can be "worshipped, prayed to,
sacrificed to, talked with," it is as personal as any deity in a
pantheon. If it has no proper name, neither at one time had men
themselves. And Hoeffding himself seems disinclined to follow Usener on
this point: "no important period," he says (p. 147), "in the history of
religion can begin with an empty word. The word can neither be the
beginning nor exist at the beginning." Finally Hoeffding, to enforce
the conclusion that polytheism is evolved from fetichism, says: "The
influence exerted by worship on the life of religious ideas can find no
more striking exemplification than in the word 'god' itself: when we
study those etymologies of this word which, from the philological point
of view, appear most likely to be correct, we find the word really
means 'he to whom sacrifice is made,' or 'he who is worshipped'" (p.
148). {134} Professor Wilhelm Thomsen considers the first explanation
the more probable: "In that case there would be a relationship between
the root of the word '_gott_' and '_giessen_' (to pour), as also
between the Greek _cheein_, whose root _chu_ = the Sanskrit _hu_, from
which comes _huta_, which means 'sacrificed,' as well as 'he to whom
sacrifices are made'" (p. 396). Now, if "god" means either "he to whom
sacrifice is made" or "he who is worshipped," we have only to enquire
by whom the sacrifice is made or the worship paid, according to
Professor Hoeffding, in order to see the value of this philological
argument. A leading difference between a fetich and a god is that
sacrifice is made and worship paid to the fetich by its owner, to the
god by the community. Now this philological derivation of "god" throws
no light whatever on the question by whom the "god" is worshipped; but
the content of the passage which I have quoted shows that Professor
Hoeffding himself here understands the worship of a god to be the
worship paid by the community. If that is so, and if the function or a
function of the being worshipped is to grant the desires of his
worshippers, then the function of the being worshipped by the community
is to grant the desires of the community. {135} And if that is the
distinguishing mark or a distinguishing mark of a god, then the worship
of a god differs _toto caelo_ from the worship paid to a fetich, whose
distinguishing mark is that it is subservient to the anti-social wishes
of its owner, and is not worshipped by the community. And it is just
as imp