[o]ur system of education, our civilising power, should learn to adapt themselves to this idea of vital force and fullness of life. So that it can at once burst into flower and purify itself, we must devote ourselves to the service of the life that is already theirs. The view of the world, the ideal for life, the moral system that we wish to teach them, should be linked up with this supreme final cause, this absolute norm, this fundamental concept: vital force (Tempels 1959:179).
For the Bantu [says Tempels] power is not an accident: it is more even than a necessary accident; it is the very essence of being—Being is power, power is being. Our notion of being is ‘that which is’, theirs is ‘the power that is’. Where we think the concept ‘to be’, they make use (sic) of the concept ‘power’. Where we see concrete beings, they see concrete forces. Where we would say that beings are distinguished by their essence or nature, Bantus would say that forces differ by their essence or nature.
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