ne remark of Mr. Max Muller's fortifies these opinions. If fetichism be
indeed one of the earliest factors of faith in the supernatural; if it
be, in its rudest forms, most powerful in proportion to other elements of
faith among the least cultivated races (and _that_ Mr. Muller will
probably allow)--among what class of cultivated peoples will it longest
hold its ground? Clearly, among the least cultivated, among the
fishermen, the shepherds of lonely districts, the peasants of outlying
lands--in short, among the _people_. Neglected by sacred poets in the
culminating period of purity in religion, it will linger among the
superstitions of the rustics. There is no real break in the continuity
of peasant life; the modern folklore is (in many points) the savage
ritual. Now Mr. Muller, when he was minimising the existence of
fetichism in the Rig Veda (the oldest collection of hymns), admitted its
existence in the Atharvana (p. 60). {241} On p. 151, we read 'the
Atharva-veda-Sanhita is a later collection, containing, besides a large
number of Rig Veda verses, _some curious relics of popular poetry
connected with charms, imprecations, and other superstitious usages_.'
The italics are mine, and are meant to emphasise this fact:--When we
leave the sages, the Rishis, and look at what is _popular_, look at what
that class believed which of savage practice has everywhere retained so
much, we are at once among the charms and the fetiches! This is
precisely what one would have expected. If the history of religion and
of mythology is to be unravelled, we must examine what the unprogressive
classes in Europe have in common with Australians, and Bushmen, and
Andaman Islanders. It is the function of the people to retain in
folklore these elements of religion, which it is the high duty of the
sage and the poet to purify away in the fire of refining thought. It is
for this very reason that _ritual_ has (though Mr. Max Muller curiously
says that it seems not to possess) an immense scientific interest. Ritual
holds on, with the tenacity of superstition, to all that has ever been
practised. Yet, when Mr. Muller wants to know about _origins_, about
actual ancient _practice_, he deliberately turns to that 'great
collection of ancient poetry' (the Rig Veda) 'which has no special
reference to sacrificial acts,' not to the Brahmanas which are full of
ritual.

To sum up briefly:--(1) Mr. Muller's arguments against the evidence for,
and t