us to the community, they cannot be
preferred, in the presence of the community, to the god of the
community; and thus permissible petitions begin to be differentiated
from those which are impermissible--a normative principle of prayer
emerges, and the idea of God begins to take more definite form, or to
emerge somewhat from the mist which at first enveloped it.

But though permissible petitions be distinguished from petitions
which are impermissible, it by no means follows that impermissible
petitions cease to be put up. What actually happens is that since the
community does not, and cannot, allow petitions, conceived to be
injurious to itself, to be put up to its god, they are put up
privately to a fetish; or, to put the matter more correctly, a being
or power not identified with the welfare of the community is sought
in such cases; and the being so found is known to the science of
religion as a fetish. But though a fetish differs from a god,
inasmuch as the fetish will, and a god will not, injure a member of
the tribe, the distinction is not clear-cut. There are things which
both alike may be prayed to do: both may be besought to do good to
the individual who addresses them. To this protective mimicry the
fetish owes in part its power of survival. For the same reason spell
and magic contrive to continue their existence side by side with
religion and prayer. What conduces to this result is that at first
the god of the community is conceived as listening to the prayers of
the community rather than of the individual: from the beginning it
is part of the idea of God that He cares for all His worshippers
alike. This conviction, to be carried out to its full consequences,
both logical and spiritual, requires that each individual worshipper
should forget himself, should renounce his particular inclinations,
should abandon himself and long to do not his own will but that of
God. But before self can be consciously abandoned, the consciousness
of self must be realised. Before self-will can be surrendered, its
existence must be realised. And self-consciousness, the recognition
of the existence of the will and the reality of the self, comes
relatively late both in the history of the community and in the
personal history of the individual. At first the existence of the
individual will and the individual self is not recognised by the
community and is not provided for in the community's worship and
prayers. It is the community, as