504 Darwinism and the Study of Religions 
pation that exists mainly in the minds of hymn-writers. The real 
savage is more actively engaged. Instead of asking a god to do what 
he wants done, he does it or tries to do it himself; instead of prayers 
he utters spells. In a word he is busy practising magic, and above 
all he is strenuously engaged in dancing magical dances. When the 
savage wants rain or wind or sunshine, he does not go to church; 
he summons his tribe and they dance a rain-dance or wind-dance or 
sun-dance. When a savage goes to war we must not picture his 
wife on her knees at home praying for the absent; instead we must 
picture her dancing the whole night long; not for mere joy of heart 
or to pass the weary hours; she is dancing his war-dance to bring 
him victory. 
Magic is nowadays condemned alike by science and by religion; 
it is both useless and impious. It is obsolete, and only practised by 
malign sorcerers in obscure holes and corners. Undoubtedly magic 
is neither religion nor science, but in all probability it is the spiritual 
protoplasm from which religion and science ultimately differentiated. 
As such the doctrine of evolution bids us scan it closely. Magic 
may be malign and private; nowadays it is apt to be both. But in 
early days magic was as much for good as for evil; it was publicly 
practised for the common weal. 
The gist of magic comes out most clearly in magical dances. We 
think of dancing as a light form of recreation, practised by the young 
from sheer joie de vivre and unsuitable for the mature. But among 
the Tarahumares! in Mexico the word for dancing, noldévoa, means 
“to work.” Old men will reproach young men saying “Why do you 
not go to work?” meaning why do you not dance instead of only 
looking on. The chief religious sin of which the Tarahumare is 
conscious is that he has not danced enough and not made enough 
tesvino, his cereal intoxicant. 
Dancing then is to the savage working, doing, and the dance is 
in its origin an imitation or perhaps rather an intensification of 
processes of work®. Repetition, regular and frequent, constitutes 
rhythm and rhythm heightens the sense of will power in action. 
Rhythmical action may even, as seen in the dances of Dervishes, 
produce a condition of ecstasy. Ecstasy among primitive peoples is 
a condition much valued ; it is often, though not always, enhanced by 
the use of intoxicants. Psychologically the savage starts from the 
sense of his own will power, he stimulates it by every means at his 
command. Feeling his will strongly and knowing nothing of natural 
law he recognises no limits to his own power; he feels himself a 
1 Carl Lumholtz, Unknown Mezico, p. 330, London, 1903. 
? Karl Biicher, Arbeit und Rhythmus, Leipzig (3rd edit.), 1902, passim. 
