History of Religious Evolution 711 



to accept it that all passed through a phase of animism or poly- 

 dsemonism to naturalism or that the latter only slightly pre- 

 ceded and opened the way for the former, which thus seem 

 often to unfold side by side, xlnimism also lingers amongst 

 not a few rude nations as their phase of religious evolution. 

 Thus the Dakotas and other North American Indian tribes, 

 some of the Hottentots, and more primitive Arabic tribes 

 are a few that might be named. The Chinese again, while 

 largely ruled by a high ancestralism, have passed compara- 

 tively recently, 3000-2000 years ago, probably by contact 

 with Brahmanism and Buddhism, from it through an animistic 

 to a semi-monotheistic stage. 



A definition then of animism would be "a reverential and 

 reciprocal religious consideration by man as to the possible 

 relation between the natural phenomena or forces of the world 

 that environ him, and the invisible energy of cherished visible 

 organic or later of inorganic bodies, so as to lead man to con- 

 nect the visible bodies with the transferred energy of departed 

 friends, and later of other living bodies. All of these energies 

 transferred thus became anima or spirits to man, and such 

 spirits might later be viewed as invisibly energizing even inor- 

 ganic bodies." 



Up to this stage the tribal individuals seem to have shown 

 their religious regard for these spirits by direct connection. 

 That is, votive offerings, addresses, or prayers to the unseen 

 spirits, and promises of future conformity to the supposed 

 desires or character of the spirit personalities, were directly 

 made by each religiously inclined individual. But more and 

 more an exclusive group of individuals arose, or was selected 

 by the tribe on account of their keener or clearer proenvironal 

 aspirations; or individuals obtruded themselves as worthy to 

 be so regarded. Thus for the animistic stage, or possibly in 

 some cases earlier, priests and wise-men or magicians became 

 increasingly j^rominent. These in some cases had sincere 

 desire for the tribal or national good; in other cases, they 

 showed some or all of the degraded qualities that are apt to 

 creep in wherever high service is combined with possible oppor- 



