I am a plain
practical man, not one of your theorists and splitters of hairs and
choppers of logic. Theories and speculation and all that may be very
well in their way, and I have not the least objection to your
indulging in them, provided, of course, you do not put them in
practice. But give me leave to stick to facts; then I know where I
am." The fallacy of this reasoning is obvious to us, because it
happens to deal with facts about which we have long made up our
minds. But let an argument of precisely the same calibre be applied
to matters which are still under debate, and it may be questioned
whether a British audience would not applaud it as sound, and esteem
the speaker who used it a safe man--not brilliant or showy, perhaps,
but thoroughly sensible and hard-headed. If such reasonings could
pass muster among ourselves, need we wonder that they long escaped
detection by the savage?
V. The Magical Control of the Weather
1. The Public Magician
THE READER may remember that we were led to plunge into the
labyrinth of magic by a consideration of two different types of
man-god.
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