THE ABORIGINES OF NORTH AMERICA. 245 
but Quatrefages and 'l'ylor deny the primitiveness of fetichism 
or animism. 
Darwin conceives the first men to be capable of rising in 
thought above the knowledge furnished by the senses. He 
says that the same high mental facultves which first led men 
to believe in unseen spiritual agencies, then in fetichism, then 
in polytheism, and ultimately in monotheism, would infallibly 
lead him, so long as his powers remained poorly developed, to 
various strange superstitions and customs. These are aberra- 
tions of the human intellect, but they show the loftiness of 
man’s powers. Lubbock also ascribes to the earliest men a 
like ability to conceive of the swper-sensual; and Tylor says, 
that ‘‘ high above all the doctrines of souls, of dive manes, of 
local nature, spirits, of the great deities, of the elements, there 
are to be discerned in savage theology shadows quaint or 
najestic of the conception of a swpreme deity.” He says also 
that the races of North and South America, of Africa, of 
Polynesia, recognising a number of great deities, are usually 
considered polytheists, yet their acknowledgment of a supreme 
creator would entitle them to the name of monotheists. Max 
Miiller takes the ground that fetichism itself points to ante- 
cedent ideas which give force to the fetich. 
The great objection to these views is found in the low morality 
of the native religions, but it should be added that the cha- 
racter of the deity partakes of the character of the worshippers. 
The ideas of morality among the natives of America are 
quite low, but their divinities compare favourably with 
others. There were many deceptions practised by the gods, 
and occasionally a deed of lust appears in the record. Yet 
they never equal the amours of the classical divinities, and the 
deceptions, if compared with those of the Scandinavian, are 
harmless and without malice. The sacrifices which were intro- 
duced by Montezuma, the King of Mexico, were cruel and 
kioodthirsty ; but so were the sacrifices of the Phoenicians. 
Cannibalism existed in America, but there was a peculiar 
superstition about it. It was to secure the bravery or the virtue 
of the victim that the people ate his flesh. Phallic worship 
prevailed to some extent on this continent, but never reached 
the base degradation which was common in the Kast. 
The worship of Bacchus never prevailed to any extent here. 
We do not claim for the divinities of America any quality of 
holiness ; but there was often a benevolent disposition in them 
which was quite remarkable amongst such arace. The White- 
Gods and the culture-heroes were the embodiments of lofty 
and majestic purity, of self-denial for the good of others, and 
VOL. XXI. U 
