Note 73 — Chapter III · INTERMEDIATE FORMS OF ABSTRACTION.

We have touched on this subject incidentally in La psychologie des sentiments (Part II, IX, § 2, pp. 305 et seq.). Many tribes do not get beyond polydemonism, peopling the universe with innumerable genii; this is the reign of the concrete. A certain progress is marked by subordinating the genius of each tree to the god of the forest, the different genii of a river to the god of the river, etc. At a degree higher, the intellect constitutes a single god for water, one for fire, one for the earth, etc. Thus there come to be genii of individual, specific, and generic origin.