Ritual and belief : $b Studies in the history of religionHartland, Edwin Sidney
Religion
Ritual and belief : $b Studies in the history of religion
Hartland, Edwin Sidney
Ethnopsychology; Magic; Religion; Rites and ceremonies
When all is said, however, religion is (ideally, at least)
social--that is to say, moral--in its aims and tendencies, {89}
whereas magic lends itself to individualist aims. Religion binds the
society together by raising the individual above himself, and teaching
him to subordinate his desires and actions to the general good; magic
has no compunction in assisting to carry out the wishes of the
individual, though they may be contrary to the interests of the
society as a whole. To that extent it is disruptive, antisocial,
immoral; and when thus applied it may be described as Black, or Evil,
or Hostile Magic. Here perhaps we find the origin of the opposition
between them. So far from religion and magic having been originally
hostile, the further we go back into savage life, and presumably,
therefore, towards primitive humanity, the more we find them
interwoven, indistinguishable. It is only in the advance of
civilization, and the consequent evolution of religion and of magic
that they become conscious of mutual hostility. When once the
separation had begun it would tend to widen. Certain methods and means
would be regarded as proper to the one, certain other methods and
means as proper to the other, albeit neither of them, not even the
highest known and recognized form of religion, has hitherto been able
to shake itself entirely free from the methods of the other. This is
not incompatible with increasing hostility. The loftier the claims of
religion become, the closer its relations with the profoundest thought
of mankind, the more awful the sanctions it invokes, the more
inevitable, the more irreconcilable the hostility becomes. Family
quarrels are ever the bitterest.
III. Development
The discussion has led to some anticipation of the argument. We turn
back again to the personal potentiality.
{90}
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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