Page:Primitive Culture Vol 2.djvu/183

Rh greatest difficulty in investigating the general subject is this, that an image may be, even to two votaries kneeling side by side before it, two utterly different things; to the one it may be only a symbol, a portrait, a memento; while to the other it is an intelligent and active being, by virtue of a life or spirit dwelling in it or acting through it. In both cases Image-worship is connected with the belief in spiritual beings, and is in fact a subordinate development of animism. But it is only so far as the image approximates to the nature of a material body provided for a spirit, that Idolatry comes properly into connexion with Fetishism. It is from this point of view that it is proposed to examine here its purpose and its place in history. An idol, so far as it belongs to the theory of spirit-embodiment, must combine the characters of portrait and fetish. Bearing this in mind, and noticing how far the idol is looked on as in some way itself an energetic object, or as the very receptacle enshrining a spiritual god, let us proceed to judge how far, along the course of civilization, the idea of the image itself exerting power or being personally animate has prevailed in the mind of the idolater.

As to the actual origin of idolatry, it need not be supposed that the earliest idols made by man seemed to their maker living or even active things. It is quite likely that the primary intention of the image was simply to serve as a sign or representative of some soul or deity, and certainly this original character is more or less maintained in the world through the long history of image-worship. At a stage succeeding this original condition, it may be argued, the tendency to identify the symbol and the symbolized, a tendency so strong among children and the ignorant everywhere, led to the idol being treated as a living powerful being, and thence even to explicit doctrines as to the manner of its energy or animation. It is, then, in this secondary stage, where the once merely representative image is passing into the active image-fetish, that we are particularly concerned to understand it.