If, despite all that is said herein, the philosophy of fetishism should remain obscure—and there is no doubt of it; if the reader should close this book with the consciousness of a broad, comprehensive ignorance of the subject, it may be to some extent the fault of fetishism itself, which is the jungle of jungles, an aggregation of incoherent beliefs. The world of the African is as wild and strange as the weird world that we often visit on the brink of sleep. It was far from Africa that Siegfried thought it worth while to encounter the dread dragon, Fafner, and slay him for the possession of the magic tarnhelm forged by the Nibelung. In Africa everybody has a tarnhelm. Second-hand tarnhelms are for sale everywhere. I myself had a rare one; but I have lost it, or mislaid it. To us, who think of nature as the realm of law, order, and uniformity, the world of the African seems to have gone mad. This madness, however, is more apparent than real. The African thinks in terms of the miraculous; natural effects are explained by supernatural causes; supernatural, but not therefore unintelligible, still less irrational. Therefore, if we should not find the fabled thread out of this amazing labyrinth of fetishism, it may be possible to find a thread _into_ it; and not only possible, but also worth while, if within the labyrinth we shall find the African himself and come to know him, mind and heart, a little better. One need not apologize for the space given to folk-lore so long as Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox retain their present popularity with old and young; for in African folk-lore we have the originals of the stories of Uncle Remus. Aside from the entertaining quality of folk-lore, its idealism has a human value. In Mr. Lecky’s essay, _Thoughts on History_, published since his death, the great historian pays the following remarkable tribute to idealism: “Legends which have no firm historical basis are often of the highest historical value as reflecting the moral sentiments of their time. Nor do they merely reflect them. In some periods they contribute perhaps more than any other influence to mould and colour them and to give them an enduring strength. The facts of history have been largely governed by its fiction. Great events often acquire their full power over the human mind only when they have passed through the transfiguring medium of the imagination, and men as they were supposed to be have even sometimes exercised a wider influence than men as they actually were. Ideals ultimately rule the world; and each, before it loses its ascendency, bequeaths some moral truth as an abiding legacy to the human race.” Inasmuch as the history of most African tribes must ever remain unknown to us, their legends and all that is included in their folk-lore possess additional anthropological value as a medium through which to study the African mind.