On the Origin, Idea, Scope, and History of Ancient and Modern Magic

II.

Meanwhile, if the disposition toward superstition, as follows from this, is characterized on one side in man by the power that affects and passions exercise over him, and on the other by the barriers of his knowledge and his ability to act in contradiction with the drive to break through that which constrains him, as arising from the essence of man: then this still does not sufficiently explain—neither the universality of "those" ideas and "those" folk assumptions, which are the ultimate basis of all belief and all superstition, nor the inconceivable power which, in particular, the belief in magical power and miracle-working, in its various types, modifications, and developments, has exercised at all times, from the lowest stage of culture to the highest education and refinement.