Max Müller[1] in my criticism of Dr. Tylor's self-contradictions, I may, perhaps, venture to put the above question in such bolder terms as these: Is not the theory of Animism, notwithstanding its sanction by the Encyclopædia Britannica,[2] one of the most illogical and self-contradictory, and hence the most inimical to clear ideas, that has ever been introduced into, and had a vogue in science?
II.—My second Query is: May not a far more verifiable and consistent account be given both of the character and of the origin of primordial conceptions of Nature than that which is offered by Dr. Tylor in his theory of Animism?
I have just pointed out the self-contradiction in Dr. Tylor's admission of a primordial personification of the inanimate objects and powers of Nature, while he at the same time sets forth a theory of the animation of Nature by the association of "souls" with all its objects; and the self-contradiction also in Dr. Tylor's subsumption of Fetishism under Animism, thus "reducing it to a mere secondary development of the doctrine of spirits", while he at the same time expressly accepts the opposed definition of Fetishism by Comte. And I have now to show that, even disregarding these self-contradictions, Dr. Tylor's definition of the primordial conception of Nature as a
- ↑ "Animism . . . . has proved so misleading a name that hardly any scholar now likes to employ it In itself it might not be objectionable, but unfortunately it has been used for a totally different phase of religious thought, namely, for the recognition of an active, living, or even personal element in trees, rivers, mountains, and other. . . . . parts of Nature Nay, Fetishism has been identified with Animism, and defined as the capability of the soul to take possession of anything whatever." (Natural Religion, p. 158.) But already, in 1873, nearly twenty years ago, I had entered my protest against this disastrously confusing term in The New Philosophy of History, p. 11, n. 2.
- ↑ See Dr. Tylor's article on Animism, and the general acceptance of the theory throughout the work. But the Encycloædia Britannica is, in very numerous articles, a record rather of what was believed, than of what is believed, or is on the way towards being believed.
