primitive form of religion; but properly speaking it is not a religion
at all, for religion implies, at any rate, some form of emotion (see
RELIGION), and animism is in the first instance an explanation of
phenomena rather than an attitude of mind toward the cause of them,
a philosophy rather than a religion. The term may, however, be
conveniently used to describe the early stage of religion in which man
endeavours to set up relations between himself and the unseen powers,
conceived as spirits, but differing in many particulars from the gods
of polytheism. As an example of this stage in one of its aspects may
be taken the European belief in the corn spirit, which is, however,
the object of magical rather than religious rites; Dr. Frazer has thus
defined the character of the animistic pantheon, "they are restricted
in their operations to definite departments of nature; their names
are general, not proper; their attributes are generic rather than
individual; in other words, there is an indefinite number of spirits
of each class, and the individuals of a class are much alike; they
have no definitely marked individuality; no accepted traditions
are current as to their origin, life and character." This stage of
religion is well illustrated by the Red Indian custom of offering
sacrifice to certain rocks, or whirlpools, or to the indwelling
spirits connected with them; the rite is only performed in the
neighbourhood of the object, it is an incident of a canoe or other
voyage, and is not intended to secure any benefits beyond a safe
passage past the object in question; the spirit to be propitiated
has a purely local sphere of influence, and powers of a very limited
nature. Animistic in many of their features too are the temporary gods
of fetishism (_q.v._), naguals or familiars, genii and even the dead
who receive a cult. With the rise of a belief in departmental gods
comes the age of polytheism; the belief in elemental spirits may still
persist, but they fall into the background and receive no cult.
_Animism and the Origin of Religion._--Two animistic theories of the
origin of religion have been put forward, the one, often termed the
"ghost theory," mainly associated with the name of Herbert Spencer,
but also maintained by Grant Allen, refers the beginning of religion
to the cult of dead human beings; the other, put forward by Dr. E.B.
Tylor, makes the foundation of all religion animistic, but
recognizes the non-human character of polytheistic gods. Although
ancestor-worship, or, more broadly, the cult of the dead, has in many
cases overshadowed other cults or even extinguished them, we have no
warrant, even in these cases, for asserting its priority, but rather
the reverse; not only so, but in the majority of cases the pantheon is
made up by a multitude of spirits in human, sometimes in animal form,
which bear no signs of ever having been incarnate; sun gods and moon
goddesses, gods of fire, wind and water, gods of the sea, and above
all gods of the sky, show no signs of having been ghost gods at any
period in their history. They may, it is true, be associated with
ghost gods, but in Australia it cannot even be asserted that the gods
are spirits at all, much less that they are the spirits of dead men;
they are simply magnified magicians, super-men who have never died; we
have no ground, therefore, for regarding the cult of the dead as the
origin of religion in this area; this conclusion is the more probable,
as ancestor-worship and the cult of the dead generally cannot be said
to exist in Australia.
[v.02 p.0055]
The more general view that polytheistic and other gods are the
elemental and other spirits of the later stages of animistic creeds,
is equally inapplicable to Australia, where the belief seems to be
neither animistic nor even animatistic in character. But we are
hardly justified in arguing from the case of Australia to a general
conclusion as to the origin of religious ideas in all other parts of
the world. It is perhaps safest to say that the science of religions
has no data on which to go, in formulating conclusions as to the
original form of the objects of religious emotion; in this connexion
it must be remembered that not only is it very difficult to get
precise information of the subject of the religious ideas of people of
low culture, perhaps for the simple reason that the ideas themselves
are far from precise, but also that, as has been pointed out above,
the conception of spiritual often approximates very closely to that of
material. Where the soul is regarded as no more than a finer sort of
matter, it will obviously be far from easy to decide whether the gods
are spiritual or material. Even, therefore, if we can say that at the
present day the gods are entirely spiritual, it is clearly possible
to maintain that they have been spiritualized _pari passu_ with the
increasing importance of the animistic view of nature and of the
greater prominence of eschatological beliefs. The animistic origin of
religion is therefore not proven.
_Animism and Mythology_.--But little need be said on the relation of
animism and mythology (_q.v._). While a large part of mythology has
an animistic basis, it is possible to believe, _e.g._ in a sky world,
peopled by corporeal beings, as well as by spirits of the dead; the
latter may even be entirely absent; the mythology of the Australians
relates largely to corporeal, non-spiritual beings; stories of
transformation, deluge and doom myths, or myths of the origin of
death, have not necessarily any animistic basis. At the same time,
with the rise of ideas as to a future life and spiritual beings, this
field of mythology is immensely widened, though it cannot be said
that a rich mythology is necessarily genetically associated with or
combined with belief in many spiritual beings.
_Animism in Philosophy_.--The term "animism" has been applied to many
different philosophical systems. It is used to describe Aristotle's
view of the relation of soul and body held also by the Stoics and
Scholastics. On the other hand monadology (Leibnitz) has also been
termed animistic. The name is most commonly applied to vitalism, a
view mainly associated with G.E. Stahl and revived by F. Bouillier
(1813-1899), which makes life, or life and mind, the directive
principle in evolution and growth, holding that all cannot be traced
back to chemical and mechanical processes, but that there is a
directive force which guides energy without altering its amount.
An entirely different class of ideas, also termed animistic, is the
belief in the world soul, held by Plato, Schelling and others.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Tyler, _Primitive Culture_; Frazer, _Golden Bough_;
_Id_. on Burial Customs in _J.A. I_. xv.; Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_;
G.A. Wilken, _Het Animisme_; Koch on the animism of S. America in
_Internationales Archiv_, xiii., Suppl.; Andrew Lang, _Making of
Religion_; Skeat, _Malay Magic_; Sir G. Campbell, "Spirit Basis of
Belief and Custom," in _Indian Antiquary_, xxiii. and succeeding
volumes; _Folklore_, iii. 289. xi. 162; Spencer, _Principles of
Sociology_; _Mind_ (1877), 141, 415 et seq. For animism in philosophy,
Stahl, _Theoria_; Bouillier, _Du Principe vital_.
(N.W.T.)
ANIMUCCIA, GIOVANNI, Italian musical composer, was born at Florence in
the last years of the 15th century. At the request of St. Filippo Neri
he composed a number of _Laudi_, or hymns of praise, to be sung after
sermon time, which have given him an accidental prominence in musical
history, since their performance in St. Filippo's Oratory eventually
gave rise (on the disruption of 16th century schools of composition)
to those early forms of "oratorio" that are not traceable to the
Gregorian-polyphonic "Passions." St. Filippo admired Animuccia so
warmly that he declared he had seen the soul of his friend fly upwards
towards heaven. In 1555 Animuccia was appointed _maestro di capella_
at St. Peter's, an office which he held until his death in 1571. He
was succeeded by Palestrina, who had been his friend and probably his
pupil. The manuscript of many of Animuccia's compositions is still
preserved in the Vatican Library. His chief published works were
_Madrigali e Motetti a quattro e cinque voci_ (Ven. 1548) and _Il
primo Libra di Messe_ (Rom. 1567). From the latter Padre Martini has
taken two specimens for his _Saggio di Contrapunto_. A mass from the
_Primo Libra di Messe_ on the _canto fermo_ of the hymn _Conditor
alme siderum_ is published in modern notation in the _Anthologie des
maîtres religieux primitifs_ of the _Chanteurs de Saint Gervais_. It
is solemn and noble in conception, and would be a great work but for a
roughness which is more careless than archaic.
PAOLO ANIMUCCIA, a brother of Giovanni, was also celebrated as a
composer; he is said by Fetis to have been _maestro di capella_ at S.
Giovanni in Laterano from the middle of January 1550 until 1552, and
to have died in 1563.
ANISE (_Pimpinella Anisum_), an umbelliferous plant found in Egypt and
the Levant, and cultivated on the continent of Europe for medicinal
purposes. The officinal part of the plant is the fruit, which consists
of two united carpels, called a cremocarp. It is known by the name
of aniseed, and has a strong aromatic taste and a powerful odour.
By distillation the fruit yields the volatile oil of anise, which is
useful in the treatment of flatulence and colic in children. It may
be given as _Aqua Anisi_, in doses of one or more ounces, or
as the _Spiritus Anisi_, in doses of 5-20 minims. The main
constituent of the oil (up to 90%) is anethol, C_{10}H_{12}O or
C_{6}H_{4}[1.4](OCH_{3})(CH:CH.CH_{3}.) It also contains methyl
chavicol, anisic aldehyde, anisic acid, and a terpene. Most of the oil
of commerce, however, of which anethol is also the chief constituent,
comes from _Illicium verum_ (order _Magnoliaceae_, sub-order
_Wintereae_), indigenous in N.E. China, the star-anise of _liqueur_
makers. It receives its name from its flavour, and from its fruit
spreading out like a star. The anise of the Bible (Matt. xxiii. 23) is
_Anethum_ or _Peucedanum graveolens_, _i.e._ dill (_q.v._).