Note 2 — Chapter III · TOTEMISM AND FETISHISM.
Reading edition
As regards the origin of totemism great diversity of opinion exists. Mr. Herbert Spencer considers that “it arose from a misinterpretation of nicknames; savages first took their names from natural objects, and then confusing these objects with their ancestors of the same name, paid the same respect to the material totem as they were in the habit of doing to their own ancestors.”2 The objection to this is, as Mr. Frazer shows, that it attributes to verbal misunderstandings far more influence than, in spite of the comparative mythologists, they ever seem to have exercised.