The 'Nemesis' (i. 196) of De Brosses' errors did not stay in her ravaging
progress. Fetishism was represented as 'the very beginning of religion,'
first among the negroes, then among all races. As I, for one,
persistently proclaim that the beginning of religion is an inscrutable
mystery, the Nemesis has somehow left me scatheless, propitiated by my
piety. I said, long ago, 'the train of ideas which leads man to believe
in and to treasure fetishes is _one among the earliest springs_ of
religious belief.' {120a} But from even this rather guarded statement I
withdraw. 'No man can watch the idea of GOD in the making or in the
beginning.' {120b}