The sights and sounds of nature were regarded as the vestments, or the voices, of the unseen combatants.

Life was at once very real and the mere shadow of a dream.

The conditions were favourable to the growth of magic; for man was regarded as the measure of the universe, the central figure in an awful tragedy.
Magic is an attempt, by thinking and speculating about what we consider must be the order of nature, to discover some means of penetrating into the secret life of natural things, of realising the hidden powers and virtues of things, grasping the concealed thread of unity which is supposed to run through all phenomena however seemingly diverse, entering into sympathy with the supposed inner oneness of life, death, the present, past, and future.

Magic grows, and gathers strength, when men are sure their theory of the universe must be the one true theory, and they see only through the glasses which their theory supplies.

"He who knows himself thoroughly knows God and all the mysteries of His nature," says a modern writer on magic.