THE BEGINNING OF ANIMISM 21 



this speculation of the laboratories. In this stage of 

 man's development, it may truthfully be said that 

 instinct is fast passing into individual and racial 

 intelligence. Darwin told us long ago that the differ- 

 ence in mind between man and the higher grade of 

 animals, great as it was, was certainly one of degree 

 and not of kind. I wonder who was the better inter- 

 preter of nature : the native of Africa who humbly felt 

 himself part of these kingdoms, or the arrogant 

 westerner who called the unstudied instinctive 

 conclusions of the native superstition. Not only does 

 the native suffer, but those observers who see in his 

 instinctively built up institutions something worth 

 studying are regarded by the westerner as 

 creatures suffering from some mental delusion, a kind 

 of " disease not unknown among Europeans who have 

 lived a long time in savage countries." And when 

 such a person has learnt something of the progress 

 of science, and has suddenly been confronted with 

 the inner meaning of what he calls symbolism 

 which may be said to coincide with the scientific 

 progress he has read about he accuses the diseased 

 ones of putting ideas into the Blackman's mind, or 

 satisfies his arrogance by calling the description 

 fantastic. 



This kind of person has not learned that the 

 sprouting of intelligence in primitive and civilised man 

 respectively is the same : and he is not ready to 

 accept a truth, wrapped up in symbolic or poetic 

 language ; because he himself would not have so 

 expressed it. He has no pity for the ignorance of 



