Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 29, 1918.djvu/118

 io8 Magic and Religion

and at the same time should believe that the savages whose ideas he is classifying are exempt from human error, even when they are dealing with the deeper mysteries of life, such as religion, which are among ourselves apt to produce a good crop of contradictory ideas.

Dr. Jevons himself is by no means guiltless of ambiguous terminology. I have already cited examples which show that his use of the term " magic " does not agree with that in common use — and it must be remembered that both " magic " and " religion " are terms evolved by civilisa- tion. There are other terms in his paper on the right use of which his whole argument depends ; they should above all be free from ambiguity and definite. Dr. Jevons uses these terms, for example, " licit " and " community," without appearing to be in any way conscious of their ambiguity. Even among ourselves it would be difificult, apart from written and case law, to decide what is and is not approved or permitted by the community in ordinary life. But let us limit ourselves to the sphere which Dr. Jevons will not call magico-religious. If a wise woman tells me to cure my warts by burying a piece of meat, there is, I take it, no question of general disapproval ^ ; some will term the practice superstition, regardless of the fact that such methods do, in fact, cure warts, and condemn it on this account ; but then the epithet " superstitious " may also be used in the heat of controversy of practices well within the sphere of religion.

Will Dr. Jevons agree to class the cure for warts under the head of rehgion ? If not, why not } There is no question of harmful ends being sought by any one con- cerned ; and that is ultimately the criterion set up by Dr. Jevons.

To illustrate the meaning of "licit" and "illicit," Dr. Jevons gives us the analogy of " killing " and " murder " ; but, in the first place, we have murder, manslaughter,

' I need hardly say this was written before the days of rationing. .