Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/158

 140 From Spell to Prayer.

effect on the consciousness, the lover, who yesterday perhaps was kissing the treasured glove of his mistress, to-day, being jilted, casts her portrait on the fire. Here let us note two things. Firstly, the mental digression, the fact that he is for the nonce so " blind," as we say, with love or rancour, that the glove or the portrait has by asso- ciation become substituted for the original object of his sentiments, namely his mistress. Secondly, the complete- ness of the digression. This dear glove fit only to be kissed, this hateful portrait fit only to be burnt, occupies his whole attention, and is therefore equivalent to an irresistible belief that realises itself as inevitably as a suggestion does in the case of the hypnotic patient. Such at least is the current psychological explanation of the phenomenon known as " primitive credulity."

Now can the man who throws the faithless maiden's portrait into the fire, simply because the sight of it irre- sistibly provokes him to do so, be said to be practising magic? I think, hardly. Since, however, it is better that the class-concepts of anthropology should be framed too wide rather than too narrow, let us speak of a " rudimentary magic," of w^hich the act of primitive credulity is the psychological terminus a quo. I contrast such " rudi- mentary magic " w'ith the " developed magic" whereof the spirit is expressed in the formula : As 1 do this symbolically, so may something else like it be done in reality. In the former naive belief prevails, in the latter a make-believe. In what immediately follows we shall be concerned with the psychological history of the transition from the rudi- mentary to the developed form.

The feature which it is most important for our purpose to note in the act of primitive credulity is that, to coin a phrase, it is not projective. This is well illustrated by the case of the bull. The bull does not gore my coat with any ulterior motive prejudicial to me. On the contrary, it con- tentedly gores the coat, and, unless I am unfortunate enough