An Introduction to the Study of Comparative Religion

Fetichism

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 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” (Höffding, Philosophy of Religion, E. T., §§ 45, 46). If, then, fetichism is the primitive religion of 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 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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 Höffding sees in it “the simplest conceivable construction of religious ideas. The choice is entirely elementary 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 coöperative, 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 Höffding 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 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) 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.”

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 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 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, conjúred, or cónjured, into it. If he is conjúred into it, the attitude of the man who invites him is submissive; if cónjured, 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 conjúre 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 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 Höffding, “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 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’être, 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 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 only gone so far as to express disapproval, not to declare war.

If, then, we are to hold to the view of Professor Höffding 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 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 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 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.”

Professor Höffding, 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 Höffding 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 Höffding 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 Höffding 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 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, Höffding 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 and limited. But there it is that the à 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 Höffding, 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 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 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. 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 Höffding 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 Höffding, 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). 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 chéein, 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 Höffding, 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 Höffding 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. 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 coöperation 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 Höffding’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 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 Höffding’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 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,” Höffding 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 Höffding 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.