e in danger of confusing--things which to the savage differ
_toto caelo_ from one another. A step towards avoiding this confusion
is taken by Dr. Frazer, when he distinguishes (_History of the
Kingship_, p. 89) between private magic and public magic. The
distinction is made still more emphatic by Dr. Haddon (_Magic and
Fetichism_, p. 20) when he speaks of "nefarious magic." The very same
means when employed against the good of the community are regarded, by
morality and religion {84} alike, as nefarious, which when employed for
the good of the community are regarded with approval. The very same
illegitimate application,--I mean logically illegitimate in our
eyes,--the very same application of the principle that like produces
like will be condemned by the public opinion of the community when it
is employed for purposes of murder and praised by public opinion when
it is employed to produce the rain which the community desires. The
distinction drawn by primitive man between the two cases is that,
though any one can use the means to do either, no one ought to do the
one which the community condemns. That is condemned as nefarious; and
because it is nefarious, the "witch" may be "smelled out" by the
"witch-doctor" and destroyed by, or with the approval of, the community.

But though that is, I suggest, the first stage in the process by which
the belief in magic is evolved, it is by no means the whole of the
process. Indeed, it may fairly be urged that practices which any one
can perform, though no one ought to perform, may be nefarious (as
simple, straightforward murder is), but so far there is nothing magical
about them. And I am prepared to accept that view. Indeed, {85} it is
an essential part of my argument, for I seek to show that the belief in
magic had a beginning and was evolved out of something that was not a
belief in magic, though it gave rise to it. The belief that like
produces like can be entertained where magic has not so much as been
heard of. And, though it may ultimately be worked out into the
scientific position that the sum of conditions necessary to produce an
effect is indistinguishable from the effect, it may also be worked out
on other lines into a belief in magic; and the first step in that
evolution is taken when the belief that like produces like is used for
purposes pronounced by public opinion to be nefarious.

The next step is taken when it comes to be believed not only that the
thin