less intimately bound up with religion, amongst uncivilised than it is amongst civilised peoples. In early times the fancy luxuriates, unchecked, on this as on other matters. It is late in the history of religion that the immortality of the soul is found to be postulated alike by morality and religion. The belief that the soul exists after death doubtless manifested itself first in the fact that men dream of those who have died. But, were there no desire to believe, it may be doubted whether the belief would survive, or even originate. The belief originates in desire, in longing for one loved and lost; and dreams are not the cause of that desire, though they are one region in which it manifests itself, or rather one mode of its manifestation. The desire is for continued communion; and its gratification is found in a spiritual communion. Such communion also is believed to unite worshippers both with one another and with their God. Where death is regarded as a disruption of communion between the living and the departed, death is regarded as unnatural, as a violation of the original design of things, which calls for explanation; and the explanation is provided in myths which account for it by showing that the origin of death was due to accident or mistake. At first, it is felt that the mistake cannot be one without remedy: the deceased is invited "to come to us again." If he does not return in his old body, then he is believed to reappear in some new-born child. Or the doctrine of rebirth may be satisfied by the belief that the soul is reincarnated in animal form. This belief is specially likely to grow up where totem ancestors are believed to manifest themselves in the shape of some animal. Belief in such animal reincarnation has, in its origin, however, no connection with any theory that transmigration from a human to an animal form is a punishment. Up to this point in the evolution of the belief in immortality, the belief in another world than this does not show itself. Even when ancestor-worship begins to grow up, the ancestors' field of operations is in this world, rather than in the next. But the fact that their aid and protection can be invoked by the community tends to elevate them to the level of the god or gods of the community. This tendency, however, may be defeated, as it was in Judæa, where the religious sentiment will not permit the difference between God and man to be blurred. Where the fact that the dead do not return establishes itself as incontrovertible, the belief grows up that as the dead continue to exist, it is in another world that their existence must continue. At first they are conceived to continue to be as they are remembered to have been in this life. Later the idea grows up that they are punished or rewarded there, according as they have been bad or good here; according as they have or have not in this life sought communion with the true God. This belief thus differs entirely from the earlier belief, e.g. as it is found amongst the Eskimo, that it is in this world the spirits of the departed reappear, and that their continued existence is unaffected by considerations of morality or religion. It is, however, not merely the belief in the next world that may come to be sanctified by religion and moralised. The belief in reincarnation in animal form may come to be employed in the service of religion and morality, as it is in Buddhism. There, however, what was originally the transmigration of souls was transformed by Gotama into the transmigration of character; and the very existence of the individual soul, whether before death or after, was held to be an illusion and a deception. This tenet pushes the doctrine of self-sacrifice, which is essential both to religion and to morality, to an extreme which is fatal in logic to morality and religion alike: communion between man and God—the indispensable presupposition of both religion and morals—is impossible, if the very existence of man is illusory. The message of the missionary will be that by Christianity self-sacrifice is shown to be the condition of morality, the essence of communion with God and the way to life eternal . . . 34-69

MAGIC

A view sometime held was that magic is religion, and religion magic. With equal reason, or want of reason, it might be held that magic was science, and science magic. Even if we correct the definition, and say that to us magic appears, in one aspect, as a spurious system of science; and, in another, as a spurious system of religion; we still have to note that, for those who believed in it, it could not have been a spurious system, whether of science or religion. Primitive man acts on the assumption that he can produce like by means of like; and about that assumption there is no "magic" of any kind. It is only when an effect thus produced is a thing not commonly done and not generally approved of, that it is regarded as magic; and it is magic, because not every one knows how to do it, or not every one has the power to do it, or not every one cares to do it. About this belief, so long as every one entertains it, there is nothing spurious. When however it begins to be suspected that the magician has not the power to do what he professes, his profession tends to become fraudulent and his belief spurious. On the other hand, a thing commonly done and generally approved of is not regarded as magical merely because the effect resembles the cause, and like is in this instance produced by like. Magic is a term of evil connotation; and the practice of using like to produce like is condemned when and because it is employed for anti-social purposes. Such practices are resented by the society, amongst whom and on whom they are employed; and they are offensive to the God who looks after the interests of the community. In fine, the object and purpose of the practice determines the attitude of the community towards the practice: if the object is anti-social, the practice is nefarious; and the witch, if "smelled out," is killed. The person who is willing to undertake such nefarious proceedings comes to be credited with a nefarious personality, that is to say, with both the power and the will to do what ordinary, decent members of the community could not and would not do: personal power comes to be the most important, because the most mysterious, characteristic of the man believed to be a magician. If we turn to things, such as rain-making, which are socially beneficial, we find a similar growth in the belief that some men have extraordinary power to work wonders on behalf of the tribe. A further stage of development is reached when the man who uses his personal power for nefarious purposes undertakes by means of it to control spirits: magic then tends to pass into fetichism. Similarly, when rain and other social benefits come to be regarded as gifts of the gods, the power of the rainmaker comes to be regarded as a power to procure from the gods the gifts that they have to bestow: magic is displaced by religion. The opposition of principle between magic and religion thus makes itself manifest. It makes itself manifest in that the one promotes social and the other anti-social purposes: the spirit worshipped by any community as its god is a spirit who has the interests of the community at heart, and who ex officio condemns and punishes those who by magic or otherwise work injury to the members of the community. Finally, the decline of the belief in magic is largely due to the discovery that it does not produce the effects it professes to bring about. But the missionary will also dwell on the fact that his hearers feel it to be anti-social and to be condemned alike by their moral sentiments and their religious feeling . . . 70-104

FETICHISM

Fetichism is