One of the foundations of the African concept of harmony and peace rests upon the basic African
             cultural world-view of the philosophy of participation and integration. There is no drastic
             distinction between man and nature. The theory of knowledge that the African cultural experience
             projects, is that the world is centered upon the self and that man lives in a personal world of culture.
             The African culture does not assume that reality can be perceived through reason alone. There are
             other modes of knowing, such as, imagination, intuitive experience, and personal feelings. This is why
             the deepest expression of the African cultural reality has been through art, myths, and music rather
             than through the European mode: logical analysis.
             The other basic views about nature held by the traditional African is that life-force permeates the
             whole universe and that matter and spirit are an inseparable reality. The African has no definitions of
             such life-forces but only understands and describes them in terms of their functions. Soul would be
             something like the individual will, his thought, conscience and judgment. Unlike the European, the
             African does not even say that the soul is the kind of entity which goes to heaven or hell after death.
             When an individual soul is compatible with other individuals, it is pure and there is peace and
             harmony. When it is not compatible with others it is impure and there is no peace and harmony.
             The African also believes that there exist interactions between man and man, man and nature, man
             and God. Higher forces, such as God, directly influence lower ones, while the lower ones indirectly
             (through intermediaries) influence superior ones. The measure of the peace and the harmony in the
             world depends upon the standard of good behavior which in turn depends on the relationship
             between interacting vital forces in the universe. The ontological relationship in equilibrium is...