and the end for which they are
employed, that makes the difference between them. It is the fact that
in the one case they are, and in the other are not, addressed to the
quarter to which they ought to be addressed, and employed for the end
for which they ought to be employed, that makes the difference in
religious value between them.

If we bear in mind the simple fact that fetichism is condemned by the
religious and moral feelings of the communities in which it exists, we
shall not fall into the mistake of regarding fetichism either as the
primitive religion of mankind or as a stage of religious development or
as "a basis from which many other modes of religious thought have been
developed."

{128}

Professor Hoeffding, holding that fetichism is the primitive religion,
out of which polytheism was developed, adopts Usener's theory as to the
mode of its evolution. "The fetich," Professor Hoeffding says (p. 140),
"is only the provisional and momentary dwelling-place of a spirit. As
Hermann Usener has strikingly called it, it is 'the god of a moment.'"
But though Professor Hoeffding adopts this definition of a fetich, it is
obvious that the course of his argument requires us to understand it as
subject to a certain limitation. His argument in effect is that
fetichism is not polytheism, but something different, something out of
which polytheism was evolved. And the difference is that polytheism
means a plurality of gods, whereas fetichism knows no gods, but only
spirits. Inasmuch then as, on the theory--whether it is held by
Hoeffding or by anybody else--that the spirits of fetichism become the
gods of polytheism, there must be differences between the spirits of
the one and the gods of the other, let us enquire what the differences
are supposed to be.

First, there is the statement that a fetich is the "god of a moment,"
by which must be meant that the spirits which, so long as they are
momentary and {129} temporary, are fetiches, must come to be permanent
if they are to attain to the rank of gods.

But on this point Dr. Haddon differs. He is quite clear that a fetich
may be worshipped permanently without ceasing to be a fetich. And it
is indeed abundantly clear that an object only ceases to be worshipped
when its owner is convinced that it is not really a fetich; as long as
he is satisfied that it is a fetich, he continues its cult--and he
continues it because it is his personal property, because he, and not