Note 47 — Chapter VII · FALLACIES IN POPULAR ARGUMENTS

Similarly among the Fuegians (another of the lowest races of mankind) “almost every old man is a magician, who is supposed to have the power of life and death, and to be able to control the weather. But the members of the French scientific expedition to Cape Horn could detect nothing worthy of the name of religion among these savages.”47 Here, then, even if we adopt Dr. Flint’s broad definition, we surely have examples of the absence of the religious instinct. There is a fundamental distinction, and even opposition of principle, between magic and religion, as we shall see by a study of the opinions of those best qualified to offer them.