gle
profession and claim put forward by the magician, as such, is false--not
one of them can be maintained without deception, conscious or
unconscious', we must consider whether Sir James Frazer's account of
magic, according to which the principles of magic are identical with
those of science, is the only account that can be given of magic; and
for that purpose we may contrast it with the view of Wilhelm Wundt. But
before doing so, since Sir James Frazer holds that there is 'a
fundamental distinction and even opposition of principle between magic
and religion', it will be well to try to see not only what he means by
magic, but also whether his description or definition of religion is
acceptable.

Whereas Robertson Smith held that religion, reduced to its very lowest
terms, must imply at least belief in a god and communion with him,
Frazer considers religion to be the belief that the course of nature and
of human life is controlled by personal beings superior to man. By the
one view stress is laid on the mystic side of religion, on the communion
which is effected through sacrifice; by the other view stress is laid on
the power which the gods may be induced by prayer and supplication to
exercise for the benefit of man. Our first reflection, therefore, is
that any view of religion, to be comprehensive, cannot confine itself to
either of these aspects singly, but must find room for both--for both
prayer and sacrifice. They cannot be mutually exclusive, nor can they
be simply juxtaposed, as though they were atoms unrelated to one
another, accidental neighbours in the same district. There must be a
higher unity, not created by or subsequent to the coalescence of
elements originally independent of each other, but a higher unity of
which both prayer and sacrifice are manifestations. This higher unity, I
venture to suggest, is the first principle of religion; and, if it is
not explicitly recognized as the first principle of religion either by
Robertson Smith or by Frazer, that may well be because their attention
is concentrated on the earlier stages in the evolution of religion, when
as yet it is not conspicuous and is, therefore, though in fact
operative, liable to be overlooked. As Ferrier has said, 'first
principles of every kind have their influence, and indeed operate
largely and powerfully long before they come to the surface of human
thought and are articulately expounded.' What then is the first
principle of religion wh