THE ORIGIN OF ANIMAL-WORSHIP. 



MK. MCLEJSTNAN S recent essays on the Worship of 

 Animals and Plants have done much to elucidate a very 

 obscure subject. By pursuing in this case, as before in 

 another case, the truly scientific method of comparing the 

 phenomena presented by existing uncivilized races with 

 those which the early traditions of civilized races present, 

 he has rendered both more comprehensible than they were 

 before. 



It seems to me, however, that Mr. McLennan gives 

 but an indefinite answer to the essential question How 

 did the worship of animals and plants arise ? Indeed, in 

 his concluding paper, he expressly leaves this problem 

 without a solution ; saying that his &quot; is not an hypothesis 

 explanatory of the origin of Totem/ism, be it remembered, 

 but an hypothesis explanatory of the animal and plant 

 worship of the ancient nations.&quot; So that we have still to 

 ask Why have savage tribes so generally taken animals 

 and plants and other things as their totems ? What can 

 have induced this tribe to ascribe special sacredness to one 

 creature, and that tribe to another ? And if to these ques 

 tions the general reply is, that each tribe considers itself 

 to be descended from the object of its reverence, then 

 there presses for answer the further question How came 

 so strange a notion into existence ? If this notion occurred 



