"Animistic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... school holds to the old-fashioned notion that animism preceded ancestor-worship,—a theory involving the assumption that belief in the spirits of inanimate objects was evolved before the idea of a human ghost had yet been developed.) In Japan it is now as difficult to draw the line between animistic beliefs and the lowest forms of Shinto, as to establish a demarcation between the vegetable and the animal worlds; but the earliest Shinto literature gives no evidence of such a developed animism as that now existing. Probably ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... 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. 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 ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various
... be, I should strive to learn thoroughly, and bring science to bear upon experience. But, as I am, classifications and dissections are repellent to my fancy. I cannot get to the hearts of flowers by any Linnaean approach, but go rather by the old animistic way, still honoured by Milton through his ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... finding virgin soil for cultivation; secondly, the occurrence of epidemics or other calamities; these lead them to believe that the place of their abode supplies in insufficient degree the favouring spiritual influences which they regard as essential to their welfare. For among all these peoples animistic beliefs abound; they hold themselves to be surrounded on every hand by spiritual forces both good and bad, some of which are embodied in the wild creatures, especially the birds, while some are manifested ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall |
