e deification of the human, which reaches its full height among the
Greeks. The true religion, prepared in Israel, is the Christian, in
which man, grown conscious of his oneness with God, is ruled by the
divine as an inner power of life, and acts spontaneously and freely
while in the fullest dependence upon God. Since Christ, no more perfect
religion has appeared. What is true and good in Islamism was borrowed
from Israel and Christianity.

Although it is probable that every nation passed through different forms
of religious belief before its religion reached its highest development,
yet the earlier periods lie in great part beyond the reach of historical
investigation. The history of religion, therefore, has for its task the
review of the various forms of religion with which we are historically
acquainted, in the order of psychological development.

CHAPTER I.

FETICHISM. THE CHINESE. THE EGYPTIANS.

1. FETICHISM.

The lowest stage of religious development is fetichism, as it is found
among the savage tribes of the polar regions, and in Africa, America,
and Australia. In this stage, man's needs are as yet very limited and
exclusively confined to the material world. Still too little developed
intellectually to worship the divine in nature and her powers, he thinks
he sees the divinity which he seeks in every unknown object which
strikes his senses, or which his imagination calls up. In this stage,
religion has no higher character than that of caprice and of love of
the mysterious and marvelous, mixed with fear and a slavish adoration of
the divine. The worship and the priest's office (Shaman, Shamanism)
consist here chiefly in the use of charms, to exorcise a dreaded power.
From this savage fetichism the nature-worship found among the Aztecs in
Mexico, and the worship of the sun in Peru, are distinguished by the
greater definiteness and order of their religious conceptions and
usages. In them the gods have names, and an ordained priesthood cares
for the religious interests of the people. The highest form to which
fetichism has attained is the worship of Manitou, the great spirit,
which is found among the ancient tribes of North America.

2. THE CHINESE.

When man reaches a higher development, caprice and chance disappear from
religion. Having outgrown fetichism, man begins, as is the case among
the Chinese, to distinguish in the world around him an active and a
passive principle, force and matter (Yang