structure, sixty feet in height and diameter, hard, solid, and enduring,
which shall furthermore possess the power of extending and multiplying
itself until it covers the whole earth, and even all the earths in the
universe, if it could reach them. Is such a profession as this credible?
It is entirely credible, as soon as I paraphrase it by saying that I
propose to plant an acorn. And yet all magic has no mystery which is so
wonderful as this universal mystery of growth: and the only reason we are
not lost in amazement at it is that it goes quietly on all the time, and
perfects itself under uniform conditions. But let me eliminate from the
phenomenon the one element of time--which is logically the least essential
factor in the product, unreal and arbitrary, based on the revolution of
the earth, and conceivably variable to any extent--grant me this, and the
world would come to see me do the miracle. But, with time or without it,
the mystery is just as mysterious.

Natural mysteries, then,--the mysteries of life, death, creation, growth,
--do not fall under our present consideration: they are beyond the
legitimate domain of magic: and no intellectual development to which we
may hereafter attain will bring us a step nearer their solution. But with
the problems proper to magic, the case is different. Magic is
distinctively not Divine, but human: a finite conundrum, not an Infinite
enigma. If there has ever been a magician since the world began, then all
mankind may become magicians, if they will give the necessary time and
trouble. And yet, magic is not simply an advanced region of the path which
science is pursuing. Science is concerned with results,--with material
phenomena; whereas magic is, primarily, the study of causes, or of
spiritual phenomena; or, to use another definition,--of phenomena which
the senses perceive, not in themselves, but only in their results. So long
as we restrict ourselves to results, our activity is confined to analysis;
but when we begin to investigate causes, we are on the road not only to