Ancient Art and Ritual by Jane Ellen Harrison
page 30 of 172 (17%)
page 30 of 172 (17%)
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wind he makes it, or, as he later says, he whistles _for_ it; when a
savage or a Greek wants thunder to bring rain he makes it, becomes it. But it is easy to see that as the belief in magic declines, what was once intense desire, issuing in the making of or the being of a thing, becomes mere copying of it; the mime, the maker, sinks to be in our modern sense the mimic; as faith declines, folly and futility set in; the earnest, zealous _act_ sinks into a frivolous mimicry, a sort of child's-play. FOOTNOTES [5] These instances are all taken from _The Golden Bough,^3 The Magic Art_, I, 139 _ff._ [6] "The English Language," _Home University Library_, p. 28. CHAPTER III SEASONAL RITES: THE SPRING FESTIVAL We have seen in the last chapter that whatever interests primitive man, whatever makes him feel strongly, he tends to re-enact. Any one of his manifold occupations, hunting, fighting, later ploughing and sowing, provided it be of sufficient interest and importance, is material for a _dromenon_ or rite. We have also seen that, weak as he is in |
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