PEESIDEXTIAL ADDRESS SECTIOX E. 79 



< )ne of tlie principal oi)poiieiit;> said with a sigh: " I see that 

 we black people are totally unable to reach our ends. We are 

 no longer of one mind, thus we are wrong, and we must yield 

 nnd ask to be forgiven." This boy was one of the best 

 Christians of the Avhole lot, but a typical Bantu. 



But I take a step further, aiid beg to state that the 

 fundamental difference between the European and the Bantu 

 mind — the difference which mostly prevents a true under- 

 standing of the one by the other is this : We Europeans of 

 the twentieth century possess what I may call the scientific 

 spirit, whilst Bantus are still plunged in the magic conception 

 of Nature. This is the proper subject of my address. I enter 

 now the domain of ethnography, properly speaking. My 

 preceding' remarks applied to the native who has already been 

 more or less transformed by our religion and by our schools. 

 We now consider the raw native Avho has not yet leceived any 

 education. Needless to say, at this present time the heathen 

 type is still infinitely more numerous than the Christian 

 variety. 



I say that we Europeans of the twentieth century pretend 

 to possess the scientific mind. We study phenomena; we 

 notice that a first phenomenon is followed by another. We 

 try to discover the relation between them. We perhaps come 

 to the conclusion that the second is produced by the first. 

 Applying the category of causality, we then assert that the 

 first is the cause of the second. But Ave do not hasten to di'aw 

 the conclusion. We first examine, cross-examine, analyse, and 

 only when we are sure do we pronomice our judgment as 

 regards causality. Take, for instance, phthisis. The European 

 scientist has not been satisfied before he has found that the 

 lesion in the lungs is connected with a particular microbe, 

 Avhich enters the human body in such and such a way, and 

 whose progress is concomitant with the jnogress of the disease 

 which it causes. Owing to the knoAvledge acciuired by 

 observation, a scientific treatment of the illness is henceforth 

 possible. 



The Bantu mind proceeds on quite different lines. As i 

 rule, a Bantu does not bother very much about causes. He 

 accepts the world as it is, without asking Avho made it and 

 Avhy things are as they are. However, Avhen ])henomena 

 make him suffer, he Avants to knoAV where such abnormality 

 conies from — be it disease, drought or accident — and, having 

 never inquired scientifically into such phenomena, lie at once 

 believes that they are produced by spiritual agents like 

 himself, be they ancestor spirits or spirits of living persons 

 which possess the power of witchcraft. And uoaa-, when it 

 becomes imperative to fight against such influences, he resorts 

 to magic. Magic practices are based on a certain number 

 of principles which are self-evident to the Bantu and which 

 dictate most of his acticnis in dealing* Avith disease and 

 other misfortunes. The most important is the pi-inciple of 

 similarity, which is at the root of what ethnography calls 

 " sympathetic magic." As long as two phenomena resemble 



