The same explanation of the
origin of _religio_, _i.e._ in an age of taboo, has also
been suggested since my lecture was written by
Maximilianus Kobbert, _De verborum "religio atque
religiosus" usu apud Romanos_, p. 31 (Koenigsberg,
1910).

LECTURE III

ON THE THRESHOLD OF RELIGION: MAGIC

Taboo, the traces of which at Rome we examined in the last lecture, is,
as we saw, closely allied to magic, even if it be not, as Dr. Frazer
thinks, magic in a negative form. We have now to see what traces are to
be found of magic in the proper or usual sense of the word--active or
positive magic, as we may call it. By this we are to understand the
exercise of a mysterious mechanical power by an individual on man,
spirit, or deity, to enforce a certain result. In magic there is no
propitiation, no prayer. "He who performs a purely magical act," says
Dr. Westermarck,[81] "utilises such mechanical power without making any
appeal at all to the will of a supernatural being." Religion, on the
other hand, is an attitude of regard and dependence; in a religious
stage man feels himself in the hands of a supernatural power with whom
he desires to be in right relation.

If we accept this distinction, as I think we may (though one school of
anthropologists is hardly disposed to do so), it is plain that magical
practices are of a totally different kind from religious practices, as
being the result of a different mental attitude towards the
supernatural; they belong to a ruder and more rudimentary idea of the
relation of Man to the Power manifesting itself in the universe. True,
they have their origin in the same kind of human experience, in the
difficulties man meets with in his struggle for existence, and his
desire to overcome these; but unlike religion, magic is a wholly
inadequate attempt to overcome them. This inadequacy was long ago well
explained by Dr. Jevons.[82] He showed that man in that early stage of
his experience did not understand the true relation of cause and effect;
that, "turned loose as it were among innumerable possible causes (of a
given effect), with nothing to guide his choice, the chances against his
making the right choice were considerable." As a matter of fact he
usually made the wrong one, and is still apt to do so. There is probably
more magic going on behind the scenes even in civilised countries, and
more especially both in Greece and Italy, than either men of science or
men of re