Magick in Theory and Practice (Section 1)

him. To neglect these rules, to break these laws in the smallest particular is to incur failure, and may even expose the unskilfu! practitioner himself to the utmost péril. If he daims a sovereignty over nature, it is a constitutional sovereignty rigorously limited in its scope and exercised in exact conformity with ancient usage. Thus the analogy between the magical and the scientific conceptions of the worid is close. In both of them the succession of events is perfectly regular and certain, being determined by immutable laws, the operation of which can be foreseen and calculated precisely; the éléments of caprice, of chance, and of accident are banished from the course of nature. Both of them open up a seemingly boundless vista of possibilities to him who knows the causes of things and can touch the secret springs that set in motion the vast and intncate mechanism of the worid. Hence the strong attraction which magic and science alike hâve exercised on the human mindj hence the powerful stimulus that both hâve given to the pursuit of knowledge. They lure the weary enquirer, the footsore seeker, on through the wilderness of disappointment in the présent by their endless promises of the future: they take him up to the top of an exceeding high mountain and shew him, beyond the dark clouds and rolling mists at his feet, a vision of the celestial city, far off, it may be, but radiant with unearthly splendour, bathed in the light of dreams.” Dr. J. G. FRAZER, «The Golden Bough “So far, therefore, as the public profession of magic has been one of the roads by which men hâve passed to suprême power, it has contributed to emancipate mankind from the thraldom of tradition and to elevate them into a larger, f reer life, with a broader outlook, on the worid. This is no small service rendered to humanity. And when we remember further that in another direction magic has paved the way for science, we are forced to admit that if the black art has done much evil, it has also been the source of much goodj that if it is the child of error, it has yet been the mother of freedom and truth.” Ibid. XIV