Magic Science and Religion 71 



exclusively in man, let loose only by his magical act, gushing out 

 with his voice, conveyed by the casting forth of the rite. 



It may be here mentioned that the human body, being the 

 receptacle of magic and the channel of its flow, must be submitted 

 to various conditions. Thus the magician has to keep all sorts of 

 taboos, or else the spell might be injured, especially as in certain 

 parts of the world, in Melanesia for instance, the spell resides in 

 the magician's belly, which is the seat of memory as well as of food. 

 When necessary it is summoned up to the larynx, which is the seat 

 of intelligence, and thence sent forth by the voice, the main organ 

 of the human mind. Thus, not only is magic an essentially human 

 possession, but it is literally and actually enshrined in man and can 

 be handed on only from man to man, according to very strict rules 

 of magical filiation, initiation, and instruction. It is thus never 

 conceived as a force of nature, residing in things, acting inde- 

 pendently of man, to be found out and learned by him, by any of 

 those proceedings by which he gains his ordinary knowledge of 

 nature. 



3. Mana and the Virtue of Magic 



The obvious result of this is that all the theories which lay 

 mana and similar conceptions at the basis of magic are pointing 

 altogether in the wrong direction. For if the virtue of magic is 

 exclusively localised in man, can be wielded by him only under 

 very special conditions and in a traditionally prescribed manner, 

 it certainly is not a force such as the one described by Dr. 

 Codrington : " This mana is not fixed in anything and can be 

 conveyed in almost anything." Mana also " acts in all ways for 

 good and evil . . . shows itself in physical force or in any kind 

 of power and excellence which a man possesses." Now it is clear 

 that this force as described by Codrington is almost the exact 

 opposite of the magical virtue as found embodied in the mythology 

 of savages, in their behaviour, and in the structure of their magical 

 formulas. For the real virtue of magic, as I know it from 

 Melanesia, is fixed only in the spell and in its rite, and it cannot be 

 " conveyed in " anything, but can be conveyed only by its strictly 

 defined procedure. It never acts " in all ways," but only in ways 

 specified by tradition. It never shows itself in physical force, 

 while its effects upon the powers and excellences of man are strictly 

 limited and defined. 



