway along the south-eastern shore, from Magadino (10½ m. S.W. of Bellinzona) to Sesto Calende (36½ m.), at the southern end of the lake and 20 m. by rail from Novara. The east shore of the lake is reached at Luino by a steam tramway from Ponte Tresa on the lake of Lugano (8 m.), while the direct Simplon line runs along the west shore of the lake for 15½ m. from near Pallanza past Baveno and Stresa to Arona, which is 23 m. by rail from Novara. On the east shore are Luino (Ital. Luvino) and Laveno. On the west shore are (reckoning from N. to S.) Cannobio, Pallanza, Baveno, Stresa and Arona. Opposite (S.E.) Baveno are the famous Borromean Islands, on the largest of which (Isola Bella) are very remarkable gardens (formed about 1617), wherein many tropical plants flourish abundantly, while south-west of Baveno rises the glorious view-point of the Monte Mottarone (4892 ft.) between Lago Maggiore and the northern end of the Lake of Orta. In the morning thetramontanawind blows from the north down the lake, while in the afternoon theinverna, blowing from the south, prevails. The first steamer was placed on the lake in 1826.
(W. A. B. C.)
MAGIC1(i.e.“art magic”; Lat.ars magica), the general term for the practice and power of wonder-working, as depending on the employment of supposed supernatural agencies. Etymologically the Gr.μαγείαmeant the science and religion of themagi, or priests of Zoroaster, as known among the Greeks; in this sense it was opposed toγοητεία(? necromancy) andφαρμακεία(the use of drugs); but this distinction was not universally recognized, andγοητείαis often used as a synonym ofμαγεία. There is no general agreement as to the proper definition of “magic,” which depends on the view taken of “religion.”
I.—Nature of Magic
Theories of Magic.—Existing theories of magic may be classified asobjectiveorsubjective. The objective school regards magic as a thing by itself, entirely distinct from religion, recognizable by certain characteristics, and traceable to a definite psychological origin. Magic, on this view, is a system of savage science based on imaginary laws supposed to operate with the regularity ascribed to natural laws by the science of to-day. If practices prima facie magical form part of the recognized ritual of religion, it is because the older ideas have persisted and at most assumed a veneer of religion. For the subjective school, on the other hand, only those rites are magical which their practitioners qualify with the name of magic; there is no inherent quality which makes a rite magical; practices based on a belief in the law of sympathy may be religious as well as magical; rites may pass from the category of religion to that of magic when public recognition is withdrawn from them.
a.For E. B. Tylor the distinguishing characteristic of magic is its unreality; it is a confused mass of beliefs and practices, and their unity consists in the absence of the ordinary nexus of natural cause and effect. Under the general head of magic he distinguishes (i) a spiritual and (ii) a non-spiritual element. (i) The former is made up of such rites as involve the intervention of spiritual beings, ghosts of the dead, demons or gods; hence, in Tylor’s view, this form of magic is merely an inferior branch of religion. (ii) The non-spiritual part, but for which the category of magic would be unnecessary, depends on imagined powers and correspondences in nature; it is merely imperfect reasoning, the mistaking of an ideal connexion for a real one. When the American Indian medicine man draws the picture of a deer on a piece of bark and expects that shooting at it will cause him to kill a real deer the next day, he mistakes a connexion which exists only in the mind of the sorcerer for a real bond independent of the human mind.b.In J. G. Frazer’s view all magic is based on the law of sympathy—i.e.the assumption that things act on one another at a distance through a secret link, due either to the fact that there is some similarity between them or to the fact that they have at one time been in contact, or that one has formed part of the other. These two branches of “sympathetic magic” Frazer denominates “homoeopathic magic” and “contagious magic.” Homoeopathic or imitative (mimetic) magic may be practised by itself, but contagious magic generally involves the application of the imitative principle. (i) One of the most familiar applications of the former is the belief that an enemy may be destroyed or injured by destroying or injuring an image of him. (ii) Under the head of contagious magic are included such beliefs as that which causes the peasant to anoint the weapon with which he has been injured, which, according to Frazer, is founded on the supposition that the blood on the weapon continues to feel with the blood in the body. (iii) Implicitly Frazer seems to distinguish a third kind of magic; “the rain-charm,” he says, “operates partly or wholly through the dead ... in Halmahera there is a practice of throwing stones on a grave, in order that the ghost may fall into a passion and avenge the disturbance, as he imagines, by sending heavy rain.” Here there is no assumption of an invariable course of nature set in motion by magical rites; save that it is coercive and not propitiatory, the practice does not differ from ordinary religious rites.In his theory of the origin of magic Frazer follows the associationist school. But, as R. R. Marett has pointed out in a criticism of the associationist position, it is proved beyond question that even in the individual mind association by similarity, contiguity or contrast, is but the passive condition, the important element being interest and attention. Frazer assumes that magic has everywhere preceded religion: man tried to control nature by using what he conceived to be immutable laws; failing in this he came to believe in the existence of higher powers whom he could propitiate but not coerce; with this transformation religion appeared on the scene; the priest supplanted the magician, at least in part, and the first blows were struck in the perennial warfare of magic and religion. Frazer recognizes, however, that magical and religious rites are at the present day, and have been in historical times, frequently intermingled; it should be noted that for him religion means propitiation and that he does not recognize the existence of anything beyond magic among the aborigines of Australia. His theory is based on a selection of facts, and not on the whole body of beliefs and rites recognized as magical, among which are many wherein spirits figure. Frazer’s position appears to be that such rites are relatively late and may be neglected in framing a definition of magic. It may be perfectly true that the idea of magic has been progressively extended; but belief in transformation is also for Dr Frazer magical; this belief is certainly primitive; yet sympathy will not explain it, as it should if Frazer’s theory is correct.c.L. Marillier distinguished three classes of magic: (i) the magic of the word or act; (ii) the magic of the human being, independent of rite or formula, &c.; (iii) the magic which demands at once a human being of special powers (or in a special state) and the use of certain forms. (i) Under the first head he included such rites as mimetic dances, rain-making, disease-making, and sympathetic magic generally. Some of these rites are conceived to affect the course of nature directly, as by influencing winds or the sun, others do so through the intermediary of a god or spirit, who controls the course of nature, and is himself coerced by man with magical acts and incantations. (ii) Other rites cannot be performed by all and sundry: ceremonial purity, initiation or other conditions may be needed to make the charm effective. (iii) Individuals are found who are invested with magical power (mana), whose will rules the universe, whose simple words bring rain or sunshine, and whose presence gives fertility to the fields. Sometimes this power is an attribute of the individual, sometimes it is bound up with the office which he fills. In many cases the magical powers of both men and other objects, animate and inanimate, are put down to the fact that a god resides in them.d.Hubert and Mauss have made the most complete and systematic study of magic which has yet appeared. They hold that, implicitly at any rate, magic is everywhere distinguished from other systems of social facts; in order to be magical an act or belief must be common to the whole of a society; the acts which the whole of a group does not regard as efficacious are not, for this school of thought, magical: consequently the practices of gamesters, &c., do not come under the head of magic. Magic is essentially traditional; a distinguishing characteristic of primitive thought is that the individual mind is markedly unoriginal; and this feature is as prominent, if not more so, in magic as in technology or any other important element in human life. The correspondence between magic and technology can be traced far; for the gestures of the craftsman are as strictly prescribed as the ritual acts of the magician or priest: but in magic the results of the gestures are not of the same order as the results of the craftsman’s movements, and herein lies the distinction between magic and technic. The distinction between magic and religion is to be sought not in the sympathetic character of the former, nor in any supposed necessary sequence of cause and effect, nor yet in its maleficent character. Religion is prescribed, official, an organized cult. Magic is prohibited, secret; at most it is permitted, without being prescribed. Three important laws may be traced in the machinery of magical operations—magical power flows along channels determined by the contiguity, similarity or contrast of the object of the act and the object to be affected; but these laws do not suffice to explain magic: equally insufficient are the demonological theory and the theory of properties inherent in the objects used in magical operations. The underlying idea of magic is dynamical; to this power may be given the name ofmana(see below), of which sanctity is a special development. Thismanaoperates in amilieudifferent from the ordinary material world; distance is no obstacle to contact; wishes are immediately realized; but law reigns in the milieu in question, necessary relations are conceived as existing. The notion of time as it is found in the world of magic is even more alien from European ideas; the notion of sanctity enters into it, but time in magic and religion is qualitative rather than quantitative. The homogeneity of periods of time not depending on their duration, conventional numbers are employed; successive periods of time apparently equal are not so for the primitive consciousness; and both in magic and religion periods are homogeneous by reason of occupying the same position in the calendar.e.For A. Lehmann magic is the practice of superstitions, and his explanation of magic is purely psychological. Relying mainly on modern spiritualism for his examples, he traces magic back to illusions, prejudices and false precepts due to strained attention. This is ultimately also the view of Hubert and Mauss, who hold that “at the root of magic are states of consciousness which generate illusions; and that these states are not individual but collective and arise from the amalgamation of the ideas of a given person with those current in the society of which he forms a part.” The reunion of a group supplies a soil in which illusions flourish readily, and it is important to note that in magic and religion attention is above all necessary for the success of a rite, witness the frequent rule imposing silence; but this concentration of attention is precisely calculated to favour illusions; it is indeed the ordinary condition of successful hypnotism; even in civilized countries collective hallucinations without verbal suggestion are not unknown.f.R. R. Marett regards religion and magic as two forms of a social phenomenon originally one and indivisible; primitive man had an institution which dealt with the supernatural, and in this institution were the germs of both magic and religion, which were gradually differentiated; magic and religion differ in respectability; religion is always the higher, the accepted cult; but between what is definitely religious and what is definitely magical lies a mass of indeterminate elements, such as “white-magic,” which do not attain to the public recognition of religion, nor suffer the condemnation meted out to the indisputably magical. For primitive man the abnormal was the supernormal, and the supernormal was the supernatural, the object of fear; this is especially evident when we consider the case of taboo; it may be regarded as a public scare for which no particular individual is responsible, which becomes traditional along fairly constant lines, growing as it goes.Manawas attributed to taboo objects, among which were men in any way abnormal, whether as geniuses or idiots; and such men were expected to exercise their powers for the good of society; hence came into existence the professional medicine man; man originally argued from cause to effect and not vice versa. Priest and magician were originally one; but the former, learning humility in the face of might greater than his own, discarded the spell for the prayer and prostrated himself before a higher power.
a.For E. B. Tylor the distinguishing characteristic of magic is its unreality; it is a confused mass of beliefs and practices, and their unity consists in the absence of the ordinary nexus of natural cause and effect. Under the general head of magic he distinguishes (i) a spiritual and (ii) a non-spiritual element. (i) The former is made up of such rites as involve the intervention of spiritual beings, ghosts of the dead, demons or gods; hence, in Tylor’s view, this form of magic is merely an inferior branch of religion. (ii) The non-spiritual part, but for which the category of magic would be unnecessary, depends on imagined powers and correspondences in nature; it is merely imperfect reasoning, the mistaking of an ideal connexion for a real one. When the American Indian medicine man draws the picture of a deer on a piece of bark and expects that shooting at it will cause him to kill a real deer the next day, he mistakes a connexion which exists only in the mind of the sorcerer for a real bond independent of the human mind.
b.In J. G. Frazer’s view all magic is based on the law of sympathy—i.e.the assumption that things act on one another at a distance through a secret link, due either to the fact that there is some similarity between them or to the fact that they have at one time been in contact, or that one has formed part of the other. These two branches of “sympathetic magic” Frazer denominates “homoeopathic magic” and “contagious magic.” Homoeopathic or imitative (mimetic) magic may be practised by itself, but contagious magic generally involves the application of the imitative principle. (i) One of the most familiar applications of the former is the belief that an enemy may be destroyed or injured by destroying or injuring an image of him. (ii) Under the head of contagious magic are included such beliefs as that which causes the peasant to anoint the weapon with which he has been injured, which, according to Frazer, is founded on the supposition that the blood on the weapon continues to feel with the blood in the body. (iii) Implicitly Frazer seems to distinguish a third kind of magic; “the rain-charm,” he says, “operates partly or wholly through the dead ... in Halmahera there is a practice of throwing stones on a grave, in order that the ghost may fall into a passion and avenge the disturbance, as he imagines, by sending heavy rain.” Here there is no assumption of an invariable course of nature set in motion by magical rites; save that it is coercive and not propitiatory, the practice does not differ from ordinary religious rites.
In his theory of the origin of magic Frazer follows the associationist school. But, as R. R. Marett has pointed out in a criticism of the associationist position, it is proved beyond question that even in the individual mind association by similarity, contiguity or contrast, is but the passive condition, the important element being interest and attention. Frazer assumes that magic has everywhere preceded religion: man tried to control nature by using what he conceived to be immutable laws; failing in this he came to believe in the existence of higher powers whom he could propitiate but not coerce; with this transformation religion appeared on the scene; the priest supplanted the magician, at least in part, and the first blows were struck in the perennial warfare of magic and religion. Frazer recognizes, however, that magical and religious rites are at the present day, and have been in historical times, frequently intermingled; it should be noted that for him religion means propitiation and that he does not recognize the existence of anything beyond magic among the aborigines of Australia. His theory is based on a selection of facts, and not on the whole body of beliefs and rites recognized as magical, among which are many wherein spirits figure. Frazer’s position appears to be that such rites are relatively late and may be neglected in framing a definition of magic. It may be perfectly true that the idea of magic has been progressively extended; but belief in transformation is also for Dr Frazer magical; this belief is certainly primitive; yet sympathy will not explain it, as it should if Frazer’s theory is correct.
c.L. Marillier distinguished three classes of magic: (i) the magic of the word or act; (ii) the magic of the human being, independent of rite or formula, &c.; (iii) the magic which demands at once a human being of special powers (or in a special state) and the use of certain forms. (i) Under the first head he included such rites as mimetic dances, rain-making, disease-making, and sympathetic magic generally. Some of these rites are conceived to affect the course of nature directly, as by influencing winds or the sun, others do so through the intermediary of a god or spirit, who controls the course of nature, and is himself coerced by man with magical acts and incantations. (ii) Other rites cannot be performed by all and sundry: ceremonial purity, initiation or other conditions may be needed to make the charm effective. (iii) Individuals are found who are invested with magical power (mana), whose will rules the universe, whose simple words bring rain or sunshine, and whose presence gives fertility to the fields. Sometimes this power is an attribute of the individual, sometimes it is bound up with the office which he fills. In many cases the magical powers of both men and other objects, animate and inanimate, are put down to the fact that a god resides in them.
d.Hubert and Mauss have made the most complete and systematic study of magic which has yet appeared. They hold that, implicitly at any rate, magic is everywhere distinguished from other systems of social facts; in order to be magical an act or belief must be common to the whole of a society; the acts which the whole of a group does not regard as efficacious are not, for this school of thought, magical: consequently the practices of gamesters, &c., do not come under the head of magic. Magic is essentially traditional; a distinguishing characteristic of primitive thought is that the individual mind is markedly unoriginal; and this feature is as prominent, if not more so, in magic as in technology or any other important element in human life. The correspondence between magic and technology can be traced far; for the gestures of the craftsman are as strictly prescribed as the ritual acts of the magician or priest: but in magic the results of the gestures are not of the same order as the results of the craftsman’s movements, and herein lies the distinction between magic and technic. The distinction between magic and religion is to be sought not in the sympathetic character of the former, nor in any supposed necessary sequence of cause and effect, nor yet in its maleficent character. Religion is prescribed, official, an organized cult. Magic is prohibited, secret; at most it is permitted, without being prescribed. Three important laws may be traced in the machinery of magical operations—magical power flows along channels determined by the contiguity, similarity or contrast of the object of the act and the object to be affected; but these laws do not suffice to explain magic: equally insufficient are the demonological theory and the theory of properties inherent in the objects used in magical operations. The underlying idea of magic is dynamical; to this power may be given the name ofmana(see below), of which sanctity is a special development. Thismanaoperates in amilieudifferent from the ordinary material world; distance is no obstacle to contact; wishes are immediately realized; but law reigns in the milieu in question, necessary relations are conceived as existing. The notion of time as it is found in the world of magic is even more alien from European ideas; the notion of sanctity enters into it, but time in magic and religion is qualitative rather than quantitative. The homogeneity of periods of time not depending on their duration, conventional numbers are employed; successive periods of time apparently equal are not so for the primitive consciousness; and both in magic and religion periods are homogeneous by reason of occupying the same position in the calendar.
e.For A. Lehmann magic is the practice of superstitions, and his explanation of magic is purely psychological. Relying mainly on modern spiritualism for his examples, he traces magic back to illusions, prejudices and false precepts due to strained attention. This is ultimately also the view of Hubert and Mauss, who hold that “at the root of magic are states of consciousness which generate illusions; and that these states are not individual but collective and arise from the amalgamation of the ideas of a given person with those current in the society of which he forms a part.” The reunion of a group supplies a soil in which illusions flourish readily, and it is important to note that in magic and religion attention is above all necessary for the success of a rite, witness the frequent rule imposing silence; but this concentration of attention is precisely calculated to favour illusions; it is indeed the ordinary condition of successful hypnotism; even in civilized countries collective hallucinations without verbal suggestion are not unknown.
f.R. R. Marett regards religion and magic as two forms of a social phenomenon originally one and indivisible; primitive man had an institution which dealt with the supernatural, and in this institution were the germs of both magic and religion, which were gradually differentiated; magic and religion differ in respectability; religion is always the higher, the accepted cult; but between what is definitely religious and what is definitely magical lies a mass of indeterminate elements, such as “white-magic,” which do not attain to the public recognition of religion, nor suffer the condemnation meted out to the indisputably magical. For primitive man the abnormal was the supernormal, and the supernormal was the supernatural, the object of fear; this is especially evident when we consider the case of taboo; it may be regarded as a public scare for which no particular individual is responsible, which becomes traditional along fairly constant lines, growing as it goes.Manawas attributed to taboo objects, among which were men in any way abnormal, whether as geniuses or idiots; and such men were expected to exercise their powers for the good of society; hence came into existence the professional medicine man; man originally argued from cause to effect and not vice versa. Priest and magician were originally one; but the former, learning humility in the face of might greater than his own, discarded the spell for the prayer and prostrated himself before a higher power.
Definition of Magic.—To arrive at a definition of magic we may either follow the a priori road mapped out by Frazer and decline to recognize the distinction actually drawn by various societies between magical and religious practices; or we may ask what magic and corresponding terms actually connote. Frazer’s method ignores the fact that magic, like religion, is an institution,i.e.a product of society, not of any single individual; there is no more reason to suppose that a child reared in isolation would develop any kind of magical practices than that it would invent for itself a religion; but if this is the case,the associationist account of magic cannot be true. It is therefore by an analysis of actually existing practices that we must define and limit the term magic. There is, however, a serious difficulty in the way of determining the attitude of non-European peoples towards religio-magical practices; general terms are things of slow growth; it is therefore prima facie improbable that peoples in the lower stages of culture will have anything corresponding to our terms “religion” and “magic”; moreover, if we are right in assuming the fundamental unity of the two, it is by no means certain that they have even the consciousness of any distinction. Even when this consciousness is present, it by no means follows that the whole of the field is mapped out according to our categories; there will be a large indeterminate area which is neither magical nor religious. This suggests that the consciousness of the educated Occidental, for which the spheres of magic and religion in civilized society are sharply defined and contrasted, should be the ultimate arbiter; but here again we are confronted by a difficulty, for, to the educated man, the characteristic of magic is its unreality, and this does not help us to distinguish primitive magic and religion.
We must, it appears, determine the relation of magic to religion by an analysis of the conceptions of those who believe in both; but in so doing we must consider that, like all other institutions, magic has a history. Even if we go back to the 16th century and take the view of magic then held by the average European, it is still a complex idea. When we ask what the most primitive races now on the earth regard as magic, we are applying to their ideas a touchstone made for a very different age and culture; as well might we ask what their theory of knowledge is. If, however, we reverse the process and ask what elements of primitive institutions correspond most nearly to later conceptions of magic, we can at once say that the forbidden and private arts are the prototypes of the magic of later times. Magic is therefore the practice of maleficent arts which involve the use of religio-magical power, with perhaps a secondary idea of the use of private arts, which are to benefit, not the community as a whole, but a single individual. Religion in the lower stages of culture is essentially the tribal creed which all practise and in which all believe; if therefore an individual has a cult of his own, even if otherwise indistinguishable from a public cult, it is for this very reason on a lower plane, and probably corresponds in a degree to what is later regarded as magic. But our information as to the attitude of the uncivilized towards magico-religious rites in general is seldom sufficiently clear; our terminology is influenced by the prepossession of alien observers whose accounts cannot be assumed to correspond to the native view of the case.
Magico-religious Force.—The mere fact that we cannot draw an exact line between magic and religion suggests that they may have some fundamental feature in common. Both terms have greatly changed their connotation in the course of their existence;religioseems to have meant originallyκαταδεσμός(magical spell), and Pliny says thatμαγείαis a deceptive art compounded of medicine, religion and astrology. Among the Greeks, on the other hand,μαγείαoccupied a respectable position. More important is the fact that taboo (q.v.) is both religious and magical. There is a universal tendency to regard as magical the religions of alien races, as well as national religions which have been superseded; Leland tells us that witchcraft in Italy is known asla vecchia religione. An examination of the ideas of primitive peoples shows that there is a widely found notion of a power which manifests itself both in religion and magic. Observers have often been content to describe ceremonies without attempting to penetrate to the fundamental ideas which underlie them; this is particularly the case with magic, and only recently have anthropologists realized that in many primitive societies exists a fairly well-defined idea of magico-religious power, to which the generic name ofmana, from the Melanesian word, has been given.
a.Manain Melanesia is a force, a being, an action, a quality, or a state; it is transmissible and contagious, and is hence associated with taboo; it may be regarded as material and seen in the form of flames or heard; it is the power which is inherent in certain spirits, among which are included such of the dead as are denominatedtindalos; it may also be a force inherent in some inanimate object, such as a stone which causes the yams to grow, but it is a spiritual force and does not act mechanically; it is the power of the magician and of the rite; the magic formula is itselfmana. There seem to be a variety ofmanas, but probably the underlying idea is essentially one, though it does not follow that the Melanesians have arrived at the consciousness of this unity. Hubert and Mauss go even further and regard all force asmana; it is a quality added to objects without prejudice to their other qualities, one which supplements without destroying their mechanical action.b.Similar ideas are found in other areas. (i) The continental Malays have a wordKramât(hrm), which means sacred or magical; in Indo-China the Bahnars use the worddeng; in Madagascarhasinaseems to embody in part the same notion. (ii) In Africa the idea is less apparent; perhaps thengaiof the Tanganika tribes comes nearest to the notion ofmana; on the Congonkicihas a similar but more restricted sense. (iii) In Australia there are two, or perhaps three, kinds of magical power distinguished by the aborigines; all over the continent we find the maleficent power,boolyain West Australia,arungquilthain the central tribes,koochiein New South Wales; the central tribes have certain objects termedchuringa, to which magical power (which we may termchuringa) is attributed; the power of magicians is held to reside in certain stones, calledatnongara, and in this we must, provisionally at any rate, see a third kind of magical power:churingais beneficent and seems to originate with the mythical ancestors, whereasarungquilthais of immediate origin, created by means of incantations or acquired by contact with certain objects; the power of the magicians seems to proceed from the ancestors in like manner. (iv) In America these ideas are widely found; theorendaof the Hurons has been elaborately described by J. N. B. Hewitt; everything in nature, and particularly all animate objects, have theirorenda; so have gods and spirits; and natural phenomena are the product of theorendaof their spirits.Orendais distinct from the things to which it is attached; the cry of birds, the rustle of the trees, the soughing of the wind, are expressions of theirorenda; the voice of the magician isorenda, so are the prayer and the spell, and in fact all rites;orendais above all the power of the medicine man. Among the Algonquins we find the wordmanitu, among the Siouxwakanda,mahowa, &c., among the Shoshones pokunt; all of which seem to carry, at least in part, the same signification. In Central America, according to Hubert and Mauss,naualornagualis the corresponding term. (v) Traces of similar ideas may be found in more advanced nations; the Hindubrahmanis identified by Hubert and Mauss as the correlative ofmana; in Greeceφύσιςis possibly the echo of a similar idea; but we are yet far from having adequately fathomed the dynamical theories of pre-scientific days.
a.Manain Melanesia is a force, a being, an action, a quality, or a state; it is transmissible and contagious, and is hence associated with taboo; it may be regarded as material and seen in the form of flames or heard; it is the power which is inherent in certain spirits, among which are included such of the dead as are denominatedtindalos; it may also be a force inherent in some inanimate object, such as a stone which causes the yams to grow, but it is a spiritual force and does not act mechanically; it is the power of the magician and of the rite; the magic formula is itselfmana. There seem to be a variety ofmanas, but probably the underlying idea is essentially one, though it does not follow that the Melanesians have arrived at the consciousness of this unity. Hubert and Mauss go even further and regard all force asmana; it is a quality added to objects without prejudice to their other qualities, one which supplements without destroying their mechanical action.
b.Similar ideas are found in other areas. (i) The continental Malays have a wordKramât(hrm), which means sacred or magical; in Indo-China the Bahnars use the worddeng; in Madagascarhasinaseems to embody in part the same notion. (ii) In Africa the idea is less apparent; perhaps thengaiof the Tanganika tribes comes nearest to the notion ofmana; on the Congonkicihas a similar but more restricted sense. (iii) In Australia there are two, or perhaps three, kinds of magical power distinguished by the aborigines; all over the continent we find the maleficent power,boolyain West Australia,arungquilthain the central tribes,koochiein New South Wales; the central tribes have certain objects termedchuringa, to which magical power (which we may termchuringa) is attributed; the power of magicians is held to reside in certain stones, calledatnongara, and in this we must, provisionally at any rate, see a third kind of magical power:churingais beneficent and seems to originate with the mythical ancestors, whereasarungquilthais of immediate origin, created by means of incantations or acquired by contact with certain objects; the power of the magicians seems to proceed from the ancestors in like manner. (iv) In America these ideas are widely found; theorendaof the Hurons has been elaborately described by J. N. B. Hewitt; everything in nature, and particularly all animate objects, have theirorenda; so have gods and spirits; and natural phenomena are the product of theorendaof their spirits.Orendais distinct from the things to which it is attached; the cry of birds, the rustle of the trees, the soughing of the wind, are expressions of theirorenda; the voice of the magician isorenda, so are the prayer and the spell, and in fact all rites;orendais above all the power of the medicine man. Among the Algonquins we find the wordmanitu, among the Siouxwakanda,mahowa, &c., among the Shoshones pokunt; all of which seem to carry, at least in part, the same signification. In Central America, according to Hubert and Mauss,naualornagualis the corresponding term. (v) Traces of similar ideas may be found in more advanced nations; the Hindubrahmanis identified by Hubert and Mauss as the correlative ofmana; in Greeceφύσιςis possibly the echo of a similar idea; but we are yet far from having adequately fathomed the dynamical theories of pre-scientific days.
Origin of Magic.—The associationist theory of magic sets out with the assumption that primitive man began with general conceptions; he started with certain means at his disposal—the law of sympathy—by which he could, in his own belief, influence the outer world. But it is more probable that he argued from concrete instances and arrived little by little at abstract ideas of magical power.
a.Death and disease are universally regarded by uncivilized people as due to so-called “magic,”i.e.to non-natural causes. Primitive man was familiar with the wounds and bruises caused by physical means; he would naturally attribute any pain not so caused to the operation of analogous but invisible weapons, and eventually attempt to discover how he himself could apply on his own behalf the forces thus used against him. Similarly he may have asked himself to what causes were to be attributed the superiority of one man over another; he may have decided the problem by referring it to the superior power of the one, and then inquired in what way this power could in individual instances be increased. In fact we may say generally that man probably explained the already existing and happening by reference to the supernormal, and then endeavoured to guide the supernormal for his own benefit, direct or indirect.b.Ritual, however (the primitive magico-religious plasm), is negative as well as positive. The corpse is uncanny, and man’s dread of the corpse may well have been an early development; this dread, become traditional, with accretions of various sorts, crystallized intotaboo, the magico-religious prohibition. The notion of the uncanny, once arrived at, may have been exploited positively; psychical abnormalities are present among savage races in very different degrees; but if they were developed at an early stage in human history they doubtless suggested the possibility that man might exploit them for the collective advantage. But it by no means follows that beneficent rites were originally regarded as magical; and it should be noted that the initiator of the so-called magician in Australia is often the god of the tribe or nation. The limits of magic or its correlatives in the lower stages of culture are thus far undecided.c.Magic as it represents itself to the Occidental mind of the present day, and perhaps to the great part of the inhabitants of the world,seems to be a thing of gradual growth. (i) In the earlier stages there was probably no animistic feature about magic; it was essentially “the prohibited.” (ii) Then with the rise of animistic beliefs and practices came the association of the magician with demons—the spirits of the dead, or of animals, or unattached spirits—upon whose co-operation the powers of the magician are often now held to depend. These spirits were not in the position of gods; such recognition, worship, or cult as they received was often not a social institution, but the work of individuals, liable to fall into desuetude at the death of the individual, if not earlier. (iii) Again, the magical tends to be the less important and eventually the less respectable; therefore ancient cults which are conquered, like the religion of Rome by Christianity, come to be reckoned as within the sphere of magic and witchcraft. (iv) All non-animistic practices tend to becomeipso factomagical; many ritual prohibitions fall under the head of negative magic. Religion is predominantly animistic, and with the rise of gods magic and religion become antagonistic. Thus rites of a neutral character, such as leechcraft, and perhaps agricultural ceremonies which are not absorbed by religion, tend to acquire the reputation of being magical, as also do all amulets and talismans, and, in fact, everything not directly associated with religion. We therefore arrive at a period when magic is distinguished aswhite,i.e.the laudable, or at least permitted form, andblack,i.e.the prohibited form.
a.Death and disease are universally regarded by uncivilized people as due to so-called “magic,”i.e.to non-natural causes. Primitive man was familiar with the wounds and bruises caused by physical means; he would naturally attribute any pain not so caused to the operation of analogous but invisible weapons, and eventually attempt to discover how he himself could apply on his own behalf the forces thus used against him. Similarly he may have asked himself to what causes were to be attributed the superiority of one man over another; he may have decided the problem by referring it to the superior power of the one, and then inquired in what way this power could in individual instances be increased. In fact we may say generally that man probably explained the already existing and happening by reference to the supernormal, and then endeavoured to guide the supernormal for his own benefit, direct or indirect.
b.Ritual, however (the primitive magico-religious plasm), is negative as well as positive. The corpse is uncanny, and man’s dread of the corpse may well have been an early development; this dread, become traditional, with accretions of various sorts, crystallized intotaboo, the magico-religious prohibition. The notion of the uncanny, once arrived at, may have been exploited positively; psychical abnormalities are present among savage races in very different degrees; but if they were developed at an early stage in human history they doubtless suggested the possibility that man might exploit them for the collective advantage. But it by no means follows that beneficent rites were originally regarded as magical; and it should be noted that the initiator of the so-called magician in Australia is often the god of the tribe or nation. The limits of magic or its correlatives in the lower stages of culture are thus far undecided.
c.Magic as it represents itself to the Occidental mind of the present day, and perhaps to the great part of the inhabitants of the world,seems to be a thing of gradual growth. (i) In the earlier stages there was probably no animistic feature about magic; it was essentially “the prohibited.” (ii) Then with the rise of animistic beliefs and practices came the association of the magician with demons—the spirits of the dead, or of animals, or unattached spirits—upon whose co-operation the powers of the magician are often now held to depend. These spirits were not in the position of gods; such recognition, worship, or cult as they received was often not a social institution, but the work of individuals, liable to fall into desuetude at the death of the individual, if not earlier. (iii) Again, the magical tends to be the less important and eventually the less respectable; therefore ancient cults which are conquered, like the religion of Rome by Christianity, come to be reckoned as within the sphere of magic and witchcraft. (iv) All non-animistic practices tend to becomeipso factomagical; many ritual prohibitions fall under the head of negative magic. Religion is predominantly animistic, and with the rise of gods magic and religion become antagonistic. Thus rites of a neutral character, such as leechcraft, and perhaps agricultural ceremonies which are not absorbed by religion, tend to acquire the reputation of being magical, as also do all amulets and talismans, and, in fact, everything not directly associated with religion. We therefore arrive at a period when magic is distinguished aswhite,i.e.the laudable, or at least permitted form, andblack,i.e.the prohibited form.
Magic and Demonology.—Primitive psychology tends to anthropomorphize and personify; it is in many of its stages inclined to an animistic philosophy. To this is due in part the difficulty of distinguishing magic from religion. In many rites there is no obvious indication that a spirit or personal being is concerned. A portion of the ceremonies in which the spirits of the dead are concerned falls under the head of religion (seeAncestor Worship), but in the very name “necromancy” (νεκρος, corpse) lies an implication of magic; and dealings with the departed are viewed in this light in many parts of the world, sometimes concurrently with a cult of ancestors. Side by side with the human souls we find demons (seeDemonology); but on the whole only a small proportion of the world of spirits is recognized as powerful in magic; others, such as disease-spirits, are objects, not sources, of magical influence. Magic is sometimes made to depend upon the activity of demons and spirits, and it is true that the magician usually if not invariably has a spirit helper, often an animal; but there is no evidence that magical power had ever been confined to those who are thus aided. It is not easy to define the relation of fetishism (q.v.) to magic.
Magic and Science.—It is a commonplace that the sciences have developed from non-scientific beginnings; the root of astronomy is to be sought in astrology (q.v.), of chemistry in alchemy (q.v.), of leechcraft in the practices of the savage magician, who depends for much of his success on suggestion, conscious or unconscious, but also relies on a pharmacopeia of no mean extent. The dynamical theory of magic and religion brings primitive man from one point of view far nearer to the modern man of science than was previously suspected, we may fairly say that the Australians have an idea not unlike that of the transformation and conservation of energy, that this energy they store in accumulators, transmit by means of conductors, and so on. The discovery of these complicated ideas only serves to show how far the present-day peoples in the lower stages of culture have travelled from the primitive man who knew neither magic nor religion. But it is perhaps less in respect of abstract ideas than by its concrete investigations into properties, experiment and otherwise that magic has been the forerunner of science.
Magic and Divination.—Magic is an attempt to influence the course of events, divination (q.v.) to foresee them; but divination is frequently regarded as magical. It is certain that a large part of divination is religious, and the knowledge is explained as a message from the gods; but necromancy, the practice of discovering the future by consulting the dead, is in many respects essentially magical. Perhaps the magical character of divination may be in part explained, when we regard it as a group of practices in many varieties of which animism plays no part; for non-animistic ceremonies tend to be regarded as magical (cf. rain-making). Thus, heteroscopic divination seems to involve the idea of what may be termed a return current of magico-religious force; the event is not influenced, but itself determines the issue of the diviner’s experiment.
II.—Laws and Ritual of Magic
The practice of magic involves the belief in the operation of certain laws, and demands certain conditions. The number of positive rites is not unlimited; a certain rite tends to become stable and is finally used for all sorts of purposes; and each magician tends to specialize in this respect. Just as there are well-marked schools of magic, and the rain-maker is not the same as the fetish-man, so within the school there are various groups, differentiated not by the purposes at which they aim nor by the powers they claim to possess, but by the ceremonies which they practise. Chief among the laws lying at the base of magical practice is that of sympathy.
Sympathy.—That the law of sympathy is an essential element of magic is admitted equally by the associationist school and by its critics. Under the head of sympathy are embraced the laws of contiguity or contagion, of similarity or homoeopathy, and of contrariety or antipathy.