Thus
burglars carry bits of coal in their pockets, 'for luck.' This random
way of connecting causes and effects which have really no inter-relation,
is a common error of early reasoning. Mr. Max Muller says that 'this
process of reasoning is far more in accordance with modern thought'; if
so, modern thought has little to be proud of. Herodotus, however,
describes the process of thought as consecrated by custom among the
Egyptians. But there are many other practical ways in which the idea of
supernatural power is attached to fetiches. Some fetich-stones have a
superficial resemblance to other objects, and thus (on the magical system
of reasoning) are thought to influence these objects. Others, again, are
pointed out as worthy of regard in dreams or by the ghosts of the dead.
{230} To hold these views of the origin of the supernatural predicate of
fetiches is not 'to take for granted that every human being was
miraculously endowed with the concept of what forms the predicate of
every fetich.'

Thus we need not be convinced by Mr. Max Muller that fetichism (though it
necessarily has its antecedents in the human mind) is 'a corruption of
religion.' It still appears to be one of the most primitive steps
towards the idea of the supernatural.

What, then, is the subjective element of religion in man? How has he
become capable of conceiving of the supernatural? What outward objects
first awoke that dormant faculty in his breast? Mr. Max Muller answers,
that man has 'the faculty of apprehending the infinite'--that by dint of
this faculty he is capable of religion, and that sensible objects,
'tangible, semi-tangible, intangible,' first roused the faculty to
religious activity, at least among the natives of India. He means,
however, by the 'infinite' which savages apprehend, not our metaphysical
conception of the infinite, but the mere impression that there is
'something beyond.' 'Every thing of which his senses cannot perceive a
limit, is to a primitive savage or to any man in an early stage of
intellectual activity _unlimited_ or _infinite_? Thus, in all
experience, the idea of 'a beyond' is forced on men. If Mr. Max Muller
would adhere to this theory, then we should suppose him to mean (what we
hold to be more or less true) that savage religion, like savage science,
is merely a fanciful explanation of what lies beyond the horizon of
experience. For example, if the Australians mentioned by Mr. Max Muller
believ