educed the chaos of special fetishes to a
tolerably systematic order, and he then goes on to more precise
simplification. Let us try to trace in this historic fact the
classifying process at the moment when the first form of polytheism
succeeds to irregular and anarchical fetishism.

In the Samoan islands, a local god is wont to appear in the form of an
owl, and the accidental discovery of a dead owl would be deplored, and
its body would be buried with solemn rites. The death of this particular
bird does not, however, imply the death of the god himself, since the
people believe him to be incarnated in the whole species. In this fact
we see that a special fetish is developed into a specific form; thus a
permanent type is evolved from special appearances.

Acosta has handed down to us another belief of the comparatively
civilized Peruvians, which recalls the primitive genesis of their
mythical ideas. He says that the shepherds used to adore various stars,
to which they assigned the names of animals; stars which protected men
against the respective animals after whom they were called. They held
the general belief that all animals whatever had a representative in
heaven, which watched over their reproduction, and of which they were,
so to speak, the essence. This affords another example of the more
general extension and classification, and, at the same time, of the
reduction of the original multitude of fetishes.

Some of the North American Indians asserted that every species of animal
had an elder brother, who was the origin of all the individuals of the
species. They said, for example, that the beaver, which was the elder
brother of this species of rodents, was as large as one of their cabins.
Others supposed that all kinds of animals had their type in the world of
souls, a _manitu_, which kept guard over them. Ralston, in his "Songs of
the Russian People," tells us that Buyan, the island paradise of Russian
mythology, contains a serpent older than all others, a larger raven, a
finer queen bee, and so of all other animals. Morgan, in his work upon
the Iroquois, observes that they believe in a spirit or god of every
species of trees and plants.

From these beliefs and facts, drawn from different peoples and different
parts of the world, we can understand how a vague and inorganic
fetishism gradually became classified into types which constitute the
first phase of polytheism. The logical effort which transformed the
man