The Psychology of Magic 507 



Through the examination of primitive ritual we have at last got 

 at one tangible, substantial factor in religion, a real live experience, 

 the sense, that is, of will, desire, power actually experienced in person 

 by the individual, and by him projected, extended into the rest of 

 the world. 



At this stage it may fairly be asked, though the question cannot 

 with any certainty be answered, " at what point in the evolution of 

 man does this religious experience come in ? " 



So long as an organism reacts immediately to outside stimulus, 

 with a certainty and conformity that is almost chemical, there is, 

 it would seem, no place, no possibility for magical experience. 

 But when the germ appears of an intellect that can foresee an end 

 not immediately realised, or rather when a desire arises that we feel 

 and recognise as not satisfied, then comes in the sense of will and 

 the impulse magically to intensify that will. The animal it would 

 seem is preserved by instinct from drawing into his horizon things 

 which do not immediately subserve the conservation of his species. 

 But the moment man's life-power began to make on the outside 

 world demands not immediately and inevitably realised in action 1 , 

 then a door was opened to magic, and in the train of magic followed 

 errors innumerable, but also religion, philosophy, science and art. 



The world of mana, orenda, brdhman is a world of feeling, 

 desiring, willing, acting. What element of thinking there may be 

 in it is not yet differentiated out. But we have already seen that 

 a supersensuous world of thought grew up very early in answer to 

 other needs, a world of sense-illusions, shadows, dreams, souls, ghosts, 

 ancestors, names, numbers, images, a world only wanting as it were 

 the impulse of mana to live as a religion. Which of the two worlds, 

 the world of thinking or the world of doing, developed first it is 

 probably idle to inquire 2 . 



1 I owe this observation to Dr K. Th. Preuss. He writes (Archiv /. Eelig. 1006, p. 98), 

 "Die Betonung des Willens in den Zauberakten 1st der richtige Kern. In der Tat muss 

 der Mensch den Willen haben, sich selbst und seiner Umgebung besondere Fabigkeiten 

 zuzuschreiben, und den Willen hat er, sobald sein Verstand ihn befahigt, eine ubcr 

 den Instinkt hinausgehende Filrsorge fur sich zu zeigen. So lange ihn der Instinkt 

 allein leitet, konrifti Zauberhandlunf/en nicht enstehen." For more detailed analysis of 

 the origin of magic, see Dr Preuss "Ursprung der Religion und Kunst," Globus, 

 LXXXVI. and LXXXVII. 



2 If external stimuli leave on organisms a trace or record such as is known as an 

 Engrain, this physical basis of memory and hence of thought is almost coincident 

 with reaction of the most elementary kind. See Mr Francis Darwin's Presidential 

 Address to the British Association, Dublin, 1908, p. 8, and again Bergson places memory 

 at the very root of conscious existence, see L' Evolution Creatrice, p. 18, le fond meme 

 de notre existence consciente est memoire, cVst a dire prolongation du passee dans le present, 

 and again, la duree mord dans le temps et y laisse Vempreint de son dent, and again, 

 I'Evolution implique une continuation rielle du passee par le present. 



