Note 45.1 — The Evolution of Religion

In ancient Greece the fetich was common enough: sacred axes, sacred sceptres, pyramidical or cone-shaped stones, rudely hewn tree-stumps, are examples which we find in the literature and art of the historic or prehistoric periods; the most common kind of private fetich was the gem, carried as an amulet. This superstitious view of gems belonging to primitive faith has continued through many ages. Moreover, both in the public and private religion of Christendom in many periods, and even at the present time, we can easily recognise the fetichistic value of the sacred objects, relics, crucifixes; and the Bible itself might sometimes be carried as an amulet about the person to secure one from danger, and its modern use in the English legal oath, the witness “kissing the book,” conforms to a fetichistic type of oath which was common in the primitive Teutonic communities.45.1 When Tertullian exclaims, “How great is the difference between the wood of the cross and the shapeless wooden emblems of Pallas or Ceres,”45.2 he is thinking generally of the wide difference between Christianity and Hellenic polytheism. As regards the attitude of the Christian and pagan worshippers towards these emblems of their cult which Tertullian mentions, we are not sure that any such general distinction could be drawn. The “adoration of the true wood of the cross,” of which we have heard in recent times, if we merely consider the nature of the religious object and the value of the material thing for faith, must be called fetichistic: at least I know of no other word equally appropriate in the terminology of the science of religions. Doubtless the modern mind, in the performance of such ritual practices, can distinguish between the inanimate or material thing and the divine spirit which sanctifies it. But so also can the intelligent savage, who cares nothing for his piece of wood when he thinks the power-giving spirit has departed from it. The fetichism then of the higher religions and of the savage faith is morphologically the same; the vital difference lies in the conception of the divinity that is supposed to animate or sanctify the material thing.