principles on which magic as well as science is based, then science and
magic are the same thing, and we have only to choose whether we will
say that magic is not magic but undeveloped science, or that science is
not science but merely magic transmogrified. Thus, the pre-formation
theory once more reasserts itself: magic is the seed in which science is
prefigured or pre-formed.

If we wish to escape from this conclusion, if we wish to maintain the
validity of science and yet always to remember 'that every single
profession and claim put forward by the magician, as such, is false--not
one of them can be maintained without deception, conscious or
unconscious', we must consider whether Sir James Frazer's account of
magic, according to which the principles of magic are identical with
those of science, is the only account that can be given of magic; and
for that purpose we may contrast it with the view of Wilhelm Wundt. But
before doing so, since Sir James Frazer holds that there is 'a
fundamental distinction and even opposition of principle between magic
and religion', it will be well to try to see not only what he means by
magic, but also whether his description or definition of religion is
acceptable.

Whereas Robertson Smith held that religion, reduced to its very lowest
terms, must imply at least belief in a god and communion with him,
Frazer considers religion to be the belief that the course of nature and
of human life is controlled by personal beings superior to man. By the
one view stress is laid on the mystic side of religion, on the communion
which is effected through sacrifice; by the other view stress is laid on
the power which the gods may be induced by prayer and supplication to
exercise for the benefit of man. Our first reflection, therefore, is
that any view of religion, to be comprehensive, cannot confine itself to