of its representatives, chiefs, elders, war-lords, priest-kings, and
so forth, must first be examined; then the jurisdiction and discipline
of subordinate bodies, such as the family and the clan, or again the
religious societies, trade guilds, and the rest; then, lastly, the
international conventions, with the available means of ensuring their
observance.

Again, the history of religion is an allied theme of far-reaching
interest. For the understanding of the ruder forms of society it may
even be said to furnish the master-key. At this stage, religion is
the mainstay of law and government. The constraining force of custom
makes itself felt largely through a magnifying haze of mystic
sanctions; whilst, again, the position of a leader of society rests
for the most part on the supernormal powers imputed to him. Religion
and magic, then, must be carefully studied if we would understand how
the various persons and bodies that exercise authority are assisted,
or else hindered, in their efforts to maintain social discipline. Apart
from this fundamental inquiry, there is another, no less important
in its way, to which the study of religion and magic opens up a path.
This is the problem how reflection manages as it were to double human
experience, by setting up beside the outer world of sense an inner
world of thought-relations. Now constructive imagination is the queen
of those mental functions which meet in what we loosely term "thought";
and imagination is ever most active where, on the outer fringe of the
mind's routine work, our inarticulate questionings radiate into the
unknown. When the genius has his vision, almost invariably, among the
ruder peoples, it is accepted by himself and his society as something
supernormal and sacred, whether its fruit be an act of leadership or
an edict, a practical invention or a work of art, a story of the past
or a prophecy, a cure or a devastating curse. Moreover, social