With regard to ancient India we are
told by an eminent Sanscrit scholar that "the sacrificial ritual at
the earliest period of which we have detailed information is
pervaded with practices that breathe the spirit of the most
primitive magic." Speaking of the importance of magic in the East,
and especially in Egypt, Professor Maspero remarks that "we ought
not to attach to the word magic the degrading idea which it almost
inevitably calls up in the mind of a modern. Ancient magic was the
very foundation of religion. The faithful who desired to obtain some
favour from a god had no chance of succeeding except by laying hands
on the deity, and this arrest could only be effected by means of a
certain number of rites, sacrifices, prayers, and chants, which the
god himself had revealed, and which obliged him to do what was
demanded of him."
Among the ignorant classes of modern Europe the same confusion of
ideas, the same mixture of religion and magic, crops up in various
forms. Thus we are told that in France "the majority of the peasants
still believe that the priest possesses a secret and irresistible
power over the elements.
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