me predicament would
probably not think of religion at all, at any rate {46} in the earlier
stages; he would say it was a case for deeper plowing or for basic
slag."

Magic is a way of controlling things. Imitate the act desired, in a
certain way, and it will come to pass. Talismans and amulets, again,
possess a secret power for good and evil. Ancient societies built up a
lore of this kind, adding to material objects the agency of demons
under the control of magicians. This lore is practically a feature of
the past. Even white magic is no longer good form, no longer
accredited by the dominant social mind. It slinks into out-of-the-way
places beyond the public eye. Yet research is showing that these
seemingly discredited beliefs and points of view seldom completely
disappear. They smolder beneath the surface and flame up now and then
in a startling way to remind us that society in its evolution does not
carry all its members along at the same rate. The historian is
surprised to find that rites which are given an exalted place in
various religions are magical at heart, and go back to beliefs which
have long been discredited in other settings.

Some who have specialized in folklore and anthropology are very
pessimistic as to the degree in which the scientific outlook upon
nature is replacing the more primitive attitude associated with magic.
One of the greatest authorities upon primitive beliefs and customs
writes as follows: "We seem to move on a thin crust which may at any
moment be rent by the subterranean forces slumbering below.... Now and
then the polite world is startled by a paragraph in a newspaper which
tells how in Scotland an image has been found stuck full of pins for
the purpose of killing an obnoxious laird or minister, how a woman has
been slowly roasted {47} to death as a witch in Ireland, or how a girl
has been murdered and chopped up in Russia to make those candles of
human tallow by whose light thieves hope to pursue their midnight trade
unseen." The danger to civilization foreseen by the specialist in
uncouth customs is undoubtedly exaggerated, but his warning should
remind us that education has a very valuable function to perform in
training an ever increasing number in scientific habits of thought.

One of the assumptions which underlie magic is the idea that two things
are connected in nature because they are like one another. Space is
not looked upon as a barrier to this connection.