aguely called
fetichism. I have divided it into two parts, _hecastotheism_ and
_zooetheism_. The verity of zooetheism as a stage of philosophy rests on
abundant evidence. In psychotheism it appears as _devilism_ in obedience
to a well-known law of comparative theology, viz, that the gods of a
lower and superseded stage of culture oftentimes become the devils of a
higher stage. So in the very highest stages of psychotheism we find
beast-devils. In Norse mythology, we have Fenris the wolf, and
Jormungandur the serpent. Dragons appear in Greek mythology, the bull is
an Egyptian god, a serpent is found in the Zendavesta; and was there not
a scaly fellow in the garden of Eden? So common are these beast-demons
in the higher mythologies that they are used in every literature as
rhetorical figures. So we find, as a figure of speech, the great red
dragon with seven heads and ten horns, with tail that with one brush
sweeps away a third of the stars of heaven. And where-ever we find
nature-worship we find it accompanied with beast-worship. In the study
of higher philosophies, having learned that lower philosophies often
exist side by side with them, we might legitimately conclude that a
philosophy based upon animal gods had existed previous to the
development of physitheism; and philologic research, leads to the same
conclusion. But we are not left to base this conclusion upon, an
induction only, for in the examination of savage philosophies we
actually discover zooetheism in all its proportions. Many of the Indians
of North America, and many of South America, and many of the tribes of
Africa, are found to be zooetheists. Their supreme gods are
animals--tigers, bears, wolves, serpents, birds. Having discovered this,
with a vast accumulation of evidence, we are enabled to carry philosophy
back one stage beyond physitheism, and we can confidently assert that
all the philosophies of civilization have come up through these three
stages.

And yet, there are fragments of philosophy discovered which are not
zooetheistic, physitheistic, nor psychotheistic. What are they? We find
running through all three stages of higher philosophy that phenomena are
sometimes explained by regarding them as the acts of persons who do not
belong to any of the classes of gods found in the higher stages. We find
fragments of philosophy everywhere which seem to assume that all
inanimate nature is animate; that mountains and hills, and rivers and
springs, tha