# Quote — James George Frazer, The Golden Bough

> 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.

- Author: [James George Frazer](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-george-frazer.md)
- Book: [The Golden Bough](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-george-frazer/the-golden-bough.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Frazer#The_Golden_Bough_(1890)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-george-frazer/the-golden-bough/in-course-of-time

## More from this book

> The notion that we can transfer our guilt and sufferings to some other being who will bear them for us is familiar to the savage mind. It arises from a very obvious confusion between the physical and the mental, between the material and the immaterial.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-george-frazer/the-golden-bough/the-notion-that.md)

> Dwellers by the sea cannot fail to be impressed by the sight of its ceaseless ebb and flow, and are apt, on the principles of that rude philosophy of sympathy and resemblance...to trace a subtle relation, a secret harmony, between its tides and the life of man...The belief that most deaths happen at ebb tide is said to be held along the east coast of England from Northumberland to Kent.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-george-frazer/the-golden-bough/dwellers-by-the.md)

> 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.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-george-frazer/the-golden-bough/with-the-advance.md)