Note 378 — Chapter III · SYMPATHETIC MAGIC (continued 2)

The theory that taboo is a negative magic was first, I believe, clearly formulated by Messrs. Hubert and Mauss in their essay, “Esquisse d’une théorie générale de la magie,” L’Année Sociologique, vii. (Paris, 1904) p. 56. Compare A. van Gennep, Tabou et Totémisme à Madagascar (Paris, 1904), pp. 19 sqq. I reached the same conclusion independently and stated it in my Lectures on the Early History of the Kingship (London, 1905), pp. 52–54, a passage which I have substantially reproduced in the text. When I wrote it I was unaware that the view had been anticipated by my friends Messrs. Hubert and Mauss. See my note in Man, vi. (1906) pp. 55 sq. The view has been criticised adversely by my friend Mr. R. R. Marett (The Threshold of Religion, pp. 85 sqq.). But the difference between us seems to be mainly one of words; for I regard the supposed mysterious force, to which he gives the Melanesian name of mana, as supplying, so to say, the physical basis both of magic and of taboo, while the logical basis of both is furnished by a misapplication of the laws of the association of ideas. And with this view Mr. Marett, if I apprehend him aright, is to a certain extent in agreement (see particularly pp. 102 sq., 113 sq. of his essay). However, in deference to his criticisms I have here stated the theory in question less absolutely than I did in my Lectures. As to the supposed mysterious force which I take to underlie magic and taboo I may refer particularly to what I have said in The Golden Bough,² i. 319–322, 343. In speaking of taboo I here refer only to those taboos which are protected by magical or religious sanctions, not to those of which the sanctions are purely civil or legal; for I take civil or legal taboos to be merely a later extension of magical or religious taboos, which form the original stock of the institution. See my article “Taboo” in Encyclopaedia Britannica, Ninth Edition, vol. xxiii. pp. 16, 17.