An Introduction to the Study of Comparative Religion Part 7

The subject dealt with in this lecture will be the place of Christianity in the evolution of religion; and I shall approach it by considering the place of religion in the evolution of humanity. It will be therefore advisable, indeed necessary, for me to consider what is meant by evolution; and I wish to begin by explaining the point of view from which I propose to approach the three ideas of evolution, of the evolution of humanity and the evolution of religion.

The individual exists, and can only exist, in society. Society cannot exist without individuals as members thereof; and the individual cannot exist save in society. From this it follows that from one point of view the individual may be regarded as a means--a means by which society attains its end or purpose: every one of us has his place or function in society; and society thrives according as each member performs his function and discharges his duty. From another point of view {240} the individual may be regarded as an end. If man is a social animal, if men live in society, it is because so alone can a man do what is best for himself: it is by means of society that he realises his end. It is then from this proposition, viz. that the individual is both a means and an end, that I wish to approach the idea of evolution.

I will begin by calling attention to the fact that that proposition is true both statically, that is to say, is true of the individual's position in a community, and is also true dynamically, that is to say, is true of his place in the process of evolution. On the former point, that the proposition is true statically, of the position of the individual in the community, I need say but little. In moral philosophy it is the utilitarian school which has particularly insisted upon this truth. That school has steadily argued that, in the distribution of happiness or of the good, every man is to count as one, and n.o.body to count as more than one--that is to say, in the community the individual is to be regarded as the end. The object to be aimed at is not happiness in general and no one's happiness in particular, but the happiness of each and every individual. It is the individual and his happiness which is the {241} end, for the sake of which society exists and to which it is the means; otherwise the individual might derive no benefit from society. But if the truth that the individual is an end as well as a means is recognised by moral philosophy, that truth has also played at least an equally important part in political philosophy. It is the very breath of the cry for liberty, equality, and fraternity,--a cry wrung out from the heart of man by the system of oppression which denied that the ordinary citizen had a right to be anything but a means for procuring enjoyment to the members of the ruling cla.s.s. The truth that any one man--whatever his place in society, whatever the colour of his skin--has as much right as any other to be treated as an end and that no man was merely a means to the enjoyment or happiness or well-being of another, was the charter for the emanc.i.p.ation of slaves. It is still the magna charta for the freedom of every member of the human race. No man is or can be a chattel--a thing existing for no other purpose than to subserve the interests of its owner and to be a means to his ends. But though from the truth that the individual is in himself an end as well as a means, it follows that all men have the right to {242} freedom, it does not follow as a logical inference that all men are equal as means--as means to the material happiness or to the moral improvement of society.

I need not further dwell upon the fact that statically as regards the relations of men to one another in society at any moment, the truth is fully recognised that the individual is not merely a means to the happiness or well-being of others, but is also in himself an end. But when we consider the proposition dynamically, when we wish to find out the part it has played as one of the forces at work in evolution, we find that its truth has been far from fully recognised--partly perhaps because utilitarianism dates from a time when evolution, or the bearing of it, was not understood. But the truth is at least of as great importance dynamically as it is statically. And on one side, its truth and the importance of its truth has been fully developed: that the individual is a means to an end beyond him; and that, dynamically, he has been and is a factor in evolution, and as a factor merely a means and nothing else--all this has been worked out fully, if not to excess.

The other side of the truth, the fact that the individual is always an end, has, however, {243} been as much neglected by the scientific evolutionist as it was by the slave-driver: he has been liable to regard men as chattels, as instruments by which the work of evolution is carried on. The work has got to be done (by men amongst other animals and things), things have to be evolved, evolution must go on.

But, why? and for whom? with what purpose and for whose benefit? with what end? are questions which science leaves to be answered by those people who are foolish enough to ask them. Science is concerned simply with the individual as a means, as one of the means, whereby evolution is carried on; and doubtless science is justified--if only on the principle of the division of labour--in confining itself to the department of enquiry which it takes in hand and in refusing to travel beyond it. Any theory of man, therefore, or of the evolution of humanity, which professes to base itself strictly on scientific fact and to exclude other considerations as unscientific and therefore as unsafe material to build on, will naturally, and perhaps necessarily, be dominated by the notion that the individual exists as a factor in evolution, as one of the means by which, and not as in any sense the end for which, evolution is carried on.

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Such seems to be the case with the theory of humanitarianism. It bases itself upon science, upon experience, and rules out communion with G.o.d as not being a scientific fact or a fact of experience at all. Based upon science, it is a theory which seeks amongst other things to a.s.sign to religion its place in the evolution of humanity. According to the theory, the day of religion is over, its part played out, its function in the evolution of humanity discharged. According to this theory, three stages may be discerned in the evolution of humanity when we regard man as a moral being, as an ethical consciousness. Those three stages may be characterised first as custom, next religion, and finally humanitarianism.

By the theory, in the first stage--that of custom--the spirits to whom cult is paid are vindictive. In the second stage--that of religion--man, having attained to a higher morality, credits his G.o.ds with that higher morality. In the third stage--that of humanitarianism--he finds that the G.o.ds are but lay figures on which the robes of righteousness have been displayed that man alone can wear--when he is perfect. He is not yet perfect. If he were, the evolution of humanity {245} would be attained--whereas at present it is as yet in process. The end of evolution is not yet attained: it is to establish, in some future generation, a perfect humanity. For that end we must work; to it we may know that, as a matter of scientific evolution, we are working. On it, we may be satisfied, man will not enter in our generation.

Now this theory of the evolution of humanity, and of the place religion takes in that evolution, is in essential harmony with the scientific treatment of the evolution theory, inasmuch as it treats of the individual solely as an instrument to something other than himself, as a means of producing a state of humanity to which he will not belong.

But if the a.s.sumption that the individual is always a means and never an end in himself be false, then a theory of the evolution of man (as an ethical consciousness) which is based on that wrong a.s.sumption will itself be wrong. If each individual is an end, as valuable and as important as any other individual; if each counts for one and not less than any one other,--then his end and his good cannot lie in the perfection of some future generation. In that case, his end would be one that _ex hypothesi_ he could never enjoy, a rest into which he could never enter; {246} and consequently it would be an irrational end, and could not serve as a basis for a rationalist theory of ethics.

Man's object (to be a rational object) must have reference to a society of which he may be a member. The realisation of his object, therefore, cannot be referred to a stage of society yet to come, on earth, after he is dead,--a society of which he, whether dead or annihilated, could not be a member. If, then, the individual's object is to be a rational object, as the humanitarian or rationalist a.s.sumes, then that end must be one in which he can share; and therefore cannot be in this world.

Nor can that end be attained by doing man's will--for man's will may be evil, and regress as well as progress is a fact in the evolution of humanity; its attainment, therefore, must be effected by doing G.o.d's will.

The truth that the individual is an end as well as a means is, I suggest, valuable in considering the dynamics as well as the statics of society. At least, it saves one from the self-complacency of imagining that one's ancestors existed with no other end and for no higher purpose than to produce--me; and if the golden days antic.i.p.ated by the theory of humanitarianism ever arrive, it is to be supposed that the {247} men of that time will find it just as intolerable and revolting as we do now, to believe that past generations toiled and suffered for no other reason, for no other end, and to no other purpose than that their successors should enter into the fruits of their labour. In a word, the theory that in the evolution of man as an ethical consciousness, as a moral being, religion is to be superseded by humanitarianism, is only possible so long as we deny or ignore the fact that the individual is an end and not merely a means. We will therefore now go on to consider the evolution of religion from the point of view that the individual is in himself an end as well as a means. If, of the world religions, we take that which is the greatest, as measured by the number of its adherents, viz. Buddhism, we shall see that, tried by this test, it is at once found wanting. The object at which Buddhism proclaims that man should aim is not the development, the perfection, and the realisation of the individual to the fullest extent: it is, on the contrary, the utter and complete effacement of the individual, so that he is not merely absorbed, but absolutely wiped out, in _nirvana_. In the _atman_, with which it is the duty of man to seek to identify himself, the individuality of man does not survive: {248} it simply ceases to be. Now this obliteration of his existence may seem to a man in a certain mood desirable; and that mood may be cultivated, as indeed Buddhism seeks to cultivate it, systematically.

But here it is that the inner inconsistency, the self-contradictoriness of Buddhism, becomes patent. The individual, to do anything, must exist. If he is to desire nothing save to cease to exist, he must exist to do that. But the teaching of Buddhism is that this world and this life is illusion--and further, that the existence of the individual self is precisely the most mischievous illusion, that illusion above all others from which it is inc.u.mbent on us to free ourselves. We are here for no other end than to free ourselves from that illusion. Thus, then, by the teaching of Buddhism there is an end, it may be said, for the individual to aim at. Yes! but by the same teaching there is no individual to aim at it--individual existence is the most pernicious of all illusions. And further, by the teaching, the final end and object of religion is to get rid of an individual existence, which does not exist to be got rid of, and which it is an illusion to believe in. In fine, Buddhism denies that the individual is either an end or a means, for it denies {249} the existence of the individual, and contradicts itself in that denial. The individual is not an end--the happiness or immortality, the continued existence, of the individual is not to be aimed at. Neither is he a means, for his very existence is an illusion, and as such is an obstacle or impediment which has to be removed, in order that he who is not may cease to do what he has never begun to do, viz. to exist.

In Buddhism we have a developed religion--a religion which has been developed by a system of philosophy, but scarcely, as religion, improved by it. If, now, we turn to other religions less highly developed, even if we turn to religions the development of which has been early arrested, which have never got beyond the stage of infantile development, we shall find that all proceed on the a.s.sumption that communion between man and G.o.d is possible and does occur. In all, the existence of the individual as well as of the G.o.d is a.s.sumed, even though time and development may be required to realise, even inadequately, what is contained in the a.s.sumption. In all, and from the beginning, religion has been a social fact: the G.o.d has been the G.o.d of the community; and, as such, has {250} represented the interests of the community. Those interests have been regarded not merely as other, but as higher, than the interests of the individual, when the two have been at variance, for the simple reason (when the time came for a reason to be sought and given) that the interests of the community were the will of the community's G.o.d. Hence at all times the man who has postponed his own interests to those under the sanction of the G.o.d and the community--the man who has respected and upheld the custom of the community--has been regarded as the higher type of man, as the better man from the religious as well as from the moral point of view; while the man who has sacrificed the higher interests to the lower, has been punished--whether by the automatic action of taboo, or the deliberate sentence of outlawry--as one who, by breaking custom, has offended against the G.o.d and so brought suffering on the community.

Now, if the interests, whether of the individual or the community, are regarded as purely earthly, the divergence between them must be utter and irreconcileable; and to expect the individual to forego his own interests must be eventually discovered to be, as it fundamentally is, unreasonable. {251} If, on the other hand, for the individual to forego them is (as, in a cool moment, we all recognise it to be) reasonable, then the interests under the sanction of the G.o.d and the community--the higher interests--cannot be other than, they must be identical with, the real interests of the individual. It is only in and through society that the individual can attain his highest interests, and only by doing the will of the G.o.d that he can so attain them. Doubtless--despite of logic and feeling--in all communities all individuals in a greater or less degree have deliberately preferred the lower to the higher, and in so doing have been actuated neither by love of G.o.d nor by love of their fellow-man. But, in so doing, they have at all times, in the latest as well as the earliest stages of society, been felt to be breaching the very basis of social solidarity, the maintenance of which is the will of the G.o.d worshipped by society.

From that point of view the individual is regarded as a means. But he is also in himself an end, intrinsically as valuable as any other member of the community, and therefore an end which society exists to further and promote. It is impossible, therefore, that the end, viewed as that which society {252} as well as the individual aims at, and which society must realise, as far as it can realise it, through the individual, should be one which can only be attained by some future state of society in which he does not exist. "The kingdom of Heaven is within you" and not something to which you cannot attain. G.o.d is not far from us at any time. That truth was implicit at all stages in the evolution of religion--consciously recognised, perhaps more, perhaps less, but whether more or less consciously recognised, it was there.

That is the conviction implied in the fact that man everywhere seeks G.o.d. If he seeks Him in plants, in animals, in stocks or stones, that only shows that man has tried in many wrong directions--not that there is not a right direction. It is the general law of evolution: of a thousand seeds thrown out, perhaps one alone falls into good soil. But the failure of the 999 avails nothing against the fact that the one bears fruit abundantly. What sanctifies the failures is that they were attempts. We indeed may, if we are so selfish and blind, regard the attempts as made in order that we might succeed. Certainly we profit by the work of our ancestors,--or rather we may profit, if we will.

But our savage ancestors were themselves ends, and {253} not merely means to our benefit. It is monstrous to imagine that our salvation is bought at the cost of their condemnation. No man can do more than turn to such light as there may be to guide him. "To him that hath, shall be given," it is true--but every man at every time had something; never was there one to whom nothing was given. To us at this day, in this dispensation, much has been given. But ten talents as well as one may be wrapped up: one as well as ten may be put to profit. It is monstrous to say that one could not be, cannot have been, used properly. It was for not using the one talent he had that the unfaithful servant was condemned--not for not having ten to use.

Throughout the history of religion, then, two facts have been implied, which, if implicit at the beginning, have been rendered explicit in the course of its history or evolution. They are, first, the existence of the individual as a member of society, in communion or seeking communion with G.o.d; and, next, that while the individual is a means to social ends, society is also a means of which the individual is the end. Neither end--neither that of society nor that of the individual--can be forwarded at {254} the cost of the other; the realisation of each is to be attained only by the realisation of the other. Two consequences then follow with regard to evolution: first, it depends on us; evolution may have helped to make us, but we are helping to make it. Next, the end of evolution is not wholly outside any one of us, but in part is realised in us, or may be, if we so will.

That is to say, the true end may be realised by every one of us; for each of us, as being himself an end, is an object of care to G.o.d--and not merely those who are to live on earth at the final stage of evolution. If the end is outside us, it is in love of neighbour; if beyond us, it is in G.o.d's love. It is just because the end is (or may be) both within us and without us that we are bound up with our fellow-man and G.o.d. It is precisely because we are individuals that we are not the be-all and the end-all--that the end is without us. And it is because we are members of a community, that the end is not wholly outside us.

In his _Problems of Philosophy_ (p. 163) Hoffding says: "The test of the perfection of a human society is: to what degree is every person so placed and treated that he is not only a mere means, but also always at the same time an end?" and he points {255} out that "this is Kant's famous dictum, with another motive than that given to it by him." But if it is reasonable to apply this test to society, regarded from the point of view of statics, it is also reasonable to apply it to society regarded dynamically. If it is the proper test for ascertaining what degree of perfection society at any given moment has attained, it is also the proper test for ascertaining what advance, if any, towards perfection has been made by society between any two periods of its growth, any two stages in its evolution. But the moment we admit the possibility of applying a test to the process of evolution and of discovering to what end the process is moving, we are abandoning science and the scientific theory of evolution. Science formally refuses to consider whether there be any end to which the process of evolution is working: "end" is a category which science declines to apply to its subject-matter. In the interests of knowledge it declines to be influenced by any consideration of what the end aimed at by evolution may be, or whether there be any end aimed at at all. It simply notes what does take place, what is, what has been, and to some extent what may be, the sequence of events--not their object or purpose. And the {256} science of religion, being a science, restricts itself in the same way. As therefore science declines to use the category, "end," progress is an idea impossible for science--for progress is movement towards an end, the realisation of a purpose and object. And science declines to consider whether progress is so much as possible. But, so far as the subject-matter of the science of religion is concerned, it is positive (that is to say, it is mere fact of observation) that in religion an end is aimed at, for man everywhere seeks G.o.d and communion with Him. What the science of religion declines to do is to p.r.o.nounce or even to consider whether that end is possible or not, whether it is in any degree achieved or not, whether progress is made or not.

But if we do not, as science does, merely constate the fact that in religion an end is aimed at, viz. that communion with G.o.d which issues in doing His will from love of Him and therefore of our fellow-man; if we recognise that end as the end that ought to be aimed at,--then our att.i.tude towards the whole process of evolution is changed: it is now a process with an end--and that end the same for the individual and for society. But at the same time it is no longer a process determined by mechanical {257} causes worked by the iron hand of necessity--and therefore it is no longer evolution in the scientific sense; it is no longer evolution as understood by science. It is now a process in which there may or may not be progress made; and in which, therefore, it is necessary to have a test of progress--a test which is to be found in the fact that the individual is not merely a means, but an end.

Whether progress is made depends in part on whether there is the will in man to move towards the end proposed; and that will is not uniformly exercised, as is shown by the fact that deterioration as well as advance takes place--regress occurs as well as progress; whole nations, and those not small ones, may be arrested in their religious development. If we look with the eye of the missionary over the globe, everywhere we see arrested development, imperfect communion with G.o.d.

It may be that in such cases of imperfect communion there is an unconscious or hardly conscious recognition that the form of religion there and then prevalent does not suffice to afford the communion desired. Or, worse still, and much more general, there is the belief that such communion as does exist is all that can exist--that advance and improvement are impossible. From {258} this state it has been the work of the religious spirit to wake us, to reveal to us G.o.d's will, to make us understand that it is within us, and that it may, if we will, work within us. It is as such a revelation of the will of G.o.d and the love of G.o.d, and as the manifestation of the personality of G.o.d, that our Lord appeared on earth.

That appearance as a historic fact must take its place in the order of historic events, and must stand in relation to what preceded and to what followed and is yet to follow. In relation to what preceded, Christianity claims "to be the fulfilment of all that is true in previous religion" (Illingworth, _Personality: Human and Divine_, p.

75). The making of that claim a.s.sumes that there was some truth in previous religion, that so far as previous forms were religious, they were true--a fact that must constantly be borne in mind by the missionary. The truth and the good inherent in all forms of religion is that, in all, man seeks after G.o.d. The finality of Christianity lies in the fact that it reveals the G.o.d for whom man seeks. What was true in other religions was the belief in the possibility of communion with G.o.d, and the belief that only as a member of a society could the individual man attain {259} to that communion. What is offered by Christianity is a means of grace whereby that communion may be attained and a society in which the individual may attain it. Christianity offers a means whereby the end aimed at by all religions may be realised. Its finality, therefore, does not consist in its chronological relation to other religions. It is not final because, or in the sense that, it supervened in the order of time upon previous religions, or that it fulfilled only their truth. Other religions have, as a matter of chronology, followed it, and yet others may follow it hereafter. But their chronological order is irrelevant to the question: Which of them best realises the end at which religion, in all its forms, aims? And it is the answer to that question which must determine the finality of any form of religion. No one would consider the fact that Mahommedanism dates some centuries after Christ any proof of its superiority to Christianity. And the lapse of time, however much greater, would const.i.tute no greater proof.

That different forms of religion do realise the end of religion in different degrees is a point on which there is general agreement.

Monotheism is p.r.o.nounced higher than polytheism, ethical religions {260} higher than non-ethical. What differentiates Christianity from other ethical religions and from other forms of monotheism, is that in them religion appears as ancillary to morality, and imposes penalties and rewards with a view to enforce or encourage morality. In them, at their highest, the love of man is for his fellow-man, and usually for himself. Christianity alone makes love of G.o.d to be the true basis and the only end of society, both that whereby personality exists and the end in which it seeks its realisation. Therein the Christian theory of society differs from all others. Not merely does it hold that man cannot make himself better without making society better, that development of personality cannot be effected without a corresponding development of society. But it holds that such moral development and improvement of the individual and of society can find no rational basis and has no rational end, save in the love of G.o.d.

In another way the Christian theory of society differs from all others.

Like all others it holds that the unifying bond of every society is found in worship. Unlike others it recognises that the individual is restricted by existing society, even where that society is based upon a common worship. The {261} adequate realisation of the potentialities of the individual postulates the realisation of a perfect society, just as a perfect society is possible only provided that the potentialities of the individual are realised to the full. Such perfection, to which both society and the individual are means, is neither attained nor possible on earth, even where communion with G.o.d is recognised to be both the true end of society and the individual, and the only means by which that end can be attained. Still less is such perfection a possible end, if morality is set above religion, and the love of man be subst.i.tuted for the love of G.o.d. In that case the life of the individual upon earth is p.r.o.nounced to be the only life of which he is, or can be, conscious; and the end to which he is a means is the good of humanity as a whole. Now human society, from the beginning of its evolution to its end, may be regarded as a whole, just as the society existing at any given moment of its evolution may be regarded as a whole. But if we are to consider human society from the former point of view and to see in it, so regarded, the end to which the individual is a means, then it is clear that, until perfection is attained in some remote and very improbable future, the individual members of the {262} human race will have laboured and not earned their reward, will have worked for an end which they have not attained, and for an end which when, if ever, it is attained, society as a whole will not enjoy. Such an end is an irrational and impossible object of pursuit. Perfection, if it is to be attained by the individual or by society, is not to be attained on earth, nor in man's communion with man. Religion from its outset has been the quest of man for G.o.d. It has been the quest of man, whether regarded as an individual or as a member of society. But if that quest is to be realised, it is not to be realised either by society or the individual, regarded as having a mere earthly existence.

A new conception of the real nature of both is requisite. Not only must the individual be regarded as continuing to exist after death, but the society of which he is truly a member must be regarded as one which, if it manifests or begins to manifest itself on this earth, requires for its realisation--that is, for perfect communion with G.o.d--the postulate that though it manifests itself in this world, it is realised in the next. This new conception of the real nature of society and the individual, involving belief in the communion of the saints, and in the kingdom of Heaven as that {263} which may be in each individual, and therefore must extend beyond each and include all whether in this world or the next--this conception is one which Christianity alone, of all religions, offers to the world.

Religion is the quest of man for G.o.d. Man everywhere has been in search of G.o.d, peradventure he might find Him; and the history of religion is the history of his search. But the moment we regard the history--the evolution--of religion as a search, we abandon the mechanical idea of evolution: the cause at work is not material or mechanical, but final. The cause is no longer a necessary cause which can only have one result and which, when it operates, must produce that result. Progress is no longer something which must take place, which is the inevitable result of antecedent causes. It is something which may or may not take place and which cannot take place unless effort is made. In a word, it is dependent in part upon man's will--without the action of which neither search can be made nor progress in the search.

But though in part dependent upon man's will, progress can only be made so far as man's will is to do G.o.d's will. And that is not always, and has not been always, {264} man's will. Hence evolution has not always been progress. Nor is it so now. There have been lapses in civilisation, dark ages, periods when man's love for man has waned _pari pa.s.su_ with the waning of his love for G.o.d. Such lapses there may be yet again. The fall of man may be greater, in the spiritual sense, than it ever yet has been, for man's will is free. But G.o.d's love is great, and our faith is in it. If Christianity should cease to grow where it now grows, and cease to spread where it as yet is not, there would be the greater fall. And on us would rest some, at least, of the responsibility. Christianity cannot be stationary: if it stands, let it beware; it is in danger of falling. Between religions, as well as other organisations, there is a struggle for existence. In that struggle we have to fight--for a religion to decline to fight is for that religion to die. The missionary is not engaged in a work of supererogation, something with which we at home have no concern. We speak of him as in the forefront of the battle. We do not usually or constantly realise that it is our battle he is fighting--that his defeat, if he were defeated, would be the beginning of the end for us; that on his success our fate depends. The metaphor of the missionary as an {265} outpost sounds rather picturesque when heard in a sermon,--or did so sound the first time it was used, I suppose,--but it is not a mere picture; it is the barest truth. The extent to which we push our outposts forward is the measure of our vitality, of how much we have in us to do for the world. Six out of seven of Christendom's missionaries come from the United States of America. Until I heard that from the pulpit of Durham Cathedral, I had rather a horror of big things and a certain apprehension about going to a land where bigness, rather than the golden mean, seemed to be taken as the standard of merit. But from that sermon I learnt something, viz. not only that there are big things to be done in the world, but that America does them, and that America does more of them than she talks about.

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APPENDIX

Since the chapter on Magic was written, the publication of Wilhelm Wundt's _Volkerpsychologie_, Vol. II, Part II, has led me to believe that I ought to have laid more stress on the power of the magician, which I mention on pages 74, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, and less on the savage's recognition of the principle that like produces like. In the stage of human evolution known as Animism, every event which calls for explanation is explained as the doing of some person or conscious agent. When a savage falls ill, his sickness is regarded as the work of some ill-disposed person, whose power cannot be doubted--for it is manifest in the sickness it has caused--and whose power is as mysterious as it is indubitable. That power is what a savage means by magic; and the persons believed to possess it are magicians. It is the business of the sick savage's friends to find out who is causing his sickness. Their suspicion may fall on any one whose appearance or behaviour is suspicious or mysterious; and the person {268} suspected comes to be regarded as a witch or magician, from the very fact that he is suspected. Such persons have the power of witchcraft or magic, because they are believed to have the power: _possunt quia posse videntur_. Not only are they believed to possess the power; they come to believe, themselves, that they possess it. They believe that, possessing it, they have but to exercise it. The Australian magician has but to "point" his stick, and, in the belief both of himself and of every one concerned, the victim will fall. All over the world the witch has but to stab the image she has drawn or made, and the person portrayed will feel the wound. In this proceeding, the image is like the person, and the blow delivered is like the blow which the victim is to feel. It is open to us, therefore, to say that, in this typical case of "imitative" or "mimetic" magic, like is believed to produce like. And on pages 75-77, and elsewhere, above, I have taken that position. But I would now add two qualifications. The first is, as already intimated, that, though stabbing an effigy is like stabbing the victim, it is only a magician or witch that has the power thus to inflict wounds, sickness, or death: the services of the magician or witch are employed for no other reason than that {269} the ordinary person has not the power, even by the aid of the rite, to cause the effect. The second qualification is that, whereas we distinguish between the categories of likeness and ident.i.ty, the savage makes but little distinction. To us it is evident that stabbing the image is only like stabbing the victim; but to the believer in magic, stabbing the image is the same thing as stabbing the victim; and in his belief, as the waxen image melts, so the victim withers away.

It would, therefore, be more precise and more correct to say (page 74, above) that eating tiger to make you bold points rather to a confusion, in the savage's mind, of the categories of likeness and ident.i.ty, than to a conscious recognition of the principle that like produces like: as you eat tiger's flesh, so you become bold with the tiger's boldness.

The spirit of the tiger enters you. But no magic is necessary to enable you to make the meal: any one can eat tiger. The belief that so the tiger's spirit will enter you is a piece of Animism; but it is not therefore a piece of magic.

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