3. The existence of totemism is undeniable; it is a relation of dependence that a people enter into with a totem — an ani mate object or the inanimate representation thereof. Traces of totemism are found all the world over. Objects of totemic cult, or totems, were in ancient Egypt, the bull Apis (sacred to Ptah), the ape (embodiment of Thoth), the cow (sacred to Hathor), the cat (sacred to Bu bastis) ; in India, the sacred cow ; among the Canaanites, the stone phallus (sacred to Baal), and the wooden kteis-pole of Ashera; the Iroquoit, turtle, the Omaha maize, and so on. Akin to totemism is the worship of a fetish (Portuguese feitico, "artificial,— a charm trinket, idol, a child's hand, a claw, a tooth or any such object. It is arbitrary and unscientific to argue from these degenerations to the re ligion of primitive man. The primitive, mono theistic acknowledgment of dependence upon a Supreme Power has in all these cases been de teriorated into the senseless relationship of de pendence that ignorant people have entered into with sticks and stones and animals, just as happens in West Indian voodooism and in' the stupid superstition with which cultured folk of to-day pick up a pin, hang a horseshoe or study the lie of the leaves in a teacup.
One form of totemism or nature-worship which deserves special mention is •cult of the heavenly bodies. The chief school in favor of astral cult as the origin of religion is the Pan-Babylonian. According to Friederich Delitzsch, Gunkel and Winclder, of Berlin, together with Jeremias of Leipzig and a host of university scholars in England and America, the origin of Greek, Roman, Old Testament, New Testament and countless qther religions of cultured peoples must be sought in Babylo nian solar, lunar and astral mythology, an evolution from the worship of the heavenly orbs. At first an attempt was made to set this theory upon an astronomical fact as a founda tion. Winclder assumed that the Babylonians knew the precession of the equinoxes ; and upon this fiction built up an absurd hypothesis.
Father Kugler, the Jesuit astronomer and As syriologist, then came into the arena and showed that the whole explanation of Babylonian my thological religion was established upon the Pan-Babylonian school's ignorance of Baby lonian astronomy and astrology. Recourse was then had to far-fetched analogies between Bible facts and astral phenomena. Jacob had four wives and 12 sons; and so he becomes the moon-god with four phases and 12 limar months. With equal assurance, the 12' Apos tles are relegated to the realm of fiction as 12 lunar months of a moon-god.
4. Magic.— Tylor assumes anage of ani mism that preceded religion. Frazer, J. G,
The works above referred to, and Toy, 'Introduction to the History of Religions) (1913) ; Schmidt, 'L'origine de l'idee de Dieu) (1910) ; De la Saussaye, 'Manual of the Science of Religion) (1891) ; London Cath olic Truth Society, 'History of Religions) (1910-11) ; Rogers, 'Religion of Babylonia and (1908) ; Hoffding, 'Philosophy of Religion) (1906) ; Galloway, 'Philosophy of Religion) (1914) ; Moore, 'History of Reli gions) (1913) ; Jastrow, 'Study of Religion' (1901) ; Hettinger, 'Natural Religion) trans., 1890) ; Lang, 'Myth, Ritual and Reli gion) (1899) and 'Magic and (1902) ; Smith, W. Robertson, 'Lectures on the Reli gion of the Semites) (1904) ; Goblet d'Alviella, Hihhert Lectures (1891) ; Drum, 'The Mythic Christ) (American Ecclesiastical Review, May, September-December, 1915).