that kills.

+887+. The facts observed by practicers of magic probably contributed to
the collections of material that furnished the starting-point for the
scientific study of physical phenomena. The interest in the facts arose
at first simply from their relation to magical procedure--it was from
them that certain laws of supernatural action were learned, and men thus
got control of this action. Magic is essentially a directive or coercive
procedure and differs in this respect from fully formed religion, which
is essentially submissive and obedient.

+888+. It is true that coercion of divine beings appears in
well-developed religions. A Babylonian goddess (Nana) was carried off by
the Elamites to their land that she might there do duty as divine
protector; restored to her proper home 1635 years later, she resumed her
old functions.[1541] The Egyptians are said by Plutarch to have slain
their divine animals if these failed to avert or remove calamity.[1542]
Prometheus and certain Homeric heroes are victorious over gods. In some
savage tribes divine kings are put to death if they fail to do what is
expected of them. A god was sometimes chained or confined in his temple
to prevent his voluntary or constrained departure. A recusant deity was
sometimes taunted or insulted by his disappointed worshipers.[1543]
There is, however, a difference between the two sets of coercive acts.
The force used by developed religion is physical, that employed in magic
is psychological and logical. When a god is chained or carried off, it
is only his body that is controlled--he is left to his own thoughts, or
it is assumed that he will be friendly to his enforced locus. Magic
brings the supernatural Power under the dominion of law against which
his nature is powerless. Religion, even when it employs force,
recognizes the protective function of the deity; magic is without such
acknowledgment, without emotion or worship. While it has, on one side, a
profounder conception of cosmic force than appears in early religion, it
is, on the social side, vastly inferior to the latter, to which it has
necessarily yielded in the course of human progress. Nevertheless, if
religion in the broadest sense includes all means of bringing man into
helpful relations with the supernatural world, then magic is a form of
religion.

+889+. The much-discussed question whether magic was the earliest form
of religion is not susceptible of a definite answer for the reas