on the contrary retains the same personified object in his memory, and recalls it at pleasure, so that its special efficacy persists, and it continues to be the object of hopes and fears either in the past or in the future.  In a word, the natural myth of animals is transformed by man into a fetish, whether this object or its corresponding image in his mind be superstitiously regarded as good or evil, pleasing or terrible.

This was the source of primitive, confused, and inorganic fetishism among all peoples; namely, that they ascribed intentional and conscious life to a host of natural objects and phenomena.  Hence came the fears, the adoration, the guardianship of, or abhorrence for some given species of stones, plants, animals, some strange forms or unusual natural object.  The subsequent adoration of idols and images, all sorts of talismans, the virtue of relics, dreams, incantations, and exorcisms, had the same origin and were all due to this primitive genesis of the fetish, the internal duplication of the external animation and personification of objects.

It is evident that fetishism in its earliest and most primitive form was always inspired by special objects, since the external perception of animals and of man is special and concrete.  But we have seen how our intelligence, by a spontaneous and innate process, was led to form types from the immense variety of special things and phenomena, and these types are the specific forms of such things as are alike, analogous, or identical.  We have also seen that by the same necessity of the psychical faculty, which is not inconsistent with the fundamental process of animal intelligence, man animates and personifies these specific types, just as he had animated the special perceptions whence they were generated in his mind.[19]

The second form of myth next occurs, if considered as it exists in man, but the third form of myth, if regarded in his solidarity with the animal kingdom.  Instead of investing the special fetish of a given object with superstitious fear, he now adores or fears all objects of the same species, or which, in the imperfect classification of primitive times, he believes to be of the same species.  Thus, to give a common example, if some particular viper or other form of snake is the first form of fetish, in the second stage the whole species of vipers, and of the snakes which resemble them, is regarded with the same dread.  He next supposes all the snakes which he comes across to emanate from a single power, manifesting itself in this shape in various times and places.  In the same way, according to the natural evolution of this law, the individual, concrete plant will no longer be the fetish or object of myth, but all those of the same species, or which nearly resemble it.  It will no longer be a given spring, but all springs, no longer one particular grove, cave, or mountain, but all groves, caves, and mountains; in a word, the species will be substituted for the individual, the type for the fact.[20]