The Psychology of Magic 507 
Through the examination of primitive ritual we have at last got 
at one tangible, substantial factor in religion, a real live experience, 
the sense, that is, of will, desire, power actually experienced in person 
by the individual, and by him projected, extended into the rest of 
the world. 
At this stage it may fairly be asked, though the question cannot 
with any certainty be answered, “at what point in the evolution of 
man does this religious experience come in?” 
So long as an organism reacts immediately to outside stimulus, 
with a certainty and conformity that is almost chemical, there is, 
it would seem, no place, no possibility for magical experience. 
But when the germ appears of an intellect that can foresee an end 
not immediately realised, or rather when a desire arises that we feel 
and recognise as not satisfied, then comes in the sense of will and 
the impulse magically to intensify that will. The animal it would 
seem is preserved by instinct from drawing into his horizon things 
which do not immediately subserve the conservation of his species. 
But the moment man’s life-power began to make on the outside 
world demands not immediately and inevitably realised in action}, 
then a door was opened to magic, and in the train of magic followed 
errors innumerable, but also religion, philosophy, science and art. 
The world of mana, orenda, brdhman is a world of feeling, 
desiring, willing, acting. What element of thinking there may be 
in it is not yet differentiated out. But we have already seen that 
a supersensuous world of thought grew up very early in answer to 
other needs, a world of sense-illusions, shadows, dreams, souls, ghosts, 
ancestors, names, numbers, images, a world only wanting as it were 
the impulse of mana to live as a religion. Which of the two worlds, 
the world of thinking or the world of doing, developed first it is 
probably idle to inquire”. 
1 T owe this observation to Dr K. Th. Preuss. He writes (Archiv f. Relig. 1906, p. 98), 
‘‘Die Betonung des Willens in den Zauberakten ist der richtige Kern. In der Tat muss 
der Mensch den Willen haben, sich selbst und seiner Umgebung besondere Fahigkeiten 
zuzuschreiben, und den Willen hat er, sobald sein Verstand ihn befahigt, eine iber 
den Instinkt hinausgehende Fitrsorge fir sich zu zeigen. So lange ihn der Instinkt 
allein leitet, kinnen Zauberhandlungen nicht enstehen.” For more detailed analysis of 
the origin of magic, see Dr Preuss ‘‘Ursprung der Religion und Kunst,” Globus, 
LXXXVI. and LXxxVII. 
2 Tf external stimuli leave on organisms a trace or record such as is known as an 
Engram, this physical basis of memory and hence of thought is almost coincident 
with reaction of the most elementary kind. See Mr Francis Darwin’s Presidential 
Address to the British Association, Dublin, 1908, p. 8, and again Bergson places memory 
at the very root of conscious existence, see L’ Evolution Créatrice, p. 18, le fond méme 
de notre existence consciente est mémoire, c'est & dire prolongation du passée dans le présent, 
and again, la durée mord dans le temps et y laisse Vempreint de son dent, and again, 
VP Evolution implique une continuation réelle du passée par le présent. 
