What is the true place of Fetichism, to use a common but unscientific term, in the history of religious evolution?  Some theorists have made fetichism, that is to say, the adoration of odds and ends (with which they have confused the worship of animals, of mountains, and even of the earth), the first moment in the development of worship.  Others, again, think that fetichism is ’a corruption of religion, in Africa, as elsewhere.’  The latter is the opinion of Mr Max Muller, who has stated it in his ‘Hibbert Lectures,’ on ’The Origin and Growth of Religion, especially as illustrated by the Religions of India.’  It seems probable that there is a middle position between these two extremes.  Students may hold that we hardly know enough to justify us in talking about the origin of religion, while at the same time they may believe that Fetichism is one of the earliest traceable steps by which men climbed to higher conceptions of the supernatural.  Meanwhile Mr. Max Muller supports his own theory, that fetichism is a ‘parasitical growth,’ a ‘corruption’ of religion, by arguments mainly drawn from historical study of savage creeds, and from the ancient religious documents of India.

These documents are to English investigators ignorant of Sanskrit ’a book sealed with seven seals.’  The Vedas are interpreted in very different ways by different Oriental scholars.  It does not yet appear to be known whether a certain word in the Vedic funeral service means ‘goat’ or ‘soul’!  Mr. Max Muller’s rendering is certain to have the first claim on English readers, and therefore it is desirable to investigate the conclusions which he draws from his Vedic studies.  The ordinary anthropologist must first, however, lodge a protest against the tendency to look for primitive matter in the Vedas.  They are the elaborate hymns of a specially trained set of poets and philosophers, living in an age almost of civilisation.  They can therefore contain little testimony as to what man, while still ‘primitive,’ thought about God, the world, and the soul.  One might as well look for the first germs of religion, for primitive religion strictly so called, in ’Hymns Ancient and Modern’ as in the Vedas.  It is chiefly, however, by way of deductions from the Vedas, that Mr. Max Muller arrives at ideas which may be briefly and broadly stated thus:  he inclines to derive religion from man’s sense of the Infinite, as awakened by natural objects calculated to stir that sense.  Our position is, on the other hand, that the germs of the religious sense in early man are developed, not so much by the vision of the Infinite, as by the idea of Power.  Early religions, in short, are selfish, not disinterested.  The worshipper is not contemplative, so much as eager to gain something to his advantage.  In fetiches, he ignorantly recognises something that possesses power of an abnormal sort, and the train of ideas which leads him to believe in and to treasure fetiches is one among the earliest springs of religious belief.