Magic being mysterious, the more mysterious the more powerful it must be. Hence foreign Magic is more dreaded than the home-made; ancient Magic is more powerful than modern; muttered spells, or formulæ in a strange language, or in one whose meaning has been lost, are more efficacious than intelligible speech; written characters and numbers have a subduing prestige; verse is more subtle than prose (for poets are everywhere respected); a wizard is more impressive in a mask than when bare-faced, in a fit than when sober; and operations in the dark, that ought to excite scepticism, enhance credulity. Masses of ideas having this mysterious quality form relatively dissociated systems, which offer resistance to all ideas that want it, and therefore to what we call “explanation.” Hence the conservative, inexpugnable character of Magic and its easy alliance with Mysticism. Resistance to explanation may go the length of denying present experience; as when a man is seen to be slain by a weapon or by a falling tree, and yet his death is ascribed to sorcery: the fear of sorcery having become a fixed idea. § 6. VOLITIONAL MAGIC Magical power inheres in things, rites and spells without regard to the man who uses them; they may be sold or taught, and then serve the new possessor. But much the greater part of all known magical operation depends upon the agency of some person, man or spirit, who sets it going; and rites and spells are from the first, by their nature, personal actions. In the later stages of Magic, no doubt, it is held that a mere wish or volition may be efficacious: in Cornwall they still tell you, when you are cold or tired, that you “look wisht,” that is, as if you had been ill-wisht and were pining away (this meaning is generally forgotten). But it seems to me improbable that such an idea should be primitive. People who, in inflicting penalties, do not discriminate between accidental and intentional offences, cannot be supposed to ascribe power to a mental process as such; and I have not been able to find in reports of very backward tribes any case of wish-magic unsupported by magical implements. Dr. Haddon says[121] that, among the eastern islanders of Torres Straits, the power of words and the projection of the will are greatly believed in. A youth who makes love procures a piece of black lava shaped significantly, and anoints it with coco-nut oil, etc.; he also anoints his own temples, and thinks as intently as possible about the girl, and repeats a spell whenever he sees her, using the names of Sagaro and Pikaro, wife and mistress of the hero Sida. Now, with this complex apparatus of talisman, rite and spell, how much is left to wishing or the projection of the will? He thinks hard about the girl, no doubt; but that needs no voluntary effort: at least, in this climate, voluntary effort is soon exhausted in trying to think of anything else. Mr. Weeks, in his book _Among Congo Cannibals_,