Every profession, organised or unorganised, provided there be an understanding amongst its members, is prone to acquire anti-social interests and to establish a secret tradition; and as long as moral sense is very imperfect, the antagonism of the profession to the public may be a virulent evil, as we see in the history of wizardry and priestcraft. Both the profession and its tradition begin with practices common to all members of a tribe; and the tradition grows by accumulating the discoveries and inventions of the professionals. Experiment and observation are employed by them (according to their lights) probably from the first. Dr. Haddon says that, in controlling the wind and rain, the procedure of wizards in the eastern islands of Torres Straits was subject to variation, and so doubtless were the spells, and experts relied on their own variants;[402] and Prof. Seligman[403] observes that, in British New Guinea, the knowledge of “the departmental expert” (wizard controlling rain, or fertility of garden, or what not) is traditionary from father to son, consisting partly of magical processes or formulæ, partly of the results of years of observation and thought. All improvements in science, art, industry and humbug are made by individuals. The cumulative tradition becomes more voluminous, the spells more intricate, the rites more elaborate; because the possible membership of the profession is thereby narrowed, the self-valuation of the initiated is heightened, the wonder and credulity of the laity is enhanced: so much of the doctrine and discipline being allowed to transpire as to make this last effect a maximum. Whilst tribal belief in Magic is the necessary ground of the wizard’s existence, he—being once recognised—thenceforth confirms, sways and guides the tribal belief. § 2. THE WIZARD’S PRETENSIONS Whilst societies are formed to promote the common interests of wizards, too severe competition amongst themselves is in some measure avoided by the specialisation of individuals in different branches of their mystery. In pure Magic there is some room for the division of labour to deal with the weather, or fertility, or disease, but the spread of Animism and the multiplication of fetiches and demons open to the sorcerers a wide field for the multiplication of specialists. Amongst the Beloki, says Mr. Weeks,[404] there are eighteen classes of specialists; on the lower Congo, fifty.