PREFACE

book, we have contented ourselves with referring the reader to it. On the other hand, whenever we have been made aware of an important work but were unable to consult it directly, we have always indicated this.

The subject of the present book is the formation of the idea of the magical and the sacred: we stop at the moment where magical-sacred forces The author uses the term "magico-sacrées," reflecting the early 20th-century sociological view that magic and religion share a common origin in "mana" or sacred power. begin to personify and be conceived as individual wills. We shall leave the study of sacred personifications Essentially, the transition from vague spiritual forces to distinct gods or spirits. for a later work, which is already in preparation. Later still may come the study of abstract representations, and then that of religious society considered from the point of view of its organization.

We have excluded from the scope of this volume several subjects that one might have expected to see treated here. The study of magical tradition, alchemy, and astrology seemed to us to belong more to a history of Islamic sciences original: "sciences musulmanes" than to a history of religion in North Africa; the study of prayer and its origins ought to have been treated here, but an insufficient refinement of the topic has forced us to postpone it until a bit later, as it seemed to us that it could be more advantageously linked to the study of the divine person.

Paris, August 1908.

EDMOND DOUTTÉ. Edmond Doutté (1867–1926) was a French sociologist and orientalist known for his influential studies on the rituals and beliefs of North Africa.