Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 29, 1918.djvu/116

 io6 Magic and Religion

to speak of " good " and " bad " medicine ; and the fact that he embraces both under the same name, uxiimu, ogo, or what not, is prima facie proof that they are, for him, if not identical, at any rate allied ; it matters little whether this classification is original or arrived at as the result of reflection ; in either case Dr Jevons's case is contradicted by the facts.

One of the most singular features of Dr. Jevons's paper is his treatment of the question of spell and prayer. On the principles he lays down at the outset, prayer should be distinguished from spell by the motive ; in point of fact, he regards the spell as a command, prayer as an appeal, though we are left in the dark as to whether both can be used in a predeistic period, and whether a spell is possible when belief in a god has come.

Again, if a spell is endowed with ineluctable force — and this is believed of some spells — how does this idea of magic differ from Sir James Frazer's conception of it } No question of motive is introduced, and no proof attempted that the spell is always evil — it is, in point of fact, a matter of common knowledge that it is not — yet Dr. Jevons must insist, if the spell is always magical, and the magical is evil, that the spell is always illicit and aims at producing evil results.

If Dr. Jevons's main contention as to magic fails, it will not avail him to establish that the spell is magical. I will not therefore embark on an argument to show that the spell is an integral part of more than one religion ; has not the very word religion been associated with the idea of binding the gods } and has it not been argued that in Hindu ritual the spell is supreme }

I will, however, give a couple of examples which appear to prove that the spell is neither illicit nor evil. Dr. Jevons contends that the spell is necessarily magical, but he produces no examples and no evidence in support of his view. If the magical is the illicit, and spells are magical,