Animism

an′im-izm, n. a theory which regards the belief in separate spiritual existences as the germ of religious ideas. It is adopted by E. B. Tylor in his Primitive Culture as the minimum definition of religion, being considered to have arisen simply from the evidence of the senses, interpreted by the crude and child-like science of the savage: the theory of Stahl, which regarded the vital principle and the soul as identical.— n. An′imist .— adj. An′imistic . [L. anima , the soul.]