The ‘Decline of Magic’ Reconsidered

This concluding chapter pulls together the themes emerging from the previous ones to offer an overview of this work. It shows that there can be no doubt that a transition did occur during the period surveyed by this book — that magical ideas that had been widely accepted among the educated at the beginning of this book's chosen period had become marginalised by its end. As far as educated opinion was concerned, there undoubtedly was a ‘decline of magic’ at this time, at some date which seems to fall in about the second quarter of the eighteenth century, so that by 1750 the position was dramatically different from that in 1700. The chapter canvasses alternative potential explanations for this momentous change and suggests a likely trajectory for the developments that occurred. The chapter also comments on the nature of the longer-term legacy that ensued.