It is then mere superstition;[1] and, in view of the danger of this degeneracy, many robust minds, such as the members of the Society of Friends, prefer to dispense with its aid altogether.
When ritual is associated with erroneous doctrines, the results are even more disastrous, as I have indicated in "The Belief in Talismans". But when ritual is allied with, and based upon, as adequately symbolising, the high teaching of genuine religion, it may be, and, in fact, is, found very helpful by many people.
As such its efficacy seems to me to be altogether magical, in the best sense of that word.
[1] As "ELIPHAS LEVI" well says: "Superstition . . . is the sign surviving the thought; it is the dead body of a religious rite."(_Op cit_., p. 150.)
But, indeed, I think a still wider application of the word "magic" is possible. "All experience is magic," says NOVALIS(1772-1801), "and only magically explicable";[2a] and again:
"It is only because of the feebleness of our perceptions and activity that we do not perceive ourselves to be in a fairy world."No doubt it will be objected that the common experiences of daily life are "natural," whereas magic postulates the "supernatural". If, as is frequently done, we use the term "natural," as relating exclus-ively to the physical realm, then, indeed, we may well speak of magic as "supernatural," because its aims are psychical.
On the other hand, the term "natural" is sometimes employed as referring to the whole realm of order, and in this sense one can use the word "magic" as descriptive of Nature herself when viewed in the light of an idealistic philosophy, such as that of SWEDENBORG, in which all causation is seen to be essentially spiritual, the things of this world being envisaged as symbols of ideas or spiritual verities, and thus physical causation regarded as an appearance produced in virtue of the magical, non-causal efficacy of symbols.[1] Says CORNELIUS AGRIPPA: ". . . every day some natural thing is drawn by art and some divine thing is drawn by Nature which, the Egyptians, seeing, called Nature a Magicianess (_i.e_.) the very Magical power itself, in the attracting of like by like, and of suitable things by suitable."[2]
[2a] NOVALIS: _Schriften_ (ed. by LUDWIG TIECKand FR. SCHLEGEL, 1805), vol. ii. p. 195[1] For a discussion of the essentially magical character of inductive reasoning, see my _The Magic of Experience_ (1915)[2] _Op. cit_., bk. i. chap. xxxvii. p. 119.
I would suggest, in conclusion, that there is nothing really opposed to the spirit of modern science in the thesis that "all experience is magic, and only magically explicable." Science does not pretend to reveal the fundamental or underlying cause of phenomena, does not pretend to answer the final Why? This is rather the business of philosophy, though, in thus distinguishing between science and philosophy, I am far from insinuating that philosophy should be otherwise than scientific.
We often hear religious but non-scientific men complain because scientific and perhaps equally as religious men do not in their books ascribe the production of natural phenomena to the Divine Power. But if they were so to do they would be transcending their business as scientists.
In every science certain simple facts of experience are taken for granted:
it is the business of the scientist to reduce other and more complex facts of experience to terms of these data, not to explain these data themselves.
Thus the physicist attempts to reduce other related phenomena of greater complexity to terms of simple force and motion; but, What are force and motion? Why does force produce or result in motion? are questions which lie beyond the scope of physics. In order to answer these questions, if, indeed, this be possible, we must first inquire, How and why do these ideas of force and motion arise in our minds?
These problems land us in the psychical or spiritual world, and the term "magic" at once becomes significant.
"If, says THOMAS CARLYLE, . . . we . . . have led thee into the true Land of Dreams; and . . . thou lookest, even for moments, into the region of the Wonderful, and seest and feelest that thy daily life is girt with Wonder, and based on Wonder, and thy very blankets and breeches are Miracles,--then art thou profited beyond money's worth...."[1]
[1] THOMAS CARLYLE: _Sartor Resartus_, bk. iii. chap. ix.
