misleading, if we go on to infer, as is sometimes inferred, that primitive man adopted it. First, it is based on the fact that the proceedings are uniformly irrational--a fact of which man is at first wholly unaware; and which, when it begins to dawn upon him, presents itself in the form of the further error that while some of these proceedings are absurd, others are not. In neither case does he adopt the modern, scientific position that all are irrational, impossible, absurd. Next, the modern position deals only with the proceedings as means,--declaring them all absurd,--and overlooks entirely what is to primitive man the point of fundamental importance, viz. the object {83} and purpose with which they are used. Yet it is the object and purpose which determine the social value of these proceedings. For him, or in his eyes, to class together the things which he approves of and the things of which he disapproves would be monstrous: the means employed in the two cases may be the same, but that is of no importance in face of the fact that the ends aimed at in the two cases are not merely different but contradictory. In the one case the object promotes the common weal, or is supposed by him to promote it. In the other it is destructive of the common weal. If, therefore, we wish to avoid confusion of thought, we must in discussing magic constantly bear in mind that we group together--and therefore are in danger of confusing--things which to the savage differ _toto caelo_ from one another. A step towards avoiding this confusion is taken by Dr. Frazer, when he distinguishes (_History of the Kingship_, p. 89) between private magic and public magic. The distinction is made still more emphatic by Dr. Haddon (_Magic and Fetichism_, p. 20) when he speaks of "nefarious magic." The very same means when employed against the good of the community are regarded, by morality and religion {84} alike, as nefarious, which when employed for the good of the community are regarded with approval. The very same illegitimate application,--I mean logically illegitimate in our eyes,--the very same application of the principle that like produces like will be condemned by the public opinion of the community when it is employed for purposes of murder and praised by public opinion when it is employed to produce the rain which the community desires. The distinction drawn by primitive man between the two cases is that, though any one can use the means to do either, no one ought to do the one which the community condemns. That is condemned as nefarious; and because it is nefarious, the "witch" may be "smelled out" by the "witch-doctor" and destroyed by, or with the approval of, the community.