The line of action taken by the missionary at work will, like that of
any other practical man, be conditioned, not only by the object which
he wishes to attain, but also by the nature of the material on which
and with which he has to work. He requires therefore all the
information which the science of religion can place at his disposal
about the beliefs and practices of those amongst whom his work is cast;
and, if he is to make practical use of that information, he must know
not only that certain beliefs and practices do as a matter of fact
obtain, he must know also what is their value for his special
purpose--what, if any, are the points about them which have religious
value, and can be utilized by him; and what are those points about them
which are obstructive to his purpose, and how best they may be removed
and counteracted. To supply him with this information, to give him
this estimate of values, to guide him as to the attitude he should
assume and the way in which he may utilise or must {106} attack native
practices and beliefs, is the object with which the applied science of
religion, when it has been constituted by the action of Hartford
Theological Seminary, will address itself.
Now, it may seem from the practical point of view of the missionary
that with regard to fetichism there can be no question as to what its
value is or as to what his attitude should be towards it. But, even if
we should ultimately find that fetichism is obstructive to religion, we
shall still want to know what hints we can extract from the science of
religion as to the best way of cutting at the roots of fetichism; and
therefore it will be necessary to consider what exactly fetichism is.
And, as a matter of fact, there is a tendency manifesting itself
amongst students of the science of religion to say, as Dr. Haddon says
(_Magic and Fetichism_, p. 91), that "fetichism is a stage of religious
development"; and amongst writers on the philosophy of religion to take
fetichism and treat it, provisionally at any rate, if not as the
primitive religion of mankind, then as that form of religion which "we
find amongst men at the lowest stage of development known to us"
(Hoeffding, _Philosophy of Religion_, E. T., Secs. 45, 46). If, then,
fetichism is the primitive religion of {107} mankind or a stage of
religious development, "a basis from which many other modes of
religious thought have been developed" (Haddon, p. 91), it will have a
value which the missionary must recognise. And in any case he must
know what value, if any, it has.
Now, if we are, I will not say to do justice to the view that fetichism
is the primitive religion of mankind or a stage from which other modes
of religious thought have been developed, but if we are simply to
understand it, we must clearly distinguish it from the view--somewhat
paradoxical to say the least--that fetichism has no religious value,
and yet is the source of all religious values. The inference which may
legitimately be drawn from this second view is that all forms of
religious thought, having been evolved from this primitive religion of
mankind, have precisely the same value as it has; they do but make
explicit what it really was; the history of religion does but write
large and set out at length what was contained in it from the first; in
fetichism we see what from the first religion was, and what at the last
religion is. On this view, the source from which all religious values
spring is fetichism; fetichism has no value of any kind, and therefore
the {108} evolved forms of fetichism which we call forms of religion
have no value either of any kind. Thus, science--the science of
religion--is supposed to demonstrate by scientific methods the real
nature and the essential character of all religion.
Now, the error in this reasoning proceeds partly on a false conception
of the object and method of science--a false conception which is slowly
but surely disappearing. The object of all science, whether it be
physical science or other, whether it be historic science or other, is
to establish facts. The object of the historic science of religion is
to record the facts of the history of religion in such a way that the
accuracy of the record as a record will be disputed by no one qualified
to judge the fact. For that purpose, it abstains deliberately and
consistently from asking or considering the religious value of any of
the facts with which it deals. It has not to consider, and does not
consider, what would have been, still less what ought to have been, the
course of history, but simply what it was. In this it is following
merely the dictates of common sense; before we can profitably express
an opinion on any occurrence, we must know what exactly it was that
occurred; and to learn what occurred we must {109} divest our minds of
preconceptions. It is the business of the science of religion to set
aside preconceptions as to whether religion has or has not any value;
and if it does set them aside, that is to say so far as it is
scientific, it will end as it began without touching on the question of
the value of religion. In fine, it is, and would I think now be
generally admitted to be, a misconception of the function of the
science of religion to imagine that it does, or can, prove anything as
to the truth of religion, one way or the other.
There is, however, another error in the reasoning which is directed to
show that in fetichism we see what religion was and essentially is.
That error consists not only in a false conception of what religion
is,--the man who has himself no religion may be excused if he fails to
understand fully what it is,--it is based on a misunderstanding of what
fetichism is. And so confusion is doubly confounded. The source of
that misunderstanding is to be found in Bosman (Pinkerton, _Voyages and
Travels_, London, 1814, XVI, 493), who says: "I once asked a negro with
whom I could talk very freely ... how they celebrated their divine
worship, and what number of gods they had; he, laughing, answered that
I had {110} puzzled him; and assured me that nobody in the whole
country could give me an exact account of it. 'For, as for my own
part, I have a very large number of gods, and doubt not but that others
have as many. For any of us being resolved to undertake anything of
importance, we first of all search out a god to prosper our designed
undertaking; and going out of doors with the design, take the first
creature that presents itself to our eyes, whether dog, cat, or the
most contemptible creature in the world for our god; or, perhaps,
instead of that, any inanimate that falls in our way, whether a stone,
a piece of wood, or anything else of the same nature. This new-chosen
god is immediately presented with an offering, which is accompanied by
a solemn vow, that if it pleaseth him to prosper our undertakings, for
the future we will always worship and esteem him as a god. If our
design prove successful, we have discovered a new and assisting god,
which is daily presented with a fresh offering; but if the contrary
happen, the new god is rejected as a useless tool, and consequently
returns to his primitive estate. We make and break our gods daily, and
consequently are the masters and inventors of what we sacrifice to.'"
Now, all this was said by the {111} negro, as Bosman himself observed,
to "ridicule his own country gods." And it is not surprising that it
should have been, or should be, accepted as a trustworthy description
of the earliest form of religion by those who in the highest form can
find no more than this negro found in fetichism when he wished to
ridicule it.
Let us hold over for the moment the question whether fetichism is or is
not a form of religion; and let us enquire how far the account given by
Bosman's negro accords with the facts. First, though there is no doubt
that animals are worshipped as gods, and though there is no doubt that
the guardian spirits of individuals are chosen, or are supposed to
manifest themselves, for example, amongst the North American Indians,
in animal form, and that "the first creature that presents itself" to
the man seeking the manifestation of his guardian spirit may be taken
to be his god, even though it be "the most contemptible creature in the
world "; still students of the science of religion are fairly satisfied
that such gods or guardian spirits are not to be confused with
fetiches. A fetich is an inanimate or lifeless object, even if it is
the feather, claw, bone, eyeball, or any other part of an animal or
even of a man. It is as {112} Bosman's negro said, "any inanimate that
falls in our way." When he goes on to say that it "is immediately
presented with an offering," and, so long as its owner believes in it,
"is daily presented with a fresh offering," he is stating a fact that
is beyond dispute, and which is fully recognised by all students. A
typical instance is given by Professor Tylor (_Primitive Culture_, II,
158) of the owner of a stone which had been taken as a fetich: "He was
once going out on important business, but crossing the threshold he
trod on this stone and hurt himself. Ha! ha! thought he, art thou
there? So he took the stone, and it helped him through his undertaking
for days." When Bosman's negro further goes on to state that if the
fetich is discovered by its owner not to prosper his undertakings, as
he expected it to do, "it is rejected as a useless tool," he makes a
statement which is admitted to be true and which, in its truth, may be
understood to mean that when the owner finds that the object is not a
fetich, he casts it aside as being nothing but the "inanimate" which it
is. Bosman's negro, however, says not that the inanimate but that "the
new god is rejected as a useless tool." That we must take as being but
a carelessness of expression; the evidence of Colonel {113} Ellis, an
observer whose competence is undoubted, is: "Every native with whom I
have conversed on the subject has laughed at the possibility of it
being supposed that he could worship or offer sacrifice to some such
object as a stone, which of itself would be perfectly obvious to his
senses was a stone only and nothing more" (_The Tshi-speaking Peoples_,
p. 192). From these words it follows that the object worshipped as a
fetich is a stone (or whatever it is) and something more, and that the
object "rejected as a useless tool" is a stone (or whatever it is) and
nothing more. When, then, Bosman's negro goes on to say, "we make and
break our gods daily," he is not describing accurately the processes as
they are conceived by those who perform them. The fetich worshipper
believes that the object which arrests his attention has already the
powers which he ascribes to it; and it is in consequence of that belief
that he takes it as his fetich. And it is only when he is convinced
that it is not a fetich that he rejects it as a useless tool. But what
Bosman's negro suggests, and apparently intended to suggest, is that
the fetich worshipper makes, say, a stone his god, knowing that it is a
stone and nothing more; and that he breaks his fetich believing it to
be a god. {114} Thus the worshipper knows that the object is no god
when he is worshipping it; but believes it to be a god when he rejects
it as a useless tool. Now that is, consciously or unconsciously,
deliberately or not, a misrepresentation of fetichism; and it is
precisely on that misconception of what fetichism is that they base
themselves who identify religion with fetichism, and then argue that,
as fetichism has no value, religious or reasonable, neither has
religion itself.
Returning now to the question what fetichism is--a question which must
be answered before we can enquire what religious value it possesses,
and whether it can be of any use for the practical purposes of the
missionary in his work--we have now seen that a fetich is not merely an
"inanimate," but something more; and that an object to become regarded
as a fetich must attract the attention of the man who is to adopt it,
and must attract the attention of the man when he has business on hand,
that is to say when he has some end in view which he desires to attain,
or generally when he is in a state of expectancy. The process of
choice is one of "natural selection." Professor Hoeffding sees in it
"the simplest conceivable construction of religious ideas. The choice
is entirely elementary {115} and involuntary, as elementary and
involuntary as the exclamation which is the simplest form of a judgment
of worth. The object chosen must be something or other which is
closely bound up with whatever engrosses the mind. It perhaps awakens
memories of earlier events in which it was present or cooperative, or
else it presents a certain--perhaps a very distant--similarity to
objects which helped in previous times of need. Or it may be merely
the first object which presents itself in a moment of strained
expectation. It attracts attention, and is therefore involuntarily
associated with what is about to happen, with the possibility of
attaining the desired end" (_Philosophy of Religion_, E. T., p. 139).
And then Professor Hoeffding goes on to say, "In such phenomena as these
we encounter religion under the guise of desire." Now, without denying
that there are such things as religious desires--and holding as we do
that religion is the search after God and the yearning of the human
heart after Him, "the desire of all nations," we shall have no
temptation to deny that there are such things as religious desires--yet
we must for the moment reserve our decision on the question whether it
is in such phenomena {116} as these that we encounter religious
desires, and we must bear in mind that there are desires which are not
religious, and that we want to know whether it is in the phenomena of
fetichism that we encounter religious desires.
That in the phenomena of fetichism we encounter desires other than
religious is beyond dispute: the use of a fetich is, as Dr. Nassau
says, "to aid the possessor in the accomplishment of some specific
wish" (_Fetichism in West Africa_, p. 82); that is, of any specific
wish. Now, a fetich is, as we have seen, an inanimate object and
something more. What more? In actual truth, nothing more than the
fact that it is "involuntarily associated with what is about to happen,
with the possibility of attaining the desired end." But to the
possessor the something more, it may be said, is the fact that it is
not merely an "inanimate" but also a spirit, or the habitation of a
spiritual being. When, however, we reflect that fetichism goes back to
the animistic stage of human thought, in which all the things that we
term inanimate are believed to be animated by spirits, it is obvious
that we require some differentia to mark off those things (animated by
spirits) which are fetiches from those things (animated by spirits)
{117} which are not. And the differentia is, of course, that fetiches
are spirits, or objects animated by spirits, which will aid the
possessor in the accomplishment of some specific wish, and are thought
to be willing so to aid, owing to the fact that by an involuntary
association of ideas they become connected in the worshipper's mind
with the possibility of attaining the end he has in view at the moment.
To recognise fetichism, then, in its simplest if not in its most
primitive form, all we need postulate is animism--the belief that all
things are animated by spirits--and the process of very natural
selection which has already been described. At this stage in the
history of fetichism it is especially difficult to judge whether the
fetich is the spirit or the object animated by the spirit. As Dr.
Haddon says (p. 83), "Just as the human body and soul form one
individual, so the material object and its occupying spirit or power
form one individual, more vague, perhaps, but still with many
attributes distinctively human. It possesses personality and will ...
it possesses most of the human passions,--anger, revenge, also
generosity and gratitude; it is within reach of influence and may be
benevolent, hence to be deprecated and placated, and its aid enlisted."
{118}
A more advanced stage in the history of fetichism is that which is
reached by reflection on the fact that a fetich not unfrequently ceases
to prosper the undertakings of its possessor in the way he expected it
to do. On the principles of animism, everything that is--whether
animate, or inanimate according to our notions--is made up of spirit,
or soul, and body. In the case of man, when he dies, the spirit leaves
the body. When, therefore, a fetich ceases to act, the explanation by
analogy is that the spirit has left the body, the inanimate, with which
it was originally associated; and when that is the case, then, as we
learn from Miss Kingsley (_Travels in West Africa_, pp. 304-305), "the
little thing you kept the spirit in is no more use now, and only fit to
sell to a white man as 'a big curio.'" The fact that, in native
belief, what we call an inanimate thing may lose its soul and become
really dead is shown by Miss Kingsley in a passage quoted by Dr.
Haddon: "Everything that he," the native, "knows by means of his senses
he regards as a twofold entity--part spirit, part not spirit, or, as we
should say, matter; the connection of a certain spirit with a certain
mass of matter, he holds, is not permanent. He will point out to you a
lightning-struck tree, and tell {119} you its spirit has been broken;
he will tell you when the cooking-pot has been broken, that it has lost
its spirit" (_Folk-Lore_, VIII, 141). We might safely infer then that
as any object may lose its spirit, so too may an object which has been
chosen as a fetich; even if we had not, as we have, direct testimony to
the belief.
Next, when it is believed that an object may lose its spirit and become
dead indeed, there is room and opportunity for the belief to grow that
its spirit may pass into some other object: that there may be a
transmigration of spirits. And when this belief arises, a fresh stage
in the history of fetichism is evolved. And the fresh stage is evolved
in accordance with the law that governs the whole evolution of
fetichism. That law is that a fetich is an object believed to aid its
possessor in attaining the end he desires. In the earliest stage of
its history anything which happens to arrest a man's attention when he
is in a state of expectancy "is involuntarily associated with what is
about to happen," and so becomes a fetich. In the most developed stage
of fetichism, men are not content to wait until they stumble across a
fetich, and when they do so to say, "Ha! ha! art thou there?" Their
mental attitude becomes {120} interrogative: "Ha! ha! where art thou?"
They no longer wait to stumble across a fetich, they proceed to make
one; and for that procedure a belief in the transmigration of spirits
is essential. An object, a habitation for the spirit, is prepared; and
he is invited, conjured, or conjured, into it. If he is conjured into
it, the attitude of the man who invites him is submissive; if conjured,
the mental attitude of the performer is one of superiority. Colonel
Ellis throughout all his careful enquiries found that "so great is the
fear of giving possible offence to any superhuman agent" that (in the
region of his observation) we may well believe that even the makers of
fetiches did not assume to command the spirits. But elsewhere, in
other regions, it is impossible to doubt but that the owners of
fetiches not only conjure the spirits into the objects, but also apply
coercion to them when they fail to aid their possessor in the
accomplishment of his wishes. That, I take it, is the ultimate stage
in the evolution, the fine flower, of fetichism. And it is not
religion, it has no value as religion, or rather its value is
anti-religious. Even if we were to accept as a definition of religion
that it is the conciliation of beings conceived to be superior, we
should be compelled by {121} the definition to say that fetichism in
its eventual outcome is not religion, for the attitude of the owner
towards his fetich is then one of superiority, and his method is, when
conciliation fails, to apply coercion.
But it may perhaps be argued that fetichism, except in what I have
termed its ultimate evolution, is religion and has religious value; or,
to put it otherwise, that what I have represented as the eventual
outcome is really a perversion or the decline of fetichism. Then, in
the fetichism which is or represents the primitive religion of mankind
we meet, according to Professor Hoeffding, "religion under the guise of
desire." Now, not all desires are religious; and the question, which
is purely a question of fact, arises whether the desires which
fetichism subserves are religious. And in using the word "religious" I
will not here place any extravagant meaning on the word; I will take it
in the meaning which would be understood by the community in which the
owner of a fetich dwells himself. In the tribes described by Colonel
Ellis, for instance, there are worshipped personal gods having proper
names; and the worship is served by duly appointed priests; and the
worshippers consist of a body of {122} persons whose welfare the god
has at heart. Such are some of the salient features of what all
students of the science of religion would include under the head of the
religion of those tribes. Now amongst those same tribes the fetich, or
_suhman_, as it is termed by them, is found; and there are several
features which make a fetich quite distinguishable from any of the gods
which are worshipped there. Thus, the fetich has no body of
worshippers: it is the private property, of its owner, who alone makes
offerings to it. Its _raison d'etre_, its special and only function,
is to subserve the private wishes of its owner. In so far as he makes
offerings to it he may be called its priest; but he is not, as in the
case of the priests of the gods who are worshipped there, the
representative of the community or congregation, for a fetich has no
plurality of worshippers; and none of the priests of the gods will have
anything to do with it. Next, "though offerings are made to the
_suhman_ by its owner, they are made in private" (Jevons, _History of
Religion_, p. 165)--there is no public worship--and "public opinion
does not approve of them." The interests and the desires which the
fetich exists to promote are not those of the community: they are
antisocial, for, as Colonel Ellis {123} tells us, "one of the special
attributes of a _suhman_ is to procure the death of any person whom its
worshipper may wish to have removed"--indeed "the most important
function of the _suhman_ appears to be to work evil against those who
have injured or offended its worshipper."
Thus, a very clear distinction exists between the worship of a fetich
and the worship of the gods. It is not merely that the fetich is
invoked occasionally in aid of antisocial desires: nothing can prevent
the worshipper of a god, if the worshipper be bad enough, from praying
for that which he ought not to pray for. It is that the gods of the
community are there to sanction and further all desires which are for
the good of the community, and that the fetich is there to further
desires which are not for the good of the community,--hence it is that
"public opinion does not approve of them." At another stage of
religious evolution, it becomes apparent and is openly pronounced that
neither does the god of the community approve of them; and then
fetichism, like the sin of witchcraft, is stamped out more or less.
But amongst the tribes who have only reached the point of religious
progress attained by the natives of West Africa, public opinion has
{124} only gone so far as to express disapproval, not to declare war.
If, then, we are to hold to the view of Professor Hoeffding and of Dr.
Haddon, that fetichism is in its essence, or was at the beginning,
religious in its nature, though it may be perverted into something
non-religious or anti-religious, we must at any rate admit that it has
become non-religious not only in the case of those fetichists who
assume an attitude of superiority and command to their fetiches, but
also in the earlier stage of evolution when the fetichist preserves an
attitude of submission and conciliation towards his fetich, but assumes
the attitude only for the purpose of realising desires which are
anti-social and recognised to be anti-religious.
But, if we take--as I think we must take--that line of argument, the
conclusion to which it will bring us is fairly clear and is not far
off. The differentia or rather that differentia which
characteristically marks off the fetich from the god is the nature of
the desires which each exists to promote; the function which each
exists to fulfil, the end which is there for each to subserve. But the
ends are different. Not only are they different, they are
antagonistic. And the process of evolution does {125} but bring out
the antagonism, it does not create it. It was there from the
beginning. From the moment there was society, there were desires which
could only be realised at the cost and to the loss of society, as well
as desires in the realisation of which the good of society was
realised. The assistance of powers other than human might be sought;
and the nature of the power which was sought was determined by the end
or purpose for which its aid was employed or invoked--if for the good
of society, it was approved by society; if not, not. Its function, the
end it subserved, determined its value for society--determined whether
public opinion should approve or disapprove of it, whether it was a god
of the community or the fetich of an individual. Society can only
exist where there is a certain community of purpose among its members;
and can only continue to exist where anti-social tendencies are to some
extent suppressed or checked by force of public opinion.
Fetichism, then, in its tendency and in its purpose, in the function
which it performs and the end at which it aims is not only
distinguishable from religion, it is antagonistic to it, from the
earliest period of its history to the latest. Religion is social, an
{126} affair of the community; fetichism is anti-social, condemned by
the community. Public opinion, expressing the moral sentiments of the
community as well as its religious feeling, pronounces both moral and
religious disapproval of the man who uses a _suhman_ for its special
purpose of causing death--committing murder. Fetichism is offensive to
the morality as well as to the religion even of the native. To seek
the origin of religion in fetichism is as vain as to seek the origin of
morality in the selfish and self-seeking tendencies of man. There is
no need to enquire whether fetichism is historically prior to religion,
or whether religion is historically prior to fetichism. Man, as long
as he has lived in societies, must have had desires which were
incompatible with the welfare of the community as well as desires which
promoted its welfare. The powers which are supposed to care whether
the community fares well are the gods of the community; and their
worship is the religion of the community. The powers which have no
such care are not gods, nor is their worship--if coercion or cajolery
can be called worship--religion. The essence of fetichism on its
external side is that the owner of the fetich alone has access {127} to
it, alone can pray to it, alone can offer sacrifices to it. It is
therefore in its inward essence directly destructive of the unity of
interests and purposes that society demands and religion promotes.
Perhaps it would be going too far to say that the practice of making
prayers and offerings to a fetich is borrowed from religious worship:
they are the natural and instinctive method of approaching any power
which is capable of granting or refusing what we desire. It is the
quarter to which they are addressed, and the end for which they are
employed, that makes the difference between them. It is the fact that
in the one case they are, and in the other are not, addressed to the
quarter to which they ought to be addressed, and employed for the end
for which they ought to be employed, that makes the difference in
religious value between them.
If we bear in mind the simple fact that fetichism is condemned by the
religious and moral feelings of the communities in which it exists, we
shall not fall into the mistake of regarding fetichism either as the
primitive religion of mankind or as a stage of religious development or
as "a basis from which many other modes of religious thought have been
developed."
{128}
Professor Hoeffding, holding that fetichism is the primitive religion,
out of which polytheism was developed, adopts Usener's theory as to the
mode of its evolution. "The fetich," Professor Hoeffding says (p. 140),
"is only the provisional and momentary dwelling-place of a spirit. As
Hermann Usener has strikingly called it, it is 'the god of a moment.'"
But though Professor Hoeffding adopts this definition of a fetich, it is
obvious that the course of his argument requires us to understand it as
subject to a certain limitation. His argument in effect is that
fetichism is not polytheism, but something different, something out of
which polytheism was evolved. And the difference is that polytheism
means a plurality of gods, whereas fetichism knows no gods, but only
spirits. Inasmuch then as, on the theory--whether it is held by
Hoeffding or by anybody else--that the spirits of fetichism become the
gods of polytheism, there must be differences between the spirits of
the one and the gods of the other, let us enquire what the differences
are supposed to be.
First, there is the statement that a fetich is the "god of a moment,"
by which must be meant that the spirits which, so long as they are
momentary and {129} temporary, are fetiches, must come to be permanent
if they are to attain to the rank of gods.
But on this point Dr. Haddon differs. He is quite clear that a fetich
may be worshipped permanently without ceasing to be a fetich. And it
is indeed abundantly clear that an object only ceases to be worshipped
when its owner is convinced that it is not really a fetich; as long as
he is satisfied that it is a fetich, he continues its cult--and he
continues it because it is his personal property, because he, and not
the rest of the community, has access to it.
Next, Hoeffding argues that it is from these momentary fetiches that
special or specialised deities--"departmental gods," as Mr. Andrew Lang
has termed them--arise. And these "specialised divinities constitute
an advance on gods of the moment" (p. 142). Now, what is implied in
this argument, what is postulated but not expressed, is that a fetich
has only one particular thing which it can do. A departmental god can
only do one particular sort of thing, has one specialised function. A
departmental god is but a fetich advanced one stage in the hierarchy of
divine beings. Therefore the function of the fetich in the first
instance was specialised {130} and limited. But there it is that the
_a priori_ argument comes into collision with the actual facts. A
fetich, when it presents itself to a man, assists him in the particular
business on which he is at the moment engaged. But it only continues
to act as a fetich, provided that it assists him afterwards and in
other matters also. The desires of the owner are not limited, and
consequently neither are his expectations; the business of the fetich
is to procure him general prosperity (Haddon, p. 83). As far as
fetiches are concerned, it is simply reversing the facts to suppose
that it is because one fetich can only do one thing, that many fetiches
are picked up. Many objects are picked up on the chance of their
proving fetiches, because if the object turns out really to be a fetich
it will bring its owner good luck and prosperity generally--there is no
knowing what it may do. But it is only to its owner that it brings
prosperity--not to other people, not to the community, for the
community is debarred access to it.
The next difference between fetichism and polytheism, according to
Hoeffding, is that the gods of polytheism have developed that
personality which is not indeed absolutely wanting in the spirits of
fetichism but can hardly be said to be properly {131} there. "The
transition," he says, "from momentary and special gods to gods which
can properly be called personal is one of the most important
transitions in the history of religion. It denotes the transition from
animism to polytheism" (p. 145). And one of the outward signs that the
transition has been effected is, as Usener points out with special
emphasis, "that only at a certain stage of evolution, _i.e._, on the
appearance of polytheism, do the gods acquire proper names" (_ib._ 147).
Now, this argument, I suggest, seeks to make, or to make much of, a
difference between fetichism and polytheism which scarcely exists, and
so far as it does exist is not the real difference between them. It
seeks to minimise, if not to deny, the personality of the fetich, in
order to exalt that of the gods of polytheism. And then this
difference in degree of personality, this transition from the one
degree to the other, is exhibited as "one of the most important
transitions in the history of religion." The question therefore is
first whether the difference is so great, and next whether it is the
real difference between fetichism and religion in the polytheistic
stage.
The difference in point of personality between the spirits of fetichism
and the gods of polytheism is not {132} absolute. The fetich,
according to Dr. Haddon, "_possesses personality_ and will, it has also
many human characters. It possesses most of the human passions, anger,
revenge, also generosity and gratitude; it is within reach of influence
and may be benevolent, is hence to be deprecated and placated, and its
aid to be enlisted" (p. 83); "the fetich is worshipped, prayed to,
sacrificed to, and talked with" (p. 89).
But, perhaps it may be said that, though the fetich does "possess
personality," it is only when it has acquired sufficient personality to
enjoy a proper name that it becomes a god, or fetichism passes into
polytheism. To this the reply is that polytheism does not wait thus
deferentially on the evolution of proper names. There was a period in
the evolution of the human race when men neither had proper names of
their own nor knew their fellows by proper names; and yet they doubted
not their personality. The simple fact is that he who is to receive a
name--whether he be a human being or a spiritual being--must be there
in order to be named. When he is there he may receive a name which has
lost all meaning, as proper names at the present day have generally
done; or one which has a meaning. {133} A mother may address her child
as "John" or as "boy," but, whichever form of address she uses, she has
no doubt that the child has a personality. The fact that a fetich has
not acquired a proper name is not a proof that it has acquired no
personality; if it can, as Dr. Haddon says it can, be "petted or
ill-treated with regard to its past or future behaviour" (p. 90), its
personality is undeniable. If it can be "worshipped, prayed to,
sacrificed to, talked with," it is as personal as any deity in a
pantheon. If it has no proper name, neither at one time had men
themselves. And Hoeffding himself seems disinclined to follow Usener on
this point: "no important period," he says (p. 147), "in the history of
religion can begin with an empty word. The word can neither be the
beginning nor exist at the beginning." Finally Hoeffding, to enforce
the conclusion that polytheism is evolved from fetichism, says: "The
influence exerted by worship on the life of religious ideas can find no
more striking exemplification than in the word 'god' itself: when we
study those etymologies of this word which, from the philological point
of view, appear most likely to be correct, we find the word really
means 'he to whom sacrifice is made,' or 'he who is worshipped'" (p.
148). {134} Professor Wilhelm Thomsen considers the first explanation
the more probable: "In that case there would be a relationship between
the root of the word '_gott_' and '_giessen_' (to pour), as also
between the Greek _cheein_, whose root _chu_ = the Sanskrit _hu_, from
which comes _huta_, which means 'sacrificed,' as well as 'he to whom
sacrifices are made'" (p. 396). Now, if "god" means either "he to whom
sacrifice is made" or "he who is worshipped," we have only to enquire
by whom the sacrifice is made or the worship paid, according to
Professor Hoeffding, in order to see the value of this philological
argument. A leading difference between a fetich and a god is that
sacrifice is made and worship paid to the fetich by its owner, to the
god by the community. Now this philological derivation of "god" throws
no light whatever on the question by whom the "god" is worshipped; but
the content of the passage which I have quoted shows that Professor
Hoeffding himself here understands the worship of a god to be the
worship paid by the community. If that is so, and if the function or a
function of the being worshipped is to grant the desires of his
worshippers, then the function of the being worshipped by the community
is to grant the desires of the community. {135} And if that is the
distinguishing mark or a distinguishing mark of a god, then the worship
of a god differs _toto caelo_ from the worship paid to a fetich, whose
distinguishing mark is that it is subservient to the anti-social wishes
of its owner, and is not worshipped by the community. And it is just
as impossible to maintain that a god is evolved out of a fetich as it
would be to argue--indeed it is arguing--that practices destructive of
society or social welfare have only to be pushed far enough and they
will prove the salvation of society.
If in the animistic stage, when everything that is is worked by
spirits, it is possible and desirable for the individual to gain his
individual ends by the cooperation of some spirit, it is equally
possible and more desirable for the community to gain the aid of a
spirit which will further the ends for the sake of which the community
exists. But those ends are not transient or momentary, neither
therefore can the spirit who promotes them be a "momentary" god. And
if we accept Hoeffding's description of the simplest and earliest
manifestation of the religious spirit as being belief "in a power which
cares whether he [man] has or has not experiences which he values," we
must be careful to make it clear that the {136} power worshipped by a
community is worshipped because he is believed to care that the
community should have the experiences which the community values.
Having made that stipulation, we may accept Hoeffding's further
statement (p. 147) that "even the momentary and special gods implied
the existence of a personifying tendency and faculty"; for, although
from our point of view a momentary god is a self-contradictory notion,
we are quite willing to agree that this tendency to personification may
be taken as primary and primitive: religion from the beginning has been
the search after a power essentially personal. But that way of
conceiving spiritual powers is not in itself distinctive of or confined
to religion: it is an intellectual conception; it is the essence of
animism, and animism is not religion. To say that an emotional element
also must be present is true; but neither will that serve to mark off
fetichism from religion. Fetichism also is emotional in tone: it is in
hope that the savage picks up the thing that may prove to have the
fetich power; and it is with fear that he recognises his neighbour's
_suhman_. A god is not merely a power conceived of intellectually and
felt emotionally to be a personal power from whom things may {137} be
hoped or feared; he must indeed be a personal power and be regarded
with hope and fear, but it is by a community that he must be so
regarded. And the community, in turning to such a power, worships him
with sacrifice: a god is indeed he to whom sacrifice is made and
worship paid by the community, with whose interests and whose
morality--with whose good, in a word, he is from the beginning
identified. "In the absence of experience of good as one of the
realities of life, no one," Hoeffding says, "would ever have believed in
the goodness of the gods"; and, we may add, it is as interested in and
caring for the good of the community that the god of the community is
worshipped. It is in the conviction that he does so care, that
religious feeling is rooted; or, as Hoeffding puts it (p. 162), it is
rooted in "the need to collect and concentrate ourselves, to resign
ourselves, to feel ourselves supported and carried by a power raised
above all struggle and opposition and beyond all change." There we
have, implicit from the beginning, that communion with god, or striving
thereafter, which is essential to worship. It is faith. It is rest.
It is the heart's desire. And it is not fetichism, nor is fetichism it.
{138}