Iarwin, you’ve thrown me off. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]
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For me I don't think magic is anything different from building a skyscraper and flying a spaceship. If you show those things to people from medieval time, or better, Middle Earth, they would scream "magic" in your face.
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I seriously doubt everyone would. Lack of scientific knowledge does not negate intelligence. For example, contrary to popular belief remote tribes in New Guinea do not worship Coke bottles.
I do see what you are saying, though. For elves, magic isn’t magic at all, it belongs to them by nature.
However, elves aren't exactly natural. Elves are preternatural, and so their magical abilities are preternatural. Elves, Gandalf, Saruman, the balrog, Sauron, even Smaug, orcs, trolls, ents, dwarves and hobbits are all preternatural. Magical abilities may belong to them by definition, but these abilities remain preternatural. Galadriel may not understand the word “magic”, but magical she is. If we call these magics supernatural powers, then I think we run the risk of reducing magic to grace. If that is the case, then magic does not belong to these creatures by definition.
(Retraction: How can we seriously say that anything belongs "naturally" to creatures that are in their very essence preternatural? In the above posts, I’ve changed my mind about the wording: “belongs to them
by definition” is much clearer than “naturally”.)
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I also believe those so called "magic" and supernatural things can be explained scientifically if you tried.
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I will renounce with my last dying breath, such a belief. At a little grotto in a place called Lourdes, back on a cool October day in ‘87, all my doubts about the supernatural were dispelled.