Magic Science and Religion 23 



its independence side by side with science, to which magic has to 

 succumb. 



This theory of magic and rehgion has been the starting-point 

 of most modern studies of the twin subjects. Professor Preuss in 

 Germany, Dr. Marett in England, and MM. Hubert et Mauss 

 in France have independently set forth certain views, partly in 

 criticism of Frazer, partly following up the lines of his inquiry. 

 These writers point out that similar as they appear, science and 

 magic differ yet radically. Science is born of experience, magic 

 made by tradition. Science is guided by reason and corrected by 

 observation, magic, impervious to both, lives in an atmosphere of 

 mysticism. Science is open to all, a common good of the whole 

 community, magic is occult, taught through mysterious initiations, 

 handed on in a hereditary or at least in a very exclusive filiation. 

 While science is based on the conception of natural forces, magic 

 springs from the idea of a certain mystic, impersonal power, which 

 is believed in by most primitive peoples. This power, called 

 mana by some Melanesians, arungquiltha by certain Australian 

 tribes, wakan^ orenda, manitu by various American Indians, and 

 nameless elsewhere, is stated to be a well-nigh universal idea found 

 wherever magic flourishes. According to the writers just 

 mentioned we can find among the most primitive peoples and 

 throughout the lower savagery a belief in a supernatural, impersonal 

 force, moving all those agencies which are relevant to the savage 

 and causing all the really important events in the domain of the 

 sacred. Thus mana, not animism, is the essence of " pre-animistic 

 religion," and it is also the essence of magic, which is thus radically 

 different from science. 



There remains the question, however, what is mana, this 

 impersonal force of magic supposed to dominate all forms of early 

 belief? Is it a fundamental idea, an innate category of the primitive 

 mind, or can it be explained by still simpler and more fundamental 

 elements of human psychology or of the reality in which primitive 

 man lives ? The most original and important contribution to these 

 problems is given by the late Professor Durkheim, and it touches 

 the other subject, opened up by Sir James Frazer : that of totemism 

 and of the sociological aspect of religion. 



Totemism, to quote Frazer's classical definition, " is an intimate 

 relation which is supposed to exist between a group of kindred 

 people on the one side and a species of natural or artificial objects 



