Page:The place of magic in the intellectual history of Europe.djvu/41

33] Such are some of the chief characteristics of magic. Yet with these granted, it remains, like superstition or religion, a vague term at best. The reader may disagree with me as to exactly what beliefs and practices should be included under it, and it is indeed a nice question just where magic begins and ends. Much of alchemy, for example, was nothing but chemistry of a rude sort, and perhaps even its theories that metals may be transmuted and life greatly prolonged will some day prove to have had much truth in them. On the other hand, alchemy was based to a considerable extent on a belief that plants, animals and minerals have properties and powers which they cannot have; and if we ever do succeed in making gold or putting off old age, it is quite certain that such a consummation will never be accomplished by the fantastic methods which alchemists usually employed. Similarly we shall see that the practice of allegorical interpretation of past writings and the Pythagorean doctrine of numbers, which perhaps at first thought one would not regard as magic at all, nevertheless bear at least some resemblance to it. But after all our thesis is not to establish a certain definition for the word "magic," or to prove that such and such ideas and acts are magical. A name signifies little, and the word magic has had too many different meanings in different periods and for different men to allow any one to assert with confidence that he has found an absolutely correct definition. I employ the word simply because it seems the most convenient, most intelligible and most justifiable term for denoting a number of beliefs which I believe are all intimately related and which are the marks of a certain attitude towards the world.

So much for the definition of magic and for the nature of its origin. But the discussion of these two points does not fully explain the meaning of the beliefs which were illustrated in our first chapter. We have yet to bring out