MIRACLES 



of the higher mammals, especially the apes, with which 

 they are genealogically connected. Their whole interest 

 is restricted to the physiological functions of nutrition 

 and reproduction, or the satisfaction of hunger and thirst 

 in the crudest animal fashion. Without fixed habitation, 

 constantly struggling for existence, they live on the raw 

 produce of nature — fruits, the roots of wild plants, and 

 the animals they fish in the water or catch on land. 

 Their intelligence moves within the narrowest bounds, 

 and one can no more (or no less) speak of their reason 

 than of that of the more intelligent animals. Of art 

 and science there is no question. Their impulse to dis- 

 cover causes is satisfied with the simplest association of 

 phenomena which have a merely external connection, 

 but no intimate relation to each other. Thus arises 

 their fetichisin, that irrational trust in fetiches which 

 Fritz Schultze has traced to four distinct causes: their 

 false estimate of the value of an object, their anthropo- 

 morphic conception of nature, the imperfect association 

 of their ideas, and the strength of their emotions, espe- 

 cially hope and fear. Any favorite object, a stone or a 

 bone, may work miracles as a fetich and exercise all 

 kinds of good or evil influence, and is therefore honored, 

 feared, and worshipped. At first the worship was paid 

 to the invisible spirit that dwelt in the particular object; 

 but it was often transferred afterwards to the dead object 

 itself. Among the different savage races the belief in 

 fetiches presents a number of stages, corresponding to 

 the beginnings of reason. The lowest stage is found in 

 the lowest races, such as the Veddahs of Ceylon, the 

 Andaman Islanders, Bushmen, and Akkas (of New 

 Guine). A somewhat higher stage is met in the middle 

 races (Australian negroes, Tasmanians, Hottentots, and 

 Tierra del Fuegians); and a still higher intellectual 

 development is shown by the next group (most of the 

 Indians of North and South America, the aboriginal 



57 



