James G. Frazer
James G. Frazer
Sir James George Frazer OM FRS FRSE FBA, was a Scottish social anthropologist influential in the early stages of the modern studies of mythology and comparative religion. He is often considered one of the founding fathers of modern anthropology...
NationalityScottish
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth1 January 1854
hands catholic magic
If the test of truth lay in a show of hands or a counting of heads, the system of magic might appeal, with far more reason than the Catholic Church, to the proud motto, Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus [always, everywhere, and by all], as the sure and certain credential of its own infallibility.
strong thinking magic
For there are strong grounds for thinking that, in the evolution of thought, magic has preceded religion .
distance magic principles
The second principle of magic: things which have once been in contact with each other continue to act on each other at a distance after the physical contact has been severed.
facts fit accepting
The slow, the never ending approach to truth consists in perpetually forming and testing hypotheses, accepting those at which at the time seem to fit the facts and rejecting the others.
development study influence
Indeed the influence of music on the development of religion is a subject which would repay a sympathetic study.
wise long crime
If mankind had always been logical and wise, history would not be a long chronicle of folly and crime.
summer spring autumn
In course of time the slow advance of knowledge, which has dispelled so many cherished illusions, convinced at least the more thoughtful portion of mankind that the alterations of summer and winter, of spring and autumn, were not merely the result of their own magical rites, but that some deeper cause, some mightier power, was at work behind the shifting scenes of nature.
sacrifice men useless
Yet perhaps no sacrifice is wholly useless which proves there are men who prefer honour to life.
men predicaments creatures
Man has created gods in his own likeness and being himself mortal he has naturally supposed his creatures to be in the same sad predicament.
religious art prayer
With the advance of knowledge, therefore, prayer and sacrifice assume the leading place in religious ritual; and magic; which once ranked with them as a legitimate equal, is gradually relegated to the background and sinks to the level of a black art.
kings facts chiefs
In point of fact magicians appear to have often developed into chiefs and kings.
law littles world
The moral world is as little exempt as the physical world from the law of ceaseless change, of perpetual flux.
people may sin
The scapegoat upon whom the sins of the people are periodically laid, may also be a human being.
family mother men
The awe and dread with which the untutored savage contemplates his mother-in-law are amongst the most familiar facts of anthropology.