e, among the Eskimos.

It cannot be thought unnatural that the spirits of the dead, and
especially those of the more eminent among them, such as chiefs and
princes, were gradually converted into gods.

The word for God among the Hebrews (_il_ or _el_), among the Egyptians
(_nutar_), and among many other peoples, meant only a powerful being,
and could be applied as well to heroes as to gods. As there were upon
the earth peculiarly powerful men, so there must be in the spirit-world
peculiarly powerful spirits; and these naturally became the divinities
_par excellence_ whom it was specially important to worship. Thus we
arrive at last at the belief in one God, at the moment when absolute
monarchy is established in the spirit world.

But alongside of this ancestor-worship, we recognise as a powerful
factor in the development of superstitious ideas the marked tendency
of the human race to attribute supernatural power to certain inanimate
objects, which, in the primitive stage, are used to avert or influence
the power of the dead or to attain other advantages; and from this has
developed the whole widespread belief in amulets, and possibly also, in
a measure, fetish-worship. We shall consider later how the belief in the
power of the amulet may have arisen.

An important force tending towards the continuance and development of
superstitious conceptions, when they have once arisen, is of course
to be found in the authority of the medicine-men (spirit-exorcisers),
or of the priests, over their fellow-men. Some minds, and these the
ablest, naturally came to have a better understanding than the others of
supernatural things, and to stand in a closer relation to the dead. It
was clear that they could thus help their neighbours, when, for example,
there was question of applying the powers of the dead to the benefit
of an individual or of a body of men; and the priest thus attained
power and influence in the community, and often advantages of a more
material nature as well. It has thus always been to the interest of
the medici