yet it seems to me that it is only this class of difference that exists between the African, the Brahmanist, and the Shintoist.
Another and more fundamental point to be considered is the influence of physical environment on religions, particularly these Nature religions.
The Semitic mind, which had never been kept quite in its proper place by Natural difficulties, gave to man in the scheme of Creation a pre-eminence that deeply influences Europeans, who have likewise not been kept in their place owing to the environments of the temperate zone. On the other hand, the African race has had about the worst set of conditions possible to bring out the higher powers of man. He has been surrounded by a set of terrific natural phenomena, combined with a good food supply and a warm and equable climate. These things are not enough in themselves to account for his low-culture condition, but they are factors that must be considered. Then, undoubtedly, the nature of the African's mind is one of the most important points. It may seem a paradox to say of people who are always seeing visions that they are not visionaries; but they are not.
The more you know the African, the more you study his laws and institutions, the more you must recognise that the main characteristic of his intellect is logical, and you see how in all things he uses this absolutely sound but narrow thought-form. He is not a dreamer nor a doubter; everything is real, very real, horribly real to him. It is impossible for me to describe it clearly, but the quality of the African mind is strangely uniform. This may seem strange to those who read accounts of wild and awful ceremonials, or of the African's terror at white man's things; but I
