Social progress,
as we know, consists mainly in a successive differentiation of
functions, or, in simpler language, a division of labour. The work
which in primitive society is done by all alike and by all equally
ill, or nearly so, is gradually distributed among different classes
of workers and executed more and more perfectly; and so far as the
products, material or immaterial, of this specialised labour are
shared by all, the whole community benefits by the increasing
specialisation. Now magicians or medicine-men appear to constitute
the oldest artificial or professional class in the evolution of
society. For sorcerers are found in every savage tribe known to us;
and among the lowest savages, such as the Australian aborigines,
they are the only professional class that exists. As time goes on,
and the process of differentiation continues, the order of
medicine-men is itself subdivided into such classes as the healers
of disease, the makers of rain, and so forth; while the most
powerful member of the order wins for himself a position as chief
and gradually develops into a sacred king, his old magical functions
falling more and more into the background and being exchanged for
priestly or even divine duties, in proportion as magic is slowly
ousted by religion.
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