TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION H. BaD 
Professor Durkheim postulates the existence of a perfectly sharp and deep 
cleavage between the two domains of the saeré and profane, and his entire 
theoretical construction stands and falls with this assumption.' Again, Dr. 
Marett is of opinion that, generally speaking, ‘the savage is very far from 
having any fairly definite system of ideas of a magico-religious kind, with a 
somewhat specialised department of conduct corresponding thereto.’ ? 
This view, although expressed in a somewhat different connection, un- 
doubtedly implies the negation of Durkheim’s dogmatic standpoint. Again, 
Mr. Crawley thinks, that for the savage everything has got a religious dimen- 
sion,* a view which also excludes the existence of any irreducible dualism of 
magico-religious on the one hand and secular on the other. 
These examples show that the above question, fundamental as it is, is still 
ansettled and controversial. What answer does it receive from the ethnographic 
evidence? The great Australian ethnographers, Spencer and Gillen, whose 
researches have contributed to the advancement of our knowledge of primitive 
religion more than any other investigations, answer the question in the affirma- 
tive. The life of an aborigine of Central Australia is sharply divided into two 
periods : the one comprising his everyday life, and the other his magico-religious 
activities. It is evident throughout Messrs. Spencer and Gillen’s two volumes 
that the properly religious and magical practices and beliefs are strictly esoteric ; 
that they are fenced off from everyday life by a wall of taboos, rules, and 
observances. Yet reading another standard work of modern anthropology, Dr. 
and Mrs. Seligman’s monograph on the Veddas, one gets the impression that 
among these natives there does not exist anything like a radical bipartition of 
things and ideas into religious and profane. 
Again, the views held by another recent investigator, Dr. Thurnwald, with 
regard to the magic of the natives of the Bismarck Archipelago and of the 
Solomon Islands, imply beyond doubt the absence of a clear-cut division between 
magico-religious and secular ideas,’ the two classes merging into and blending 
with each other. 
One conclusion seems to be inevitable: namely, that pending new evidence 
it would be rash to dogmatise on the subject under consideration. I venture to 
say more. The above-mentioned statements (which could easily be multiplied) 
point not merely to different personal equations, which, however, would be pos- 
sible in such an enormously complex and general problem, but they point to 
real differences in the matter discussed. The consolidation of the religious life 
can be different amongst various peoples, depending as it does upon various 
social conditions. Thus religion seems to be best developed and possessing the 
highest relative social importance among the Central Australians, to a smaller 
degree among the Papuans studied by Thurnwald, still less among the Veddas. 
Where it is strongest the bipartition postulated by Durkheim seems to be most 
prominent. Wherever it is less pronounced the two domains shade into each 
other and begin to fuse. 
Thus probably the division into religious and profane is not an essential and 
fundamental feature of religion, suitable to be considered as its very distinctive 
characteristic. It is an accidental feature, dependent chiefly upon the social 
part played by religion and connected possibly with some other factors, to deter- 
mine the influence of which it is, however, necessary to have more ample 
evidence, gathered with the problem in view. 
7. The Dislribution of the Cylindro-conical Stones of Western New 
South Wales. By R. Erneripcer. 
1 Les formes élémentaires de la vie réligieuse, Paris, 1912. 
2 Notes and Queries on Anthropology, 4th edition, London, 1912. Article 
on Religion. 
* Article on Religion in Sociological Papers, iii., London, 1910. 
4 Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 33. 
5 « Bthno-psychologische Studien an Siidseevélkern,’ in Beihefte zur Zeitsch- 
rift fiir angew. Psychologie, Leipzig, 1913, Paragraph on Magic. 
