not hold together for some years at least.
But where there is a family there is a society, even if it be confined
to members of the family. There also, therefore, there are social and
anti-social tendencies and purposes; and, in the animistic stage, the
spirits, by which man conceives himself to be surrounded, are either
hostile or not hostile to the society, and are accordingly either
worshipped or not worshipped by it. Doubtless, even in those early
times, the father and the husband conceived himself to be the whole
family; and if that view had its unamiable side--and it still has--it
also on occasion had the inestimable advantage of sinking self, of
self-sacrifice, in defence of the family.

{100}

Thus far I have been concerned to show how, starting from a principle
such as that like produces like, about which there is nothing magical
in the eyes either of those who believe in magic or of those who have
left the belief behind, man might evolve the conception of magic as
being the lore or the personal power which enables a man to do what
ordinary people cannot do. A few words are necessary as to the decline
of the belief. The first is that the belief is rotten before it is
ripe. Those applications of the principle that like produces like
which are magical are generally precisely those which are false. The
fact that they are false has not prevented them from surviving in
countless numbers to the present day. But some suspicion of their
falsity in some cases does arise; and the person who has the most
frequent opportunities of discovering their falsity, the person on
whose notice the discovery of their falsity is thrust most pointedly,
is the person who deals habitually and professionally in magic. Hence,
though it is his profession to work wonders, he takes care as far as
may be not to attempt impossibilities. Thus Dr. Haddon (_l.c._, p. 62)
found that the men of Murray Island, Torres Straits, who made a "big
wind" by magic, only made it in the {101} season of the southeast trade
wind. "On my asking," he says, "whether the ceremony was done in the
north monsoon, my informant said emphatically, 'Can't do it in
northwest.' That is, the charm is performed only at that season of the
year when the required result is possible--indeed when it is of normal
occurrence. In this, as in other cases, I found that the impossible
was never attempted. A rain charm would not be made when there was no
expectation of rai