t. Its function, the
end it subserved, determined its value for society--determined whether
public opinion should approve or disapprove of it, whether it was a god
of the community or the fetich of an individual. Society can only
exist where there is a certain community of purpose among its members;
and can only continue to exist where anti-social tendencies are to some
extent suppressed or checked by force of public opinion.

Fetichism, then, in its tendency and in its purpose, in the function
which it performs and the end at which it aims is not only
distinguishable from religion, it is antagonistic to it, from the
earliest period of its history to the latest. Religion is social, an
{126} affair of the community; fetichism is anti-social, condemned by
the community. Public opinion, expressing the moral sentiments of the
community as well as its religious feeling, pronounces both moral and
religious disapproval of the man who uses a _suhman_ for its special
purpose of causing death--committing murder. Fetichism is offensive to
the morality as well as to the religion even of the native. To seek
the origin of religion in fetichism is as vain as to seek the origin of
morality in the selfish and self-seeking tendencies of man. There is
no need to enquire whether fetichism is historically prior to religion,
or whether religion is historically prior to fetichism. Man, as long
as he has lived in societies, must have had desires which were
incompatible with the welfare of the community as well as desires which
promoted its welfare. The powers which are supposed to care whether
the community fares well are the gods of the community; and their
worship is the religion of the community. The powers which have no
such care are not gods, nor is their worship--if coercion or cajolery
can be called worship--religion. The essence of fetichism on its
external side is that the owner of the fetich alone has access {127} to
it, alone can pray to it, alone can offer sacrifices to it. It is
therefore in its inward essence directly destructive of the unity of
interests and purposes that society demands and religion promotes.
Perhaps it would be going too far to say that the practice of making
prayers and offerings to a fetich is borrowed from religious worship:
they are the natural and instinctive method of approaching any power
which is capable of granting or refusing what we desire. It is the
quarter to which they are addressed,