Whether the death is produced by actual blows or "by drawing the figure of a person and then stabbing it or doing it any other injury" (Frazer, p. 41), it is visited with the condemnation of the community. And consequently all such attempts "to injure or destroy an enemy by injuring or destroying an effigy of him" (_ib._), whenever they are made, whether they come off or not, are resented and disapproved by society. On the other hand, sympathetic or hom[oe]opathic magic of this kind, when used by the hunter or the fisherman to secure food, meets with no condemnation. Both assassin and hunter use substantially the same means to effect their object; but the disapproval with which the community views the object of the assassin is extended also to the means which he employs. In fine, the practice of using like to produce like comes to be looked on with loathing and with dread when it is employed for antisocial purposes. Any one can injure or destroy his private enemy by injuring an effigy of him, just as any one can injure or destroy his enemy by assaulting and wounding him. But though any one may do this, it is felt {81} that no one ought to do it. Such practices are condemned by public opinion. Further, as they are condemned by the community, they are _ipso facto_ offensive to the god of the community. To him only those prayers can be offered, and by him only those practices can be approved, which are not injurious to the community or are not felt by the community to be injurious. That is the reason why such practices are condemned by the religious as well as by the moral feeling of the community. And they are condemned by religion and morality long before their futility is exposed by science or recognised by common sense. When they are felt to be futile, there is no call upon religion or morality especially to condemn the practices--though the intention and the will to injure our fellow-man remains offensive both to morality and religion. With the means adopted for realising the will and carrying out the intention, morality and religion have no concern. If the same or similar means can be used for purposes consistent with the common weal, they do not, so far as they are used for such purposes, come under the ban of either morality or religion. Therein we have, I suggest, the reason of a certain confusion of thought {82} in the minds of students of the science of religion. We of the present day look at the means employed. We see the same means employed for ends that are, and for ends that are not, antisocial; and, inasmuch as the means are the same and are alike irrational, we group them all together under the head of magic. The grouping is perfectly correct, inasmuch as the proceedings grouped together have the common attribute of being proceedings which cannot possibly produce the effects which those who employ them believe that they will and do produce. But this grouping becomes perfectly