ANIMISM AND ANIMATISM. The term animism properly refers to a theory set forth by the English scholar E. B. Tylor (1832–1917), one of the founders of modern anthropology, in order to account for the origin and development of religion. Tylor's theory was in general harmony with the dominant evolutionistic views of his age, as represented by the naturalist Charles Robert Darwin (1809–1882) and the social philosopher Herbert Spencer (1820–1903). Darwin and Spencer both viewed the development of the natural and social world as a movement from lower to higher forms, from the simple to the complex.

The distinctiveness of Tylor's theory was its assumption that the earliest form of religion was characterized by human ideas concerning a plurality of spirits and ghosts. In this he differed from Spencer, who had posited atheism at the beginning of human culture, although both followed the common pattern of their evolutionistic...