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On theoretical grounds it is probable that animatism preceded animism; but savage thought is no more consistent than that of civilized man; and it may well be that animistic and panthelistic doctrines are held simultaneously by the same person. In like manner one portion of the savage explanation of nature may have been originally animistic, another part animatistic. Origin.
E.B. Tylor, the doctrine of spiritual beings, including human souls; in practice, however, the term is often extended to include panthelism or animatism, the doctrine that a great part, if not the whole, of the inanimate kingdom, as well as all animated beings, are endowed with reason, intelligence and volition, identical with that of man.
Animism may have arisen out of or simultaneously with animatism as a primitive explanation of many different phenomena; if animatism was originally applied to non-human or inanimate objects, animism may from the outset have been in vogue as a theory of the nature of man. Lists of phenomena from the contemplation of which the savage was led to believe in animism have been given by Dr.
But it is difficult in practice to distinguish the two phases of thought and no clear account of animatism can yet be given, largely on the ground that no people has yet been discovered which has not already developed to a greater or less extent an animistic philosophy.
I think, then, that we had better distinguish this wider sense of animism by a different name, calling it "animatism," since that will serve at once to disconnect and to connect the two conceptions. I am not sure, however, how far we ought to press this "doctrine of universal vitality."
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