§ 3 Why Magic Seems to Be the Source of Science
In no case, then, is Science derived from Magic, but Science on the one hand and Magic on the other are differentiated from Common-sense,574 and Science is much nearer akin to Common-sense than Magic is, being of the same substance and only formally different. And in that sense it is earlier than Magic, and sometimes formally earlier, as in the case of Astronomy and Astrology. The illusion that Magic is the earlier is due to the misinterpretation of two facts: (a) Magic and Science are, for the most part and during many ages, worked out by the same men—magicians or priests; and all that they do is mistaken for Magic, even by themselves. And (b) Magic in most of its branches undergoes immense development, whilst the Sciences remain rudimentary; grows old and even decrepit, whilst they are still in infancy; so that, on first emerging into public notice, they seem to issue from the matrix of Magic.
The reasons for the relative backwardness of Science, again, are chiefly three: (a) For ages it is in the hands of wizards who, though highly valuing knowledge, are mainly eager for power and prophecy. It is true that Science gives power, and the hope of power is a reasonable incentive to the study of Science; but it must be a remote incentive, in the actual work of research rigorously excluded. There, unless truth is the sole end in view, the procedure will not be clean, will be confined to immediate utility. But this is a recent discovery. The wizard has no such ideas: he is governed by his desires and traditions. Hence for verification he is content with coincidences; negative instances he neglects, or regards failure merely as an occasion for excuses. He accepts connexions of events remote in space and time, and is very slow to see the necessity of connecting events in the closest possible sequence. Moreover, having no understanding even of the facts he knows (such as the making of fire), the mysteriousness of any relation of events constitutes no objection to his acceptance of it; as the magical side of his practice grows, so does its mystery; until at last mysteriousness is a strong recommendation, and becomes a character of the apperceptive mass that assimilates and confirms all magical beliefs. This state of mind always offers strong resistance to positive explanation.
(b) Another reason of the backwardness of Science is the slow elucidation of the idea of Causation—long obscured by the impressiveness of coincidence and by fallacious imaginations of magical and spiritual forces: a process still incomplete. Until this idea had made considerable progress in definiteness (in antiquity, say, with Archimedes, and in modern times with Galileo), it was impossible that the indispensableness of analysis and elimination should be understood, that absolute respect should be felt for negative instances and that any gap in a series of events should always be regarded as an instant problem. And, finally (c), for scientific progress it was necessary that reasoning by analogy should be abandoned, and a methodology discovered of parallel and equational reasoning, with the apparatus that makes exact investigation possible.
As the Sciences grow in comprehensiveness, precision and solidarity, they constitute their own apperceptive mass, assimilation with which is the supreme test of all relevant beliefs; and this, together with a methodology that has become a habit of mind, tends to establish a social atmosphere in which Magic is no longer thinkable. Exact habits of thought in commerce and industry contribute greatly to this result. So we are tempted to ridicule our benighted predecessors; but a study of the conditions of their life shows that darkness was no more their fault than illumination is our merit.
The nearest approach that can be truthfully made to the position that Science is derived from Magic, is to say that the scientist is derived from the wizard (or wizard-priest), on that side of his activity in which he relied upon fragments of positive knowledge; but this was, in nature, always opposed to his Magic. In the course of thousands of years some men grew more interested in the positive than in the magical side of their profession, and became scientists; whilst others adhered to the fanciful and mystical. It is remarkable that, as sceptics occur in the most unsuspected quarters, so pure scientists may sometimes be found as an institution in barbarous or even savage communities. In a Bantu tribe there is a class of doctors that claim no powers by the aid of spirits or Magic, but without any ceremony dispense a few well-known drugs—aloes, nux vomica, castor-oil, fern-root, rhubarb, and the bark of various trees, purgative or emetic.575 The Kanyahs of Borneo have a weather-prophet to determine the right time for sowing; he is not expected to cultivate padi, but is supplied with it by the rest of the village. Not knowing how many days there are in a year, and finding that the seasons do not correspond with any certain number of lunar months, he depends entirely upon observation of the altitude of the sun by means of an upright pole, whose upper end is carved into a human figure.576 Except the carving on his pole, there is nothing to indicate that either Magic or Animism perturbs the method of this Astronomer Royal. Hence the adventure, though most wonderful, is not unexampled in a humbler world, by which eminent citizens amongst the Greek laity, with minds almost free from Magic and Animism, established for ever Philosophy and the Sciences as liberal studies.