THE ROLE OF MAGIC
JAMES THOMSON SHOTWELL Columbia University
Recent discoveries indicate the existence of man, at least of some animal given to chipping stones, for hundreds of thousands of years upon this earth. This almost infinite extension of the course of human events into the so-called prehistoric ages makes the recorded past so insignificant a fraction of the whole, that it must not be wondered at if now and again a historian slips his leash and wanders out into the open fields of anthropological sociology, where time and space are at his free disposal, and all the phenomena of life from anthropoidal apes to the latest prodigy in one of our colleges find a den or a home. Such ex- cursions are not without a certain danger for the mere student of history, but the spirit of adventure is not entirely dead, even among those whose lives are spent in the ascetic disciplines of that monkish subject.
It is frankly in the spirit of adventure that I make bold tonight to take up before you what I suppose is the largest sub- ject in human history — magic. It was the science and religion combined, much of the art, and most of the mode of thinking of our race for those vast stretches of centuries that we so lightly term the prehistoric. It is still the most important basis of action and of belief for millions of human beings, and has, as I hope to show, penetrated European history in such vital ways as to modify the structure of both church and state, dominate a large part of the philosophy, and affect the progress of science. Clothed in other forms it has enshrined itself in the most sacred associa- tion of many a person here present.
It is incredible that so vital a subject should have so long escaped satisfactory treatment. But the incredible is true. For there is not an exhaustive description or analysis of magic —
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