8o Science Religion and Reality 



develop a special technique. In magic, as in the other arts, man 

 can undo what he has done or mend the damage which he has 

 wrought. In fact, in magic the quantitative equivalents of black 

 and white seem to be much more exact and the effects of witch- 

 craft much more completely ' eradicated by counter-witchcraft 

 than is possible in any practical art or craft. Thus both magic 

 and science show certain similarities, and, with Sir James Frazer, 

 we can appropriately call magic a pseudo- science. 



And the spurious character of this pseudo-science is not hard 

 to detect. Science, even as represented by the primitive knowledge 

 of savage man, is based on the normal universal experience of 

 everyday life, experience won in man's struggle with nature for 

 his subsistence and safety, founded on observation, fixed by reason. 

 Magic is based on specific experience of emotional states in which 

 man observes not nature but himself, in which the truth is revealed 

 not by reason but by the play of emotions upon the human organism. 

 Science is founded on the conviction that experience, effort, and 

 reason are valid ; magic on the belief that hope cannot fail nor 

 desire deceive. The theories of knowledge are dictated by logic, 

 those of magic by the association of ideas under the influence of 

 desire. As a matter of empirical fact the body of rational know- 

 ledge and the body of magical lore are incorporaced each in a 

 different tradition, in a different social setting and in a different 

 type of activity, and all these differences are clearly recognised by 

 the savages. The one constitutes the domain of the profane ; 

 the other, hedged round by observances, mysteries, and taboos, 

 makes up half of the domain of the sacred. 



6. Magic and Religion 



Both magic and religion arise and function in situations of 

 emotional str'ess : crises of life, lacunae in important pursuits, 

 death and initiation into tribal mysteries, unhappy love and un- 

 satisfied hate. Both magic and religion open up escapes from 

 such situations and such impasses as offer no empirical way out 

 except by ritual and belief into the domain of the supernatural. 

 This domain embraces, in religion, beliefs in ghosts, spirits, the 

 primitive forebodings of providence, the guardians of tribal 

 mysteries ; in magic, the primeval force and virtue of magic. 

 Both magic and religion are based strictly on mythological tradition, 

 and they also both exist in the atmosphere of the miraculous, in 



