Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 1.djvu/320

 the power which rules their wishes, their actual condition, their mode of existence.

When people act according to an abstract principle, free scope is given to the element of determination. This applies to the endless variety of charms. Many nations use magic in connection with everything they undertake. Among some a charm is made use of when the foundations of a house are laid, in order that it may be a lucky dwelling, and may be beyond the reach of any danger. The particular quarter of the heavens, the direction, is a matter of importance here. At sowing-time, too, a charm must be used to secure a happy result. Relations with other men, love, hatred, peace, war, are brought about by the use of such means, and the connection of these with the effects being unknown, either one or other of these means must be taken. Anything rational is not to be met with in this sphere, and therefore nothing further can be said about the matter. It is customary to attribute to all peoples great insight into the way in which herbs, plants, &c., act in cases of illness and the like. A true connective relation may exist here, but the connection may just as easily be merely arbitrary. The understanding gets to be conscious that there is a connection, but its precise character is unknown to understanding. It seizes upon the means, and imagination, guided by a true or a false instinct, supplies the deficiency in the abstract principle, introduces a definiteness into it which is not actually inherent in the nature of the things themselves.

2. The content of immediate magic in its earliest form has to do with objects over which man is able to exercise direct power. This second form, again, is based upon a relation toward objects which are looked upon rather as independent, and thus as power, so that they appear to man as something different from himself, and which is no longer under his own control. For example, the sun, the moon, the heavens, the sea, are independent natural things