er of fact, the Australian
rite is not intended to assure the revival of nature in spring, and has
nothing magical about it. It is perfectly true that in spring in
Australia certain proceedings are performed which are based upon the
principle that like produces like; and {203} that these proceedings
are, by students of the science of religion, termed--perhaps
incorrectly--magical. But these spring customs are quite different
from the harvest customs; and it is the harvest customs which
constitute the link between the rite in Australia and the rite in the
rest of the world. The crucial question, therefore, is whether the
Australian harvest rite is magical, or is even based on the principle
that like produces like. And the answer is that it is plainly not.
The harvest rite in Australia consists, as we know it now, simply in
the fact that at the appointed time a little of the totem plant or
animal is solemnly and sparingly eaten by the headman of the totem.
The solemnity with which the rite is performed is unmistakable, and may
well be termed religious. And no attempt even, so far as I am aware,
has been made to show that this solemn eating is regarded as magic by
the performers of the rite, or how it can be so regarded by students of
the science of religion. Until the attempt is made and made
successfully, we are more than justified in refusing to regard the rite
as magical; we are bound to refuse to regard it as such. But if the
rite is not magical--and _a fortiori_ if it is, as Dr. Frazer terms it,
sacramental--then it is {204} religious; and the ancient mode of
thought, forming part of primitive heathendom, which is at the base of
the rite, is the conviction that manifests itself wherever the rite
continues to live, viz. that by prayer and sacrifice the worshippers in
any community are brought into communion with the god they worship.
The rite is, in truth, what Dr. Frazer terms it as it occurs in
Australia--a sacrament. But not even in Australia is a sacrament a
piece of magic.

In the animistic stage of the evolution of humanity, the only causes
man can conceive of are animated things; and, in the presence of any
occurrence sufficiently striking to arrest his attention, the questions
which present themselves to his mind are, Who did this thing, and why?
Occurrences which arrest the attention of the community are occurrences
which affect the community; and in a low stage of evolution, when the
most pressing o