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19. The Lcav of Reduplication. 
The adherents of the theory of primitive fetishism, primeval 
barbarism, and the like, when hard-pressed by the evidence 
which shows the simplicity and purity of the religious views of 
archaic mau, are wont to take refuge “in boundless time,”* 
where indeed they are perfectly safe from our pursuit. Thus 
Mr. A. Lang, in a recent criticism! of Prof. Max Muller's well- 
known views respecting fetishism, namely, that it is a “ cor- 
ruption of religion,” is supposed to make “ a distinct point” 
by “reminding us that the hymns of the Rig-Yeda, to which 
Prof. Max Muller so constantly appeals, are not at all really 
early documents, or adapted to throw light upon primitive, un- 
tutored, religious sentiment.” It would be very interesting to 
have a specimen of “ a really early” document , a rather unfor- 
tunate term to apply to the Yedic Hymns, so long handed 
down by oral tradition. It may be that Yedic Hymns, Akka- 
dian Tablets, and Egyptian Papyri are very late documents ; 
but as “ late” is merely a relative term, we should be glad to 
inspect older ones before so classifying them. But, in truth, 
the theory of the Fetishists may be crystallized into two cardinal 
positions, namely : — 
1. Primitive man, about whom we know little or nothing, 
but dogmatize much,J was as we think him to have been. 
2. There is nothing really ancient except the modern savage. 
On this latter point it is well to hear Mr. Herbert Spencer, 
an authority as a rule by no means favourable to the views of 
the present writer. He well remarks : — 
“ To determine what conceptions are truly primitive, would 
be easy if we had accounts of truly primitive men. But there 
are sundry reasons for suspecting that existing men of the 
lowest types, forming social groups of the simplest kinds, do 
not exemplify men as they originally were. Probably most of 
them, if not all, had ancestors in higher states. . . . While the 
degradation theory, as currently held, is untenable, the theory 
* Vide Zoroaster, p. 15, note 1 . f Mincl, Oct. 1879. 
X Vide the numerous wild statements in Stuart Mill’s Subjection of 
Women, cap. i. So the Rev. T. W. Fowle, after remarking that as yet 
“ evolution is a matter of faith rather than of knowledge,” immediately adds, 
“ We coniine ourselves to the bare [barren ?] assertion that there was a time 
when the ancestors of our race had no further consciousness of self than 
is now possessed by an intelligent dog” {The Nineteenth Century, March, 
1879, p. 390). Similarly Ludwig Noire asserts, “There was a time when 
man, or, at least, the thought of man, knew neither man nor wife nor child, 
neither sun nor moon, no beast, no tree, no I nor thou, no here nor there ” 
{Max Muller and the Philosophy of Language , 100). Such assertions, in the 
absence of evidence, are of course valueless. 
