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Defoe, indeed, speaking of the terror of men at the time of the Great Plague, says that they 'were more addicted to prophecies and astrological conjurations, dreams, and old wives' tales, than ever they were before or since. But in reality, it was only because of the great misery then prevailing that men seemed more superstitious than usual; for misery brings out the superstitions the fetishisms, if we may so speak which are inherent in many minds, but concealed from others in prosperous times, out of shame, or perhaps a worthier feeling.
Even in its modern external forms, Shinto is sufficiently complex to task the united powers of the historian, philologist, and anthropologist, merely to trace out the multitudinous lines of its evolution, and to determine the sources of its various elements: primeval polytheisms and fetishisms, traditions of dubious origin, philosophical concepts from China, Korea, and elsewhere all mingled with Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism.
Among the branches where foreign influence is least to be suspected, we discover, behind their more conspicuous fetishisms and superstitions, something which we cannot exactly call Monotheism, yet which tends in that direction. Waitz quotes Wilson for the fact that, their fetishism apart, they adore a Supreme Being as the Creator: and do not honour him with sacrifice.
No mean or puerile type, with all its fetishisms and unreasons on its head no! a type sprung from the finest English blood, disciplined by heroic memories, by the persecution and hardships of the Penal Laws. What happens? Why, of course the girl's imagination goes over! Her father in her her temperament stand in the way of anything more.
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