anthropometric (anthropometrik)

[ anthropomorph ous The treatment he has received - either from his fellow beings or from a power which he is prone to think of an thro pom orphically. H. Spencer, Prin. of Psychol., § 518. anthropomorphism (anthro-po-morfizm), n. [As anthropomorph ous +-ism.] 1. The ascription of human attributes to supernatural or divine beings; in theol., the conception or representation of God with human qualities and affections, or in a human shape. Anthropomorphism is founded in man's inability to conceive beings above himself otherwise than in his own likene . It de. termines the growth and form of all human religions, from the lowest up to the highest: as where the Scriptures speak of the eye, the ear, and the hand of God, of his seeing and hearing, of his remembering and forgetting, of his making man in his own image, etc. Although Milton was undoubtedly a high Arian in his mature life, he does, in the nece ity of poetry, give a greater objectivity to the Father and the Son than he would have justified in argument. He was wise in adopt ing the strong anthropomorphism of the Hebrew Scrip tures at once. Cole ridge, Table-Talk, p. 2. The conception of animals, plants, or nature in general, by analogy with man: commonly implying an unscientific use of such analogy. Des cartes deserted the old moderate view which affirmed that between the highest psychical powers of man and brutes there is a certain natural likene and analogy, and gave rise to the notion that animals are nothing but wonderful complex machines an error naturally resulting in the opposite one now so prevalent - the error, namely, that there is a substantial identity between the brute soul and the soul of man - biological an thro pom or phism. Mivart.