Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 28, 1917.djvu/303

Rh coming into existence, but both existing side by side. If, then, the order of events is not from magic to religion—is not magic first and rehgion subsequently occurring—then, I suggest, neither can the order of events be "from spell to prayer." If, as Sir James Frazer says, there is between magic and religion "a fundamental distinction and even opposition of principle," then as magic does not become religion, so neither can spell become prayer. Between spell and prayer there is the same "fundamental distinction and even opposition of principle" as there is between magic and religion. As a mere matter of grammar, indeed, the verb which is used in formulating a prayer is as much in the imperative mood as the verb formulating a spell. "Be it done" is an expression which, as far as the words go, may be either a spell or a prayer. But from this it would be an error to infer that the attitude of mind and emotion is the same in magic and religion. Between the two attitudes there is a distinction which is fundamental and an opposition which is an opposition of principle. Prayer is on one side of the perpendicular line separating magic from religion; spell is on the other side. It is possible indeed to pass rapidly, instantaneously, from the one side to the other—from commanding to beseeching, as the spoilt child does—but that does not diminish the distinction and opposition between the two attitudes of mind. Nor does it constitute the least presumption that the two opposed attitudes are but two manifestations or two developments of one and the same principle. On the contrary, if we recognised that there is a fundamental opposition between magic and rudimentary cult, as we find it in Australia for instance, then we must class spells as from the beginning belonging to magic, and prayer as belonging to religion. At the same time if we recognise that there is in religion a stage of rudimentary cult in which a tribe no more relies upon personal beings superior to man than the Egyptian "cord-fasteners"