Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 1.djvu/310

 knows itself as something which is higher than natural things, and this knowledge is, to begin with, unmediated.

By recent travellers, such as Captain Parry, and before him Captain Ross, this religion has been found among the Esquimaux, wholly without the element of mediation and as the crudest consciousness. Among other peoples a mediation is already present.

Captain Parry says of them: “They are quite unaware that there is any other world; they live among rocks, ice and snow, upon rye, birds and fish, and do not know that nature exists in any other form. The English had an Esquimaux with them, who had lived some time in England, and he served as interpreter. Through him they obtained some knowledge regarding the people, and learned that they have not the slightest idea of Spirit, of a higher existence, of an essential substance as contrasted with their empirical mode of existence, of the immortality of the soul, of the everlasting duration of spirit, of the evil independent existence of the individual spirit. They know of no evil spirit, and they have, it is true, a great veneration for the sun and moon, but they do not adore them; they worship no image, no living creature. On the other hand, they have amongst them individuals whom they call Angekoks, magicians, conjurers. Those assert that they have it in their power to raise a storm, to create a calm, to bring whales near, &c., and say that they learnt these arts from old Angekoks. The people regard them with fear; in every family, however, there is at least one. A young Angekok wished to make the wind rise, and he proceeded to do it by dint of phrases and gestures. These phrases had no meaning and were directed toward no Supreme Being as a medium, but were addressed in an immediate way to the natural object over which the Angekok wished to exercise power; he required no aid from any one whatever. He was told of an omnipresent, all good,