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Rh counter spell of equal or greater power; nevertheless, the intrinsic tone is that of a categorical assertion of binding force and efficacy. Again, in magic the self-realizing force is apt to seem to reside in the suggestional machinery rather than in the spiritual qualifications of the magician, though this is by no means invariably the case. On the whole, however, spells and ceremonies are wont to be regarded as an inheritable and transferable property containing efficacy in themselves. And what is true of magic is equally true of much of primitive, and even of relatively advanced, religion. Dr J. G. Frazer has pronounced the following to be marks of a primitive ritual: negatively, that there are no priests, no temples and no gods (though he holds that departmental, non-individual " spirits " are recognized); positively, that the rites are magical rather than propitiatory (The Golden Bough, 2nd ed. ii. igi). If we leave it an open question whether, instead of " spirits," it would not be safer to speak of " powers " (to which not a soul-like nature, but simply a capacity for exercising magic, is attributed), this characterization may be accepted as applying to many, if not to all, the rites of primitive religion. Thus the well-known totemic ceremonies of Central Australia afford a striking example of rites of a deeply religious import - in the sense that the purpose they embody is that of consecrating certain functions of the common life (see Religion) - yet almost wholly magical in form. They resolve themselves on analysis into (I) direct acts of magical suggestion, and (2) acts commemorative of the magical doings of mythical ancestors, the purport of which may be regarded as indirectly and constructively magical, on the principle that in magic to mention a thing's origin is to control it, to recount another's wonderworking is to reproduce his power, and so on. It is to be noted, however, that other Australian rites are found, notably those that accompany initiation in the south-eastern region, over which anthropomorphic beings having enough individuality to rank as " gods " undoubtedly preside; but even here, though traces of propitiatory worship may be discernible (the evidence being scanty and conflicting), acts of pure magic are decidedly to the fore. And what is true of the most primitive and unreflective forms of cult remains true of more advanced types which have become relatively self-conscious. There is little or no felt opposition between processes implying control and processes of a propitiatory character in the religion of the Pueblo Indians, which American ethnologists have been so successful in expounding, or, to mount to a still higher level, in the Vedic, Assyrian or Egyptian cults. The leading idea, we may even say, is that expressed so happily by a character in Renan's Le Pretre de Nemi: " L'ordre du monde depend de l'ordre des rites qu'on observe " (cf. A. Lang, Myt11, Ritual and Religion, 2nd ed. i. 251). As regards the most developed forms of religion, whilst the old procedure largely survives unchanged, its original intention is disowned by theologians, though it may be doubted if the popular mind is always strong enough to withstand the appeal of prima facie appearance.

This proneness to impute efficacy to ritual is immensely reinforced by another social proclivity, more or less distinct in its ultimate nature, which causes the rite to rank as a divine ordinance or command. Naturally if the god manifests himself by means of certain forms, if he is reputed to have founded or revealed them, or if he has been known to evince displeasure at departures from them, there is strong reason to think that such forms are efficacious, and that in a sense of themselves, namely, by being what they are. At the sociological level of thought this divine sanction has to be treated as the echo of a social sanction which ratifies and protects religious custom. In early society the influence of what Walter Bagehot (in Physics and Politics, 9th ed. p. 102) calls the " persecuting tendency " in enforcing custom is on the whole not markedly in evidence. The fact is that imitation in a homogeneous group produces such unanimity that, with the help of some education, notably the instruction given at the time of initiation, all nonconformity is nipped in the bud. Of the Central Australian ceremonies we read that they " had to be performed in precisely the same way in which they had been in the Alcheringa (lit. ` dream-time ' = age of mythical tribal ancestors) . Everything was ruled by precedent; to change even the decoration of a performer would have been an unheard-of thing; the reply, ` It was so in the Alcheringa,' was considered as perfectly satisfactory by way of explanation " (B. Spencer and F. Gillen, The Native Tribes of Central Australia, 324). Here we perceive the social sanction of public opinion insensibly merging in a supernatural sanction. The tribe is a religious partnership with a divine past with which it would not willingly break. As Mr Lang well puts it, " Ritual is preserved because it preserves luck " (loc. cit.). Given an intrinsic sacredness, it is but a step to associate definite gods with the origin or purpose of a rite, whose interest it thereupon becomes to punish omissions or innovations by the removal of their blessing (which is little more than to say that the rite loses its efficacy), or by the active infliction of disaster on the community. In the primitive society it is hard to point to any custom to which sacredness does not in some degree attach, but, naturally, the more important and solemn the usage, the more rigid the religious conservatism. Thus there are indications that in Australia, at the highly sacred ceremony of circumcision, the fire-stick was employed after stone implements were known; and we have an exact parallel at a higher level of culture, the stone implement serving for the same operation when iron is already in common use (Spencer and Gillen, ib. 401; cf. E. B. Tylor, Early History of Mankind, 3rd ed. p. 217).

The Interpretation of Ritual.-A valuable truth insisted on by the late W. Robertson Smith (Religion of the Semites, 17 sqq.) is that in primitive religion it is ritual that generates and sustains myth, and not the other way about. Sacred lore of course cannot be dispensed with; even Australian society, which has hardly reached the stage of having priests, needs its Oknirabata or great instructor " (Spencer and Gillen, ib. 303) . The function of such an expert, however, is chiefly to hand on mere rules for the performance of religious acts. If his lore include sacred histories, it is largely, we may suspect, because the description and dramatization of the doings of divine persons enter into ritual as a means of magical control. Similarly, the sacred books of the religions of middle grade teem with minute prescriptions as to ritual, but are almost destitute of doctrine. Even in the highest religions, where orthodoxy is the main requirement, and ritual is held merely to symbolize dogma, there is a remarkable rigidity about the dogma that is doubtless in large part due to its association with ritual forms many of them bearing the most primeval stamp. As regards the symbolic interpretation of ritual, this is usually held not to be primitive; and it is doubtless true that an unreflective age is hardly aware of the difference between " outward sign " and " inward meaning," and thinks as it were by means of its eyes. Nevertheless, it is easier to define fetishism (a fetish " differing from an idol in that it is worshipped in its own character, not as the symbol, image or occasional residence of a deity," New English Dictionary, Oxford, 1901) than it is to bring such a fetishism home to any savage people, the West African negroes not excluded (cf. A. B . Ellis, The Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast of TV. Africa, 192). It is the magic power, virtue or grace residing in, and proceeding from, the material object - a power the communicability of which constitutes the whole working hypothesis of the magico-religious performance - that is valued in those cases where native opinion can be tested. Moreover, it must be remembered that in the act of magic a symbolic method is consciously pursued, as witness the very formulas employed: " As I burn this image, so may the man be consumed," or the even more explicit, " It is not wax I am scorching; it is the liver, heart and spleen of So-and-so that I scorch " (W. W. Skeat, Malay Magic, 570) ,where appearance and reality are distinguished in order to be mystically reunited. Now it is important to observe that from the symbol as embodying an imperative to the symbol as expressing an optative is a transition of meaning that involves no change of form whatever; and, much as theorists love to contrast the suggestional and the petitionary attitudes,