Chapter XVIII The Power of Words in Magic—Some Linguistic Data

is to elucidate the obsolete expressions, the mythical references, and to find the present day equivalents of any archaic words. Even if we obtain a series of meanings corresponding to each term of the original text, there is often considerable difficulty in linking these meanings together. Magic is not built up in the narrative style; it does not serve to communicate ideas from one person to another; it does not purport to contain a consecutive, consistent meaning. It is an instrument serving special purposes, intended for the exercise of man’s specific power over things, and its meaning, giving this word a wider sense, can be understood only in correlation to this aim. It will not be therefore a meaning of logically or topically concatenated ideas, but of