table compromise.
White magic is distinguished from black magic. We shall have more to
say of this relationship later.

Only after countless centuries of mistake did the intellect of man
discover the actual relations in nature in such a way as to be able to
use them with certainty. Subjective associations were then replaced by
tested causal connections. Faith in mere imitative acts was {55} lost,
and it was finally realized that patient research was a pre-condition
of the control of man's environment. Time, alone, could show what was
possible and what was impossible.

We have pointed out that, as religion became more idealistic in its
conception of deity, magic tended to drop into the background. Moral
motives were considered the sole motives capable of moving him to
beneficent action. Prayer came to be thought of as a petition for the
good, and it was even admitted that this omniscient being knew better
than the petitioner what was best. We who have been brought up in the
Christian belief have been too much inclined to belittle the character
and intellect of races with a different heritage. It may be well,
then, to point out that problems which are being thrashed over to-day
in Christian communities were discussed and answered in much the same
way by other peoples in less enlightened times. Ancient Greece reached
the spiritual level expressed in the conclusion of the Lord's Prayer,
"Thy will be done." The prayer of Socrates was: "Grant me to become
noble of heart." The prayer of Epictetus was: "Do with me what thou
wilt: my will is thy will: I appeal not against thy judgments." Is
this not the inevitable deduction from an ethical monotheism? Any
noble believer in a good god would look at prayer in this way. It is
not surprising, then, that the more philosophic adherents of early
Christianity questioned the validity of prayers for favors. Take away
the support of science, with its healthy scotching of superstition,
from the mind of the modern Christian and I doubt whether he would rise
to higher ethical levels than any of his forbears.

{56}

But the growth of moral idealism in religion does not involve the
rational overthrow of magic. So long as all the events in the world
are not assigned directly to God as the sole active agent at work, the
basis of magic remains. Moral idealism condemns only black magic, that
is, an immoral use of magical powers. But moral condemnation is not a
rational denial