in him, could fix a curse or a blessing
on man or thing. An exorcism, also, might be effected by magic or by
invoking the aid of a deity; an evil spirit is a supernatural Power and
has to be considered--one does not worship such a being, but one may
employ religious means to circumvent him. Bad magic may be overcome by
good magic, and a deity, hostile and maleficent under certain
circumstances, may be placated by offerings. It is not always easy to
draw the line between worship proper and modes of defense against
injurious Powers. But in general true worship implies friendly relations
between human and superhuman persons.

+1091+. _Idols._ From an early time men have desired to have visible
representatives of the supernatural. So long as natural objects, trees,
stones, mountains, were regarded as themselves divine or as the abodes
of spirits, so long as a loose social organization and the absence of
definite family life led men to spend their lives in the open air, there
was no need of artificial forms of the Powers. Such a need arose
inevitably, however, under more advanced social conditions. Exactly at
what stage men began to make images it is hardly possible to say,--the
process was begun at different stages in different regions,--but it
appears that in general it was synchronous with some fairly good form of
social organization. Yet, where such forms exist, there are differences
in the use of images. These are found--to take the lower peoples--in
Melanesia and the Northern Pacific Ocean, in the northern part of South
America, in North America apparently only among the Eastern Redmen (as
the Lenape or Delawares),[2008] and on the western coast of Africa
(Ashanti, Dahomi, Yoruba). Where the cult of beasts (whether totemic or
not) is a living one, idolatry does not find a place; it is only when
communities have begun to be agricultural that they have artificial
forms of gods; that is, idolatry comes in with the stage of culture
connected with the agricultural life.[2009]

The development in the form of images is familiar. The rude and, to
modern eyes, grotesque idols of the lower peoples gradually pass into
the more finished forms of the civilized nations.[2010] Really artistic
forms, however, were produced only by some Semites (Babylonians and
Assyrians) and in the Hellenic and Graeco-Roman worlds. In Central
America, Mexico, and Peru images are anthropomorphic but lacking in
symmetry and grace. Hindu idols are often