Thus, according to the magical-world view, a system of material connections links together in close solidarity things and their images, sounds, or names. But this network of connections may even, we believe, extend further, so as to bring into its chain of causation qualities and actions, in short, abstract notions, which cannot be considered as material objects possessing material parts. Just as an image which presents the figure and shape of a given thing is conceived as a part of that thing itself, so all things which have distinctive qualities in common may be thought of as being parts of a common whole. As a fantastic but still natural product of the primitive mind, there may thus appear the idea of an invisible connection, which binds together all things similar and draws them to each other. Vaguely and dimly even savages may have been able to anticipate in some measure those imposing thoughts which received an organised and consistent statement in the doctrine of universal ideas. But to primitive man these “ideas” must appear as concrete objects and beings, exercising their influence on phenomena in a quite material manner. To those who are familiar with that peculiar combination of spiritual conceptions of the world and material conceptions of the spirit which makes up the primitive cosmology, this explanation will not appear far-fetched or strained. But it is to be admitted that in many cases it may be difficult, or even impossible, to lay one’s finger on the elements of magic by contiguity which lie at the root of a given instance of imitative witchcraft. No doubt the mental effects produced by the imitation on its creator and spectators will in many cases contribute to the belief in its power. In the more artistic forms of poetic magic the suggestive power of the words replaces the brute force of their sound. And in dramatic magic an illusion, whether intended or unintended, must necessarily affect the performers as well as their audience. Therefore, however the psychological basis of magic may be explained, it cannot be denied that in some of its developments magic has become closely connected with art. The self-deceit by which we enjoy in art the confusion between real and unreal is indeed, by its intentional character, distinct from the illusion to which primitive man is led, more perhaps by his deficient powers of observation than by any strength of imaginative faculty. But still there exists a kinship, and that belief in an overlapping of the tangible and intangible life which is fostered by magic in the lower art affords, as it were, a premonition of the effects produced by imagination in the higher. CHAPTER XXI CONCLUSIONS