Various

“ We must, it appears, determine the relation of magic to religion by an analysis of the conceptions of those who believe in both; but in so doing we must consider that, like all other institutions, magic has a history. Even if we go back to the 16th century and take the view of magic then held by the average European, it is still a complex idea. When we ask what the most primitive races now on the earth regard as magic, we are applying to their ideas a touchstone made for a very different age and culture ”

“ Magic is therefore the practice of maleficent arts which involve the use of religio-magical power, with perhaps a secondary idea of the use of private arts, which are to benefit, not the community as a whole, but a single individual. Religion in the lower stages of culture is essentially the tribal creed which all practise and in which all believe; if therefore an individual has a cult of his own, even if otherwise indistinguishable from a public cult, it is for this very reason on a lower plane, and probably corresponds in a degree to what is later regarded as magic. ”

“ He recognized in the genius of the poets of that time, not only the truest ornament of the court, but a power of reconciling men’s minds to the new order of things, and of investing the actual state of affairs with an ideal glory and majesty. ”

“ A line of force is a line drawn through a magnetic field in the direction of the force at each point through which it passes. A uniform magnetic field is one in which H has everywhere the same value and the same direction, the lines of force being, therefore, straight and parallel. A magnetic field is generally due either to a conductor carrying an electric current or to the poles of a magnet. The magnetic field due to a long straight wire in which a current of electricity is flowing is at every point at right angles to the plane passing through it and through the wire ”

“ This is ultimately also the view of Hubert and Mauss, who hold that “at the root of magic are states of consciousness which generate illusions; and that these states are not individual but collective and arise from the amalgamation of the ideas of a given person with those current in the society of which he forms a part.” The reunion of a group supplies a soil in which illusions flourish readily, and it is important to note that in magic and religion attention is above all necessary for the success of a rite, witness the frequent rule imposing silence ”

“ Mana in Melanesia is a force, a being, an action, a quality, or a state; it is transmissible and contagious, and is hence associated with taboo; it may be regarded as material and seen in the form of flames or heard; it is the power which is inherent in certain spirits, among which are included such of the dead as are denominated tindalos; it may also be a force inherent in some inanimate object, such as a stone which causes the yams to grow, but it is a spiritual force and does not act mechanically; it is the power of the magician and of the rite; the magic formula is itself mana. ”

“ The Magic of Names.—For primitive peoples the name is as much a part of the person as a limb; consequently the magical use of names is in some of its aspects assimilable to the processes dependent on the law of sympathy. In some cases the name must be withheld from any one who is likely to make a wrong use of it, and in some parts of the world people have secret names which are never used. ”

“ The deficiency of water is a great obstacle to the proper cultivation of the land, and the rocky nature or steep inclination of the upper parts of the islands is an effectual bar to all tillage. An incredible amount of labour has been expended upon the soil, partly in the erection of walls intended to prevent its being washed away by the rains, and to build up the plots of ground in the form of terraces. Watercourses have been constructed for purposes of irrigation, without which at regular intervals the island would not produce a hundredth part of its present yield. ”

“ MAGIC SQUARE, a square divided into equal squares, like a chess-board, in each of which is placed one of a series of consecutive numbers from 1 up to the square of the number of cells in a side, in such a manner that the sum of the numbers in each row or column and in each diagonal is constant. ”

“ Money must not be extorted from a ward when he receives his inheritance. The guardian or his servant must not take from the ward’s property more than a reasonable amount for his expenses and the like; on the contrary he must maintain the houses, estates and other belongings in a proper state of efficiency. A ward must be allowed a reasonable liberty in the matter of marriage. He or she must not, as had been so often the case in the past, be forced to marry some royal favourite, or some one who had paid a sum of money for the privilege. ”

“ If a magnet is dipped into a mass of iron filings and withdrawn, filings cling to certain parts of the stone in moss-like tufts, other parts remaining bare. There are generally two regions where the tufts are thickest, and the attraction therefore greatest, and between them is a zone in which no attraction is evidenced. The regions of greatest attraction have received the name of poles, and the line joining them is called the axis of the magnet; the space around a magnet in which magnetic effects are exhibited is called the field of magnetic force, or the magnetic field. ”

“ Oral rites, which are termed spells or incantations, correspond in many cases to the oral rites of religion; they, like the manual rites, are a heterogeneous mass and hardly lend themselves to classification. Some formulae may be termed sympathetic; it suffices to name the result to be produced in order to produce it; but often an incantation is employed, not to produce a result directly, but to coerce a god or other being and compel him to fulfil the magician’s will. The language of the incantations often differs from that of daily life ”

“ In short, while the diurnal inequality from quiet days may be that most truly representative of undisturbed conditions, it does not represent the average state of conditions at the station. To go into full details respecting the differences between all and quiet days would occupy undue space, so the following brief summary of the differences observed in declination at Kew must suffice. While the inequality range is but little different for the two types of days, the mean of the hourly differences from the mean for the day is considerably reduced in the quiet days. ”

“ If a magnetized needle were supported so that it could move freely about its centre of gravity it would not generally settle with its axis in a horizontal position, but would come to rest with its north-seeking pole either higher or lower than its centre. For the practical observation of this phenomenon it is usual to employ a needle which can turn freely in the plane of the magnetic meridian upon a horizontal axis passing through the centre of gravity of the needle. The angle which the magnetic axis makes with the plane of the horizon is called the inclination or dip. ”

“ As a whole, the Madagascar fauna is marked by a strong individuality, which would appear to be the result of long isolation from the other zoological “regions.” The Asiatic and Malayan affinities of many of its animals, as well as the physical conditions of the bed of the Indian Ocean, make it highly probable that Madagascar, while once forming part of Africa, is the chief relic of a considerable archipelago formerly connecting that continent with Asia, its other portions being shown by groups of small islands, and by coral atolls and shoals, which are gradually disappearing beneath the waves. ”

“ The intensity (at any point) of the field due to the magnetization may be denoted by Hi, that of the external field by H0, and that of the resultant field by H. In certain cases, as, for instance, in an iron ring wrapped uniformly round with a coil of wire through which a current is passing, the induction is entirely within the metal; there are, consequently, no free poles, and the ring, though magnetized, constitutes a poleless magnet. Magnetization is usually regarded as the direct effect of the resultant magnetic force, which is therefore often termed the magnetizing force. ”

“ In many languages the word used to express the idea of magic means an act, a deed; and it may be assumed that few if any magical ceremonies consist of formulae only; on the other hand, it is certain that no manual act in magic stands absolutely alone without oral rite; if there is no spoken formula, there is at least an unspoken thought. It is in many cases difficult to discover the relative proportions and importance of manual and oral acts. Not only the words but also the tone are of importance in magic ”

“ In its simplest form the law of contiguity asserts that whatever has once formed part of a body continues to form part of it or to represent it for magical purposes; thus, by obtaining possession of the parings of a person’s nails, or the clippings of his hair, and by working magic upon them, it is held to be possible to produce on the actual human body the effects which are in reality produced on the object of the magical rite. As is clear by the well-known case of the “life index,” the current of magical power may pass in either direction ”

“ If one pole of a strong magnet is presented to the like pole of a weaker one, there will be repulsion so long as the two are separated by a certain minimum distance. At shorter distances the magnetism induced in the weaker magnet will be stronger than its permanent magnetism, and there will be attraction; two magnets with their like poles in actual contact will always cling together unless the like poles are of exactly equal strength. Induction is an effect of the field of force associated with a magnet. ”

“ In this direct transference of qualities is exemplified another magical process, which may also be referred to the operation of the law of sympathy; it is a world-wide belief that the assimilation of food involves the transference to the eater of the qualities, or of some of them, inherent in the source of the food; a South African warrior, for example, may not eat hedgehog, because the animal is held to be cowardly and the eater would himself become a coward; on the other hand, the flesh of lions is fit meat for brave men, because they at the same time transfer its courage to themselves. ”

“ Psychology of Magic.—The same causes which operated to produce a belief in witchcraft (q.v.) aided the creed of magic in general. Fortuitous coincidences attract attention; the failures are disregarded or explained away. Probably the magician is never wholly an impostor, and frequently has a whole-hearted belief in himself; in this connexion may be noted the fact that juggling tricks have in all ages been passed off as magical; the name of “conjuring” (q.v.) survives in our own day, though the conjurer no longer claims that his mysterious results are produced by demons. ”

“ When an early writer makes a statement which to a modern reader suggests a knowledge of the declination of the compass, he may have had no such definite idea in his mind. So far as Western civilization is concerned, Columbus is usually credited with the discovery—in 1492 during his first voyage to America—that the pointing of the compass needle to the true north represents an exceptional state of matters, and that a declination in general exists, varying from place to place. ”

“ It is however easy to demonstrate by means of the compass that the force is much greater in some parts of the field than in others. Lay the compass upon the cardboard, and observe the rate at which its needle vibrates after being displaced from its position of equilibrium; this will vary greatly in different regions. When the compass is far from the magnet, the vibrations will be comparatively slow; when it is near a pole, they will be exceedingly rapid, the frequency of the vibrations varying as the square root of the magnetic force at the spot. ”

“ Two wizards have their arms bound at the shoulder, the old men huddle in the hut, and the principal wizard bleeds the two men selected by cutting them inside the arm below the elbow. The blood is made to flow on the old men, and the two men throw handfuls of down into the air. The blood symbolizes the rain; the down is the clouds. ”

“ According to this theory the molecules of any magnetizable substance are little permanent magnets the axes of which are, under ordinary conditions, disposed in all possible directions indifferently. The process of magnetization consists in turning round the molecules by the application of magnetic force, so that their north poles may all point more or less approximately in the direction of the force; thus the body as a whole becomes a magnet which is merely the resultant of an immense number of molecular magnets. ”

“ Let a magnetic pole be drawn several times around a uniform steel ring, so that every part of the ring may be successively subjected to the magnetic force. If the operation has been skilfully performed the ring will have no poles and will not attract iron filings. Yet it will be magnetized; for if it is cut through and the cut ends are drawn apart, each end will be found to exhibit polarity. Again, a steel wire through which an electric current has been passed will be magnetized, but so long as it is free from stress it will give no evidence of magnetization ”

“ To see where the ordinary land survey assists navigation, let us take the case of a country with a long seaboard. If observations were taken every few miles along the coast results might be obtained adequate for the ordinary wants of coasting steamers, but it would be difficult to infer what the declination would be 50 or even 20 miles off shore at any particular place. If, however, the land area itself is carefully surveyed, one knows the trend of the lines of equal declination, and can usually extend them with considerable accuracy many miles out to sea. ”

“ The ballistic method is largely employed for determining the relation of induction to magnetizing force in samples of the iron and steel used in the manufacture of electrical machinery, and especially for the observation of hysteresis effects. The sample may have the form of a closed ring, upon which are wound the induction coil and another coil for taking the magnetizing current; or it may consist of a long straight rod or wire which can be slipped into a magnetizing coil such as is used in magnetometric experiments, the induction coil being wound upon the middle of the wire. ”

“ Even if no sensible change takes place in the disturbance field, one would hardly expect the secular change to be wholly normal. The changes in the rectangular components of the force may possibly be the same as at a neighbouring undisturbed station, but this will not give the same change in declination and inclination. In the case of the diurnal inequality, the presumption is that at least the declination and inclination changes will be influenced by local disturbance. ”

“ The correspondence between magic and technology can be traced far; for the gestures of the craftsman are as strictly prescribed as the ritual acts of the magician or priest: but in magic the results of the gestures are not of the same order as the results of the craftsman’s movements, and herein lies the distinction between magic and technic. ”

“ If the iron is soft and fairly pure, it loses its attractive property when removed from the neighbourhood of the magnet; if it is hard, some of the induced magnetism is permanently retained, and the piece becomes an artificial magnet. Steel is much more retentive of magnetism than any ordinary iron, and some form of steel is now always used for making artificial magnets. Magnetism may be imparted to a bar of hardened steel by stroking it several times from end to 322 end, always in the same direction, with one of the poles of a magnet. ”

“ If it is a case of cause and effect, and the interval between the solar and terrestrial phenomena does not exceed a few hours, then there should be a sensible connexion between corresponding daily values of the sun-spot frequency and the magnetic range. Even if only some sun-spots are effective, we should expect when we select from a series of years two groups of days, the one containing the days of most sun-spots, the other the days of least, that a prominent difference will exist between the mean values of the absolute daily magnetic ranges for the two groups. ”