Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 1.djvu/311

 invisible Being who had made everything, and he asked where it lived, and when he was told it was everywhere, he at once became afraid, and wished to run away. On being asked where his people would go when they died, he replied that they would be buried; a long time ago an old man had once said that they would go to the moon, but it was long since any Esquimaux had believed that.”

Thus they occupy the lowest stage of spiritual consciousness, but they possess the belief that self-consciousness is a mighty power over nature, without mediation, apart from any antithesis between that self-consciousness and a divine Being.

The English persuaded an Angekok to practise magic; this was done by means of dancing, so that he became frantic with the prodigious amount of exertion; he fell into a state of exhaustion, and gave forth phrases and sounds, his eyes rolling about all the while.

This religion of magic is very prevalent in Africa, as also among the Mongols and Chinese; here, however, it is no longer found in the absolute crudeness of its first form, but mediations already come in, which owe their origin to the fact that the Spiritual has begun to assume an objective form for self-consciousness.

In its first form this religion is more magic than religion; it is in Africa among the negroes that it prevails most extensively. It was already mentioned by Herodotus, and in recent times it has been found existing in a similar form. Yet the cases are but few in which such peoples appeal to their power over nature, for they use very little, and have few requirements, and, in judging of their conditions, we must forget the manifold needs which surround us, and the variously complicated modes we have of accomplishing our ends. Our information regarding the state of these peoples is for the most part derived from the missionaries of past times; the more recent accounts are, on the other hand, but scanty, and therefore some of the narratives of older