Second Section.

One may, if one wishes, distinguish between magic original: "Magie" and sorcery original: "Zauberei". We use both words here as being completely synonymous.

If we now ask, in looking back at what has been said thus far, about the "main idea" which expresses itself in the magic-belief of peoples, it is the striving, by means of magic, not only to arrive at a deeper insight into nature in itself and in general, *) but also to subject it—in cooperation with higher powers—to one's own secret forces and effects, in order to thereby make oneself the master of one's own fate and that of others. How this might, could, or should happen: this is determined in the various theories of magic primarily according to the peoples' assumptions about their spirit worlds, their good or evil powers, and their influence on nature and fate. According to this, all the specific forms of magic modify themselves, as we find them developed both according to the principle of paganism in the ancient world and of Christianity in the new world, the main features of which we will indicate hereafter with a few words, as has already been done in more detail in demonomagic. *)

*) This is magic in the most comprehensive, purest, and noblest meaning of the word, as it was studied by the noblest among the Persians, Egyptians, etc., for whom magic was the crown and perfection of every science. However, this study of white magic very early and generally passed over into the study of black magic. To exhaust the concept, we have expressed both main categories of magic in the above definition.