the rest of the community, has access to it.

Next, Hoeffding argues that it is from these momentary fetiches that
special or specialised deities--"departmental gods," as Mr. Andrew Lang
has termed them--arise. And these "specialised divinities constitute
an advance on gods of the moment" (p. 142). Now, what is implied in
this argument, what is postulated but not expressed, is that a fetich
has only one particular thing which it can do. A departmental god can
only do one particular sort of thing, has one specialised function. A
departmental god is but a fetich advanced one stage in the hierarchy of
divine beings. Therefore the function of the fetich in the first
instance was specialised {130} and limited. But there it is that the
_a priori_ argument comes into collision with the actual facts. A
fetich, when it presents itself to a man, assists him in the particular
business on which he is at the moment engaged. But it only continues
to act as a fetich, provided that it assists him afterwards and in
other matters also. The desires of the owner are not limited, and
consequently neither are his expectations; the business of the fetich
is to procure him general prosperity (Haddon, p. 83). As far as
fetiches are concerned, it is simply reversing the facts to suppose
that it is because one fetich can only do one thing, that many fetiches
are picked up. Many objects are picked up on the chance of their
proving fetiches, because if the object turns out really to be a fetich
it will bring its owner good luck and prosperity generally--there is no
knowing what it may do. But it is only to its owner that it brings
prosperity--not to other people, not to the community, for the
community is debarred access to it.

The next difference between fetichism and polytheism, according to
Hoeffding, is that the gods of polytheism have developed that
personality which is not indeed absolutely wanting in the spirits of
fetichism but can hardly be said to be properly {131} there. "The
transition," he says, "from momentary and special gods to gods which
can properly be called personal is one of the most important
transitions in the history of religion. It denotes the transition from
animism to polytheism" (p. 145). And one of the outward signs that the
transition has been effected is, as Usener points out with special
emphasis, "that only at a certain stage of evolution, _i.e._, on the
appearance of polytheism, do the gods acqui