Note 143.1 — RITUAL AND BELIEF

Thus, on the one hand, we find constraint of the higher powers for public or private ends; on the other hand, the invention of spells and practice of magic are attributed to the gods themselves. We may think that constraint of the gods is inconsistent with worship. This is not the notion of peoples among which magic and religion are thus interwoven. The object of religion is to acquire benefits for the individual or the community. With this end men deem themselves justified in applying any means likely to secure it; and they treat their gods as they would powerful fellow-men, seeking favours where favours are to be had for the asking or in return for favours, enforcing compliance with their wishes where prayers will not avail, or cheating them where they get the chance. The repetition of a divine name may be either a favour to the god, or may be compulsion. The votary cares not to distinguish. In either case it brings about the gratification of his wishes. The village genna practised by the Nagas is compulsion. It is none the less worship. Many of the magical texts of ancient Egypt are directed to assisting the gods to overcome their enemies, thus rendering them a favour which they were bound to return. The ritual of the Scapegoat, familiar to us in its Hebrew form,143.1 but in fact found in many other quarters of the globe, presents another form of these magical practices. The sins of which men have been guilty, the evils from which they have been suffering are laden on the head of the unfortunate victim, who is forthwith put to death or driven away forever from society. Whether in the earliest form of the rite the victim was regarded as divine may be doubted: it is certain that it has been taken up into the cult of the gods in many religions, and has been deemed a pious act, a work of obligation, for the wellbeing of the joint community of gods and men.