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
strong thinking magic
For there are strong grounds for thinking that, in the evolution of thought, magic has preceded religion .
dream strong powerful
Hence the strong attraction which magic and science alike have exercised on the human mind; hence the powerful stimulus that both have given to the pursuit of knowledge. They lure the weary enquirer, the footsore seeker, on through the wilderness of disappointment in the present by their endless promises of the future: they take him up to the top of an exceeding high mountain and show him, beyond the dark clouds and rolling mists at his feet, a vision of the celestial city, far off, it may be, but radiant with unearthly splendour, bathed in the light of dreams.
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.
wise long crime
If mankind had always been logical and wise, history would not be a long chronicle of folly and crime.
development study influence
Indeed the influence of music on the development of religion is a subject which would repay a sympathetic study.
burning misinterpretation customs
The custom of burning a beneficent god is too foreign to later modes of thought to escape misinterpretation.
kings woods golden
The temple of the sylvan goddess, indeed, has vanished, and the King of the Wood no longer stands sentinel over the Golden Bough.
soul tribes doctrine
This doctrine of transmigration or reincarnation of the soul is found among many tribes of savages
powerful struggle opportunity
For extending its sway, partly by force of arms, partly by the voluntary submission of weaker tribes, the community soon acquires wealth and slaves, both of which, by relieving some classes from the perpetual struggle for a bare subsistence, afford them an opportunity of devoting themselves to that disinterested pursuit of knowledge which is the noblest and most powerful instrument to ameliorate the lot of man.
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.
ideas mind vision
Small minds cannot grasp great ideas; to their narrow comprehension, their purblind vision, nothing seems really great and important but themselves.
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.
law littles world
The moral world is as little exempt as the physical world from the law of ceaseless change, of perpetual flux.