It is in this way that fetish-worship originates. “Fetish” is a corruption of a Portuguese word, and has the same meaning as “idol.” Fetish may mean anything, any carved work, a piece of wood, an animal, a river, a tree, &c. Similarly there are fetishes for whole peoples, and fetishes for any special individual.
The negroes have a great variety of idols, natural objects which they make into their fetishes. The first stone which comes to hand, locusts, &c., these are their Lares, from which they expect to derive good fortune. This is thus an unknown indefinite power, which they have themselves created in an immediate way. Accordingly, if anything unpleasant befalls them, and they do not find the fetish serviceable, they make away with it and choose another. A tree, a river, a lion, a tiger are common national fetishes. If any misfortune occurs, such as floods or war, they change their god. The fetish is subject to being changed, and sinks to a means of procuring something for the individual. The Nile of the Egyptians, on the contrary, is quite different; it is something Divine which they have in common; it is their substantial, unchangeable ruling power, upon which their entire existence depends.
The ultimate form in which independent spirituality is embodied is essentially man himself—a living, independent form of existence which is spiritual. Reverence has here its essential object; and in regard to objectivity the principle makes its appearance that it is not every individual chance consciousness which has power to rule over nature, but that there are some few particular ruling persons who are looked up to and reverenced as embodying spirituality. In the existing self-consciousness which still has power, it is the will, it is knowledge in comparison with and in actual relation to others which is what rules and which shows itself as essentially necessary relatively to the Other, and is a central point among many. Here, therefore, a spiritual power makes its
