mmand success. Thus burglars carry bits of coal in their pockets,
'for luck.' This random way of connecting causes and effects which
have really no inter-relation, is a common error of early reasoning.
Mr. Max Mueller says that 'this process of reasoning is far more in
accordance with modern thought'; if so, modern thought has little to
be proud of. Herodotus, however, describes the process of thought as
consecrated by custom among the Egyptians. But there are many other
practical ways in which the idea of supernatural power is attached to
fetiches. Some fetich-stones have a superficial resemblance to other
objects, and thus (on the magical system of reasoning) are thought to
influence these objects. Others, again, are pointed out as worthy of
regard in dreams or by the ghosts of the dead.[201] To hold these
views of the origin of the supernatural predicate of fetiches is not
'to take for granted that every human being was miraculously endowed
with the concept of what forms the predicate of every fetich.'

Thus we need not be convinced by Mr. Max Mueller that fetichism (though
it necessarily has its antecedents in the human mind) is 'a corruption
of religion.' It still appears to be one of the most primitive steps
towards the idea of the supernatural.

What, then, is the subjective element of religion in man? How has he
become capable of conceiving of the supernatural? What outward objects
first awoke that dormant faculty in his breast? Mr. Max Mueller
answers, that man has 'the faculty of apprehending the infinite'--that
by dint of this faculty he is capable of religion, and that sensible
objects, 'tangible, semi-tangible, intangible,' first roused the
faculty to religious activity, at least among the natives of India. He
means, however, by the 'infinite' which savages apprehend, not our
metaphysical conception of the infinite, but the mere impression that
there is 'something beyond.' 'Everything of which his senses cannot
perceive a limit, is to a primitive savage or to any man in an early
stage of intellectual activity _unlimited_ or _infinite_.' Thus, in
all experience, the idea of 'a beyond' is forced on men. If Mr. Max
Mueller would adhere to this theory, then we should suppose him to mean
(what we hold to be more or less true) that savage religion, like
savage science, is merely a fanciful explanation of what lies beyond
the horizon of experience. For example, if the Australians mentioned
by Mr. Max Mueller beli