h thing as magic, how did man come to believe that there was? My
suggestion is that the rise of the belief is not due to the
introduction of a novel practice, but to a new way of looking at an
existing practice. It is due in the first instance to the fact that
the practice is regarded with disapproval as far as its consequences
are concerned and without regard to the means employed to produce them.
Injury to a member of the community, {80} especially injury which
causes death, is viewed by the community with indignant disapproval.
Whether the death is produced by actual blows or "by drawing the figure
of a person and then stabbing it or doing it any other injury" (Frazer,
p. 41), it is visited with the condemnation of the community. And
consequently all such attempts "to injure or destroy an enemy by
injuring or destroying an effigy of him" (_ib._), whenever they are
made, whether they come off or not, are resented and disapproved by
society. On the other hand, sympathetic or hom[oe]opathic magic of
this kind, when used by the hunter or the fisherman to secure food,
meets with no condemnation. Both assassin and hunter use substantially
the same means to effect their object; but the disapproval with which
the community views the object of the assassin is extended also to the
means which he employs. In fine, the practice of using like to produce
like comes to be looked on with loathing and with dread when it is
employed for antisocial purposes. Any one can injure or destroy his
private enemy by injuring an effigy of him, just as any one can injure
or destroy his enemy by assaulting and wounding him. But though any
one may do this, it is felt {81} that no one ought to do it. Such
practices are condemned by public opinion. Further, as they are
condemned by the community, they are _ipso facto_ offensive to the god
of the community. To him only those prayers can be offered, and by him
only those practices can be approved, which are not injurious to the
community or are not felt by the community to be injurious. That is
the reason why such practices are condemned by the religious as well as
by the moral feeling of the community. And they are condemned by
religion and morality long before their futility is exposed by science
or recognised by common sense. When they are felt to be futile, there
is no call upon religion or morality especially to condemn the
practices--though the intention and the will to injure our fe