Magic Science and Religion 69 



animals. These sounds symbolise certain phenomena and thus 

 are believed to produce them magically. Or else they express 

 certain emotional states associated with the desire which is to be 

 realised by means of the magic. 



The second element, very conspicuous in primitive spells, is 

 the use of words which invoke, state, or command the desired aim. 

 Thus the sorcerer will mention all the symptoms of the disease 

 which he is inflicting, or in the lethal formula he will describe the 

 end of his victim. In healing magic the wizard will give word- 

 pictures of perfect health and bodily strength. In economic magic 

 the growing of plants, the approach of animals, the arrival of fish 

 in shoals are depicted. Or again the magician uses words and 

 sentences which express the emotion under the stress of which he 

 works his magic, and the action which gives expression to this 

 emotion. The sorcerer in tones of fury will have to repeat such 

 verbs as " I break — I twist — I burn — I destroy," enumerating 

 with each of them the various parts of the body and internal 

 organs of his victim. In all this we see that the spells are built 

 very much on the same pattern as the rites and the words selected 

 for the same reasons as the substances of magic 



Thirdly there is an element in almost every spell to which 

 there is no counterpart in ritual. I mean the mythological 

 allusions, the references to ancestors and culture heroes from whom 

 this magic has been received. And that brings us to perhaps the 

 most important point in the subject, to the traditional setting of 

 magic. 



2. The Tra'dition of Magic 



Tradition, which, as we have several times insisted, reigns 

 supreme in primitive civilisation, gathers in great abundance round 

 magical ritual and cult. In the case of any important magic we 

 invariably find the story accounting for its existence. Such a 

 story tells when and where it entered the possession of man, 

 how it became the property of a local group or of a family or clan. 

 But such a story is not the story of its origins. Magic never 

 " originated," it never has been made or invented. All magic 

 simply "was" from the beginning an essential adjunct of all 

 such things and processes as vitally interest man and yet elude 

 his normal rational efforts. The spell, the rite, and the thing 

 which they govern are coeval, 



