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In this stage, even less than in fetichism, is there a definite idea of God, much less a conception of him as personal and spiritual lord. The Chinese, from the practical, empirical point of view peculiar to him, recognizes the spiritual only in man and chiefly in the state.
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.
In what has consisted that continuous purification of Theism which the history of thought shows to have been effected, from the grossest form of belief in supernatural agency as exhibited in Fetichism, through its more refined form as exhibited in Polytheism, to its still more refined form as exhibited in Monotheism? In nothing but in a continuous process of what Mr.
He knew every inch of the ground, from the domination of the absolute faith in the ages of Fetichism, to its pseudo-presentment in the tenth century, and its actual subversion in the nineteenth. Every step. Our politicians might have picked up an idea or two there, I should think! Then he was so cool about it, so skilful! He fairly rubbed his hands with glee, enjoying the combat.
In Fetichism, the "object is treated as having personal consciousness and power, is talked with, worshipped, prayed to, sacrificed to, petted or ill-treated with reference to its past or future behavior to its votaries." Let me draw a picture from actual observation. I look out of the windows of my house in Fukui.
The lowest stage of religious development is fetichism, as it is found among the savage tribes of the polar regions, and in Africa, America, and Australia. In this stage, man's needs are as yet very limited and exclusively confined to the material world.
We have no concern here with the development of religious systems, other than to say that in the primitive agricultural community a succession of ideas of man's relation to the unseen arose, yielding, in addition to the widespread ancestor worship, a system of shamanism, or belief in the presence and power of malignant spirits, and one of fetichism, which developed into mythology, or worship of the great powers of nature.
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.
In Rome, it is at least probable that fetichism, as in Greece, was partly a survival, partly a new growth from the primal root of human superstitions.
As out of Animism or Shamanism grows Fetichism in which a visible object is found for the abode or medium of the spirit, so also, out of the same soil arises what we may call Imaginary Zoölogy. In this mental growth, the nightmare of the diseased imagination or of the mind unable to draw the line between the real and the unreal, Chinese Asia differs notably from the Aryan world.
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