Some of the North American Indians asserted that every species of animal had an elder brother, who was the origin of all the individuals of the species.  They said, for example, that the beaver, which was the elder brother of this species of rodents, was as large as one of their cabins.  Others supposed that all kinds of animals had their type in the world of souls, a manitu, which kept guard over them.  Ralston, in his “Songs of the Russian People,” tells us that Buyan, the island paradise of Russian mythology, contains a serpent older than all others, a larger raven, a finer queen bee, and so of all other animals.  Morgan, in his work upon the Iroquois, observes that they believe in a spirit or god of every species of trees and plants.

From these beliefs and facts, drawn from different peoples and different parts of the world, we can understand how a vague and inorganic fetishism gradually became classified into types which constitute the first phase of polytheism.  The logical effort which transformed the manifold beliefs into types goes on, but from their vague and indefinite nature, not only the power, but also the extrinsic form of man is easily infused into them, so that they are invested with human faculties and sensations, and also with the anthropomorphic form and countenance of which we have spoken elsewhere.  In fact, when the special fetishes which are naturally alike are united in a single type, the object, animal, or phenomenon which corresponds to it in this early stage of polytheism is no longer perceived, but a numen is evolved from this type, which has not only human power, but a human form; and hence follow the specific idols of serpents, birds, and all natural phenomena, in which the primitive fetish has been incarnated.[29]

In this second stage of polytheism, anthropomorphism appears in an external form, and the specific type is transformed into the idol which represents and dominates over it, inspiring the commission of beneficent or hurtful acts.  Of this it is unnecessary to adduce examples, since all the mythologies which have reached this polytheistic stage are anthropomorphic, and in these the specific type, which serves as the first step to polytheism, subsequently becomes a completely human idol.

After this anthropomorphic classification has been reached by logical elaboration, a new field is opened for the reduction of special types into those which are more general, as had been previously the case in the early stages of myth.  By continually concentrating, and at the same time by enlarging the value of the conception, it is united in a single form which constitutes the dawn and genesis of monotheism.  This methodical process, which is characteristic of human thought, may be traced in all peoples which have really attained to the monotheistic idea, in the Aryan and Semitic races, in China, Japan, and Egypt, in Peru and Mexico; the belief may also be obscurely traced in an inchoate form among savage and inferior tribes, as, for example, among the Indians of Central and North America, and among some of the inhabitants of Africa and barbarous Asia.