Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 29, 1918.djvu/111

Rh untutored mind; and if the two systems differ, it does not necessarily mean that the scientific mind is at fault. Primâ facie, the savage mind, even though the essential facts be equally well known to it, is less able to grasp the fundamental principles. We do not argue that scientific biologists are at fault because their ideas are at variance with those of the Central Australian tribes, and though savage beliefs about magic may seem to be nearer to, and therefore more intelligible to the savage mind, it is no more self-evident that the savage knows his own mind than that he knows his own body; if we can obtain an adequate record of savage ideas, we can proceed to classify them on scientific lines, that is, on lines that are suggested by a study of the facts, and not on pre-conceived principles.

It might therefore be argued that the analogy between white and black magic is false, and that Dr. Jevons's view is correct, though not because it accords with the ideas of believers in magic. But if this were so, a great part of his argument would fall to the ground; it becomes incumbent upon him to show that his ideas are in themselves reasonable, and not to depend upon a supposed identity of view with believers in magic.

But this argument neglects one of the essential conditions of the problem; it treats it as if it were a question of physical science.

It is clear that the difference between magic and religion is a psychological one; it is a difference that must be felt by the believer in magic, as Dr. Jevons himself recognises. It is not enough for the comparative theologian to point out this or that difference in mental attitude, unless the difference is in the mind of the believer in magic.

It is not a question of physical science, and of a classification of the physical forces by which certain effects are produced. Religion is a matter of the soul, and it is for a psychical differentia that we must look if we are to delimit the spheres of religion and magic; it is not