is be true, as it
very possibly is, we see at once how the dead bones of magical processes
might survive, with their original meaning entirely lost, into an age in
which higher and more reasonable ideas had been developed about the
relation of Man to the Power manifesting itself in the universe. To take
a single example from Rome, divination by the examination of a victim's
entrails was originally a magical process, according to the opinion of
most modern authorities;[108] but it ceases to be magic when it is used
simply to determine in the State ritual whether in a religious process
the victim is perfect and agreeable to the deity. In fact magical
formulae, magical instruments, unless they are used in the true spirit
of magic, to compel, not to propitiate a deity, are no longer magic, and
may be passed over here. When we come to discuss the ritual of sacrifice
and prayer, of _lustratio_, of vows, of divination, we may find it
necessary to recall what has here been said. On the whole, we may
conclude that organised religious cult, from its very nature and object,
everywhere excluded magic in the true sense of the word; it implies
prayer and propitiation, both of which are absolutely inconsistent with
the object and methods of magic. Religion is the product of a higher
stage of social development; it is the expression of a real advance of
human thought; and in telling the story of the religious experience of
the Roman people we are but indirectly concerned with those more rude
and rudimentary ideas which it displaced.

But in private life, outside of the organised cult of the State and the
family, magic was all through Roman history abundant, even
over-abundant, and in this form I cannot pass it over entirely. Though
the State authorities seem to have taken pains to exclude it rigidly
from the public rites, and though there is little trace of it in the
religious life of family and gens, yet there is evidence that it was
deeply rooted in the nature of the people, and that they must have
passed through an age in which it was an important factor in their
social life. This fact, taken together with its almost complete
elimination from the public religion, throws into relief the persistent
efforts of the State authorities, from the framing of the old religious
calendar to the time of the Augustan revival, to keep their relations
with the Power clear of all that they believed to be unworthy or
injurious. No better example can