Magic Science and Religion 6 i 



fixed, emphasised out of what there is in the individual endowment. 

 Here again pubHcity is a matter of technique, while the contents 

 of what is taught are not invented by society but exist in the 

 individual. 



In other cults again, such as harvest festivals, totemic gatherings, 

 first-fruit offerings and ceremonial display of food, we find religion 

 sacralising abundance and security and establishing the attitude 

 of reverence towards the beneficent forces without. Here again 

 the publicity of the cult is necessary as the only technique suitable 

 for the establishment of the value of food, accumulation and 

 abundance. The display to all, the admiration of all, the rivalry 

 between any two producers, are the means by which value is 

 created. For every value, religious and economic, must possess 

 universal currency. But here, again we find only the selection 

 and emphasis of one of the two possible individual reactions. 

 Accumulated food can either be squandered or preserved. It can 

 either be an incentive to immediate heedless consumption and 

 light-hearted carelessness about the future, or else it can stimulate 

 man to devising means of hoarding the treasure and of using 

 it for culturally higher purposes. Religion sets its stamp on the 

 culturally valuable attitude and enforces it by public enactment. 



The public character of such feasts subserves another socio- 

 logically important function. The members of every group which 

 forms a cultural unit must come in contact with each other from 

 time to time, but besides its beneficent possibility of strengthening 

 social ties, such contact is also fraught with the danger of friction. 

 The danger is greater when people meet in times of stress, dearth, 

 and hunger, when their appetite is unsatisfied and their sexual 

 desires ready to flare up. A festive tribal gathering at times of 

 plenty, when everyone is in a mood of harmony with nature and 

 consequently with each other, takes on, therefore, the character 

 of a meeting in a moral atmosphere. I mean an atmosphere of 

 general harmony and benevolence. The occurrence of occasional 

 licence at such gatherings and the relaxation of the rules of sex 

 and of certain strictures of etiquette are probably due to the 

 same course. All motives for quarrel and disagreement must be 

 eliminated or else a big tribal gathering could not peacefully come 

 to an end. The moral value of harmony and goodwill is thus 

 shown to be higher than the mere negative taboos which curb 

 the principal human instincts. There is no virtue higher than 



