The animistic belief that certain material objects can be charged with a divine potency or spirit gives rise to fetishism, a term which properly denotes the worshipful or superstitious use of objects made by art and invested with mysterious power, so as to be used like amulets for the purposes of protective magic or for higher purposes of communion with the divinity. From the earliest discoverable period down to the present day fetishism has been a powerful factor in the religion of the Graeco-Roman world. The importance of the sacred stone and pillar in the "Mycenaean" or "Minoan" period which preceded Homer has been impressively shown by Dr Arthur Evans, and the same fetishistic worship continued throughout the historic ages of classic paganism, the rude aniconic emblem of pillar or tree-trunk surviving often by the side of the iconic masterpiece. It is a reasonable conjecture that the earliest anthropomorphic images of divinities, which were beginning to make their appearance by the time of Homer, were themselves evolved by slow transformation from the upright sacred column. And the altar itself may have arisen as another form of this; the simple heap of stones, such as those erected to Hermes by the way-side and called [Greek: Hermaioi lophoi], may have served both as a place of worship and as an _agalma_ that could attract and absorb a divine potency into itself. Hence the fetishistic power of the altar was fully recognized in Greek ritual, and hence also in the cult of Apollo Agyieus the god and the altar are called by the same name.