IX CENTRAL AFRICA AND ELSEWHERE. 



165 



ancient and modern times is great and fixed. Here we have no 

 tribal henotheism, but a monotheism as far removed from the 

 cosmogonies of Babylonian and heathen polytheism as heaven 

 from earth. As one has well said* : " Not one of these can be 

 read without a smile — the machinery creaks all the time. No 

 one ever thought of smiling at the Bible accounts of the Creation 

 and restoration of the earth." Idolatry was a departure from 

 pure monotheism. Men, who would not see, became blind. 

 Fetichism is a degradation from a purer faith of which it contains 

 traces, a far-off glimpse of a Supreme Creator, a vague idea of 

 accountability to Him, a dim reminiscence of atonement by 

 sacrifice, misty traditions of past happenings in the cradle of 

 the race. 



Modern civilization, professing itself to be wise, has turned 

 away from the testimony of Creation and Revelation, and with 

 its superstitions, its mascots, its seances, is nearing the level of 

 religious dotage where the despised negro has grovelled so long. 

 There are signs of better things for the Dark Continent. Perhaps 

 " the first shall be the last, and the last first." 



, Discussion. 



The Chairman said : — The lecture has proved interesting, in- 

 structive, and, what is more, suggestive. 



For instance, it has suggested to me the true position fetichism 

 holds amongst the world's religions. These all can be divided up 

 into three groups, each group corresponding to one division of man's 

 consciousness. As I have had the honour on a former occasion to 

 point out to you, that source of knowledge is threefold : (1) Object 

 or sense consciousness, and to this corresponds the group made up 

 of animism, fetichism, shamanism, totemism. (2) Soul or self -con- 

 sciousness, and to this corresponds the group containing, among 

 others, some forms of Judaism, Stoicism, and theologies based on 

 the philosophy of Kant. (3) God or spirit consciousness, to which 

 division correspond deism, pantheism, theism. 



Animism appears amongst all low tribes, and is the belief that 

 spiritual beings fill all nature, animate and inanimate, and their life 

 is a continuation and not a new life. They can transmigrate into 

 human beings, animals, plants and inanimate objects, and can avenge 



* The Fall— Fact or Fiction, by C. F. Hogg. 



