purpose, and the feeling is like that of the cultivated heathen towards his graven image. This feeling is to be accounted for in part by a confusion of the subjec- tive and the objective. The sense of security, caused by the realization of the presence of a protector, is at- tributed to the object itself. (4) Some fetiches have the rude beginnings of likeness to men. Here, cer- tainly, there is image-worship in its infancy. (5) The belief in spirits which — to say the least — very many rude races have, is inconsistent with Miillcr's view that the fetich-worship is worship of a detached part of nature. The spirit has the fetich for its house, it dwells there, as the Greek god was conceived by the mass of the people to inhabit the statue, and as the pictures of saints in some Catholic lands wink with their eyes because the saint is there in the belief of the superstitious. The fetich is discarded, perhaps, because it ceases to awaken certain religious feelings which it awakened for some reason at first, and so the Negro looks for some other reminder of the spirit's or the divinity's presence. (6) Some fetiches are living animals, and here the inquiry arises, which we must dismiss for the present, whether these are conceived of as tenanted by higher beings, or as symbols of higher beings. The same answer, as it appears to us, must be given as it regards Egyptian or Indian animal-wor- ship, and as it regards that which prevails in Africa or America.
We conclude, then, that fetich-worship is not essen- tially distinct from idol-worship, and we may find all the characteristics of it in the religions of the cultiva- ted men. Among the Greeks, as belonging to an early period of their religion before sculpture had made much proficiency, we find such memorials of gods as three-cornered pillars in the temples of the Charites at Cyzicus. conical pillars of Apollo, the pillar of Hera at Argos, and a plank of wood sacred to her at Samos, not to mention the sacred stones called bcetyli, and the stone of the mother of the gods, transferred from Pes- sinus to Rome, and there venerated and carried about in processions. These were fetiches, and so were wrought images, as long as the faith continued that the god was present in the outward object. The most characteristic mark of fetich-worship — as it seems to us — was that which struck the eyes oi the first trav- ellers in Africa — its connection with charms, and in general the prevalence of witchcraft, and of various magic arts. The religions are religions of fear, in which a small body of men governs the rest by terror, and thus stands in the way of the higher religious ideas. This cannot have been coeval with the relig- ions themselves. It must have taken some time, per- haps ages, to develop the system of witchcraft or magic art I)}' which so many rude people have been kept down in their degradation, by which, according to the natural course of things, their degradation has been increased.
Shamanism may be defined as the worship of spirits, so called from the Shaman or priest-conjurer of many religions in the northern parts of the world. The spiritual world seems to embrace all things that have life, and in some parts the spirit detaches itself from the tree or other living thing at will, to return there again. This kind of religion has prevailed, or once prevailed, among the Finns, Huns, ancestors of the Magyars, Mongols, Japanese, Chinese, and in Thibet. Something like it is found among the Red men and other aborigines of this western continent.
Some of the Northern Asiatics make a threefold di- vision of spirits : first, the souls or powers which have taken a concrete form in physical objects ; secondly, the spirits of deceased ancestors; thirdly, spirits, some of which may have been human souls, which have a wider sphere of action, such as have relations to a whole tribe or as protectors in certain undertakings. These may be kindly or malignant.
Besides these spiritual beings, the Finns believed in a supreme god, Jumala, whose name, as Castren thinks,
POLYTHEISM 3
may have denol d at first place of thunder, heaven, I ; of heaven, then god in _-• n xal. The Lappa
ofNorwaj had I !l1 ,1"' i,ir-
those in the he •" the heavens.
• i- a higher god, who • reafc thing through ■ "e;-t ' '' a conception
IV. mi the Christians in their neigh borb I.
x there are several ranks and
(tii 11 in the spirit system ; but above them all is a god of heaven, Una. who knows all things, t com 'in himself with what comi 3b iIh- wicked; ami. besides him. a spirit of the -nil, more powerful than the rest, to whom prayers are offered; a Bpiritofthe moon, from whom dreams come; Bpiritsofthe stars, who are protectors of par- ticular men, etc. (Comp. Castren's lectures on Finnish mythology . translated from the Swedish.) In the re- i .mi- continent tin- Great Spirit ha- been sup- l i i | .11. led with God,
the -mi. rn.rili-w.--i wind, etc. The spirits an- supposed i detaching themselves from their cor- poreal frame, and of taking various forms as they see