It can hardly now be doubted that the same ideas underlie all the early faiths. This view is entertained by General Forlong, who says: “So imperceptibly arose the serpent on pure Phallic faiths, fire on these, and sun on all, and so intimately did all blend with one another, that even in the ages of true history it was often impossible to descry the exact God alluded to.” The foundations of all those faiths, and of ancestor-worship as allied to them, must therefore be sought in the ideas entertained by mankind in the earliest times, “when the races lived untaught, herded with their cattle, and had as their sole object in life the multiplication of these and of themselves.” The question arises, however, whether the simple faith which man then entertained was the earliest he had evolved. General Forlong answers this question in the negative, for he says, then referring to the serpent Buddhism of Kambodia, that “Fetish worship was the _first_ worship, and to a great extent is still the _real_ faith of the ignorant, especially about these parts.” He finds that nearly one quarter of the world yet deifies, or at least reverences, sticks and stones, rams’ horns and charms, a practice not unknown even to later faiths. The fundamental belief which furnishes the key to those phenomena, as well as to the animal-worship which is so closely associated with one or other of the great faith streams, should not be lost sight of. Jacob Grimm pointed out, in his “Teutonic Mythology,”[1] that all nature was thought of by the heathen Germans as living. Gods and men transformed themselves into trees, plants, or beasts; spirits and elements attained animal forms; and therefore we cannot wonder at the heavenly bodies, and even day and night, summer and winter, being actually personified. These ideas lend themselves as well to fetishism as to sun-worship, and all the ancient faiths alike may justly, therefore, be regarded as phases of one universal nature-worship. Mankind prays only for that which is thought good, and if one man seeks to obtain his desire through the agency of a stick or a stone, and another through a serpent or planetary god, the difference between them is purely objective. The prayers which were offered to the Vedic gods would be equally appropriate in the mouth of a native of Western Africa. They had relation simply to temporal needs, and were, says Mr. Talboys Wheeler,[2] for plenty of rain, abundant harvests, and prolific cattle, for bodily vigour, long life, numerous offspring, and protection against all foes and robbers. Moreover, the observances of the more advanced faiths have little practical difference from the fetishist. All alike have for their object the compelling the good countenance, or counteracting the evil designs, of the gods or spirits, and the real difference is to be sought in the symbols under which they are represented. Thus the Vedic Aryans regarded their deified abstractions as personified with human wants,