Since the chapter on Magic was written, the publication of Wilhelm
Wundt's _Voelkerpsychologie_, 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 identity, 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 identity, 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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