+615+. The chief's mana, however, sometimes comes into play as a means of relief. A man who has inadvertently (or perhaps, in some instances, purposely) violated a taboo may escape punishment by touching some part of a chief's body. Here the innate potency of the superior man expels or destroys the taboo force that has entered the inferior--another example of how the primitive theory of taboo is modified by conceptions of social rank and authority. +616+. _Removal of taboo._ In general, magical ceremonies may be employed to counteract the injurious influence resident in a thing or an act, or to destroy the evil consequences resulting from a violation of the taboo law. For this purpose sprinkling with water, bathing in water, and the employment of charms are held to be effective. Thus in the old Hebrew code the taboo resting on a house supposed to be infected with the plague is removed by sprinkling the house with water and the blood of a slain bird, and setting free a second bird alive, which is supposed to carry the plague-power off with it.[1015] A woman is tabooed forty days at the birth of a male child, and eighty days at the birth of a female child; the taboo is removed by a holocaust and a sin-offering.[1016] +617+. A general taboo regulation may be set aside by tribal agreement in the interests of convenience or pleasure. On certain occasions the restrictions on the intercourse of the sexes are removed for a brief period, at the expiration of which the prohibitory law resumes its place.[1017] Many special ceremonies in various parts of the world have to do with modifications of marriage laws.[1018] +618+. _Taboo and magic._ Reference is made above to magical procedures in connection with taboo customs. Taboo and magic have a common basis in the conception of an occult force (which may conveniently be called _mana_) resident in all things, but they contemplate different sides of this force, and their social developments are very different. Taboo recognizes the inherent malefic manifestations of the force (known by supposed experience), and avoids them; magic uses the mana energy to effect results impossible for unaided human power. In taboo man feels himself to be under the dominance of an occult law, and his virtue is blind obedience; in magic he feels himself to be the master of a great energy, and what he needs is knowledge. Taboo has originated a mass of irrational rules for the guidance of everyday life; magic has grown into a quasi-science, with an organized body of adepts, touching religion on one side and real science on another side.