62 PRE-ANIMISM 



mental standpoint of the savage the nearer we are to primi- 

 tive identities which have become blurred or obscured by 

 differences arising among the superior races in their course 

 along varying lines of development ; and the more easily 

 shall we be able to trace the origin of the higher in the lower 

 psychology and the persistent survival of embryonic ideas. 

 We thus reach a stage of evolution anterior to what is known 

 as Animism, or the belief in spirits embodied in everything ; 

 whence are gradually developed anthropomorphic conceptions 

 of the gods. The root idea in this Naturism, or Pre- Animism, 

 as it may be called, 1 is that of power everywhere power 

 vaguely apprehended but immanent, and as yet unclothed 

 with supernatural or personal attributes. In his Development 

 of Religion, Dr. Irving King defines it as " the whole general 

 notion of an impersonal force which may very legitimately be 

 regarded as the direct result of man's first and most un- 

 reflective reactions to his world." 2 



This has luminous example in the religion of people at a 

 very low plane, of which an account was contributed by the 

 late Sir H. Risley to the Census of India, 1901, which, with 

 some valuable additional matter, was republished in his 

 People of India (Calcutta, 1908). " In trying to find out what 

 the jungle dwellers in Chutia Nagpur really believe," Sir 

 Henry says that he was " led to the negative conclusion that 

 in most cases the indefinite something which they fear and 

 attempt to propitiate is not a person at all in any sense of the 

 word. If one must state the case in positive terms, I should 

 say that the idea which lies at the base of their religion is 

 that of power, or rather of many powers. What the Animist 

 [more correctly, the pre-Animist] worships and seeks by all 

 means to influence and conciliate is the shifting and shadowy 

 company of unknown powers or influences making for evil 

 rather than for good, which resides in the primeval forest, in 

 the crumbling hills, in the rushing river, in the spreading 

 tree ; which gives its spring to the tiger, its venom to the 

 snake ; which generates jungle fever, and walks abroad in the 

 terrible guise of cholera, small-pox, or murrain. Closer than 

 this he does not seek to define the object to which he offers 



his victim some sort of power is there, and that is enough 



for him. All over Chutia Nagpur we find sacred groves, the 

 abode of equally indeterminate things who are represented 

 by no symbols, and of whose form and function no one can 



1 R. R. Marett, Threshold of Religion, Preface, x. 2 P. 145. 



