158 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
the code of morals of the Christian religion is so loftily ideal, and is, moreover, so frequently disregarded by most of the whites themselves, that the negroes, in their matter-of-fact way of judg- ing actions and men, lose confidence in Christianity, and fail to understand its true greatness and strength. The idea of a per- sonal, sympathizing divinity has a great attractiveness to the negro mind, haunted as it is by terrible fears of a hostile spirit- world; but the converted negroes are inclined to make very definite demands upon the benevolence of God. Converted to either religion in form, they usually remain fetishists in sub- stance; and when, on an evil day, a prayer for help is not answered, strong doubts spring up, and the negro convert decides that, after all, he had better conciliate the cruel spirits who would make a plaything of him, than trust to help from the great divinity, mighty, but far off, and perhaps, after all, indifferent to his fate. Great social transformations will have to take place in Africa before either Islam or Christianity can truly become the religion of the central African populations.
Having already briefly touched upon the influence of European civilization in Africa, it still remains for us to investigate more closely the momentous problems summoned up by the meeting of white and black races in the Dark Continent. The basis of Euro- pean intervention in Africa was from the first the clear and well- defined interest of commerce both the need of depots of trade close to the great reservoirs of the natural wealth of Africa, and the fact that the native tribes of the coast levied excessive transit dues upon the commerce of Europeans and of natives. As this has been the primary cause . of European interference, so the methods employed in African administration must have in view first of all the creation of a sound economic basis for African life. A civilizing policy must begin at this point. The African negro cannot be civilized by the destruction of his native institutions or by pouring into his mind the sum of European education. The entire economic basis of negro society must first be changed. With the social growth consequent upon this development the indi- vidual, too, will become more highly civilized, and the gravest abuses that now bind the negro race will be overcome.
