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 unsolved; saying that his "is not an hypothesis explanatory of the origin of _Totemism_, be it remembered, but an hypothesis explanatory of the animal and plant worship of the ancient nations." So that we have still to ask--Why have savage tribes so generally taken animals and plants and other things as totems? What can have induced this tribe to ascribe special sacredness to one creature, and that tribe to another? And if to these questions the 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 in one case only, we might set it down to some whim of thought or some illusive occurrence. But appealing, as it does, with multitudinous variations among so many uncivilized races in different parts of the world, and having left numerous marks in the superstitions of extinct civilized races, we cannot assume any special or exceptional cause. Moreover, the general cause, whatever it may be, must be such as does not negative an aboriginal intelligence like in nature to our own. After studying the grotesque beliefs of savages, we are apt to suppose that their reason is not as our reason. But this supposition is inadmissible. Given the amount of knowledge which primitive men possess, and given the imperfect verbal symbols used by them in speech and thought, and the conclusions they habitually reach will be those that are _relatively_ the most rational. This must be our postulate; and, setting out with this postulate, we have to ask how primitive men came so generally, if not universally, to believe themselves the progeny of animals or plants or inanimate bodies. There is, I believe, a satisfactory answer. * * * * *