Returning now to the question what fetichism is--a question which must be answered before we can enquire what religious value it possesses, and whether it can be of any use for the practical purposes of the missionary in his work--we have now seen that a fetich is not merely an "inanimate," but something more; and that an object to become regarded as a fetich must attract the attention of the man who is to adopt it, and must attract the attention of the man when he has business on hand, that is to say when he has some end in view which he desires to attain, or generally when he is in a state of expectancy. The process of choice is one of "natural selection." Professor Höffding sees in it "the simplest conceivable construction of religious ideas. The choice is entirely elementary { 115} and involuntary, as elementary and involuntary as the exclamation which is the simplest form of a judgment of worth. The object chosen must be something or other which is closely bound up with whatever engrosses the mind. It perhaps awakens memories of earlier events in which it was present or coöperative, or else it presents a certain--perhaps a very distant--similarity to objects which helped in previous times of need. Or it may be merely the first object which presents itself in a moment of strained expectation. It attracts attention, and is therefore involuntarily associated with what is about to happen, with the possibility of attaining the desired end" (_Philosophy of Religion_, E. T., p. 139). And then Professor Höffding goes on to say, "In such phenomena as these we encounter religion under the guise of desire." Now, without denying that there are such things as religious desires--and holding as we do that religion is the search after God and the yearning of the human heart after Him, "the desire of all nations," we shall have no temptation to deny that there are such things as religious desires--yet we must for the moment reserve our decision on the question whether it is in such phenomena { 116} as these that we encounter religious desires, and we must bear in mind that there are desires which are not religious, and that we want to know whether it is in the phenomena of fetichism that we encounter religious desires.