animism

Meaning

Noun

• A belief that spirits inhabit some or all classes of natural objects or phenomena.
• A belief that an immaterial force animates the universe.
• A doctrine that animal life is produced by an immaterial spirit.

Origin

• anima + -ism, from Latin anima ("life", "breath", "soul"). Dated sense from German Animismus, coined c. 1720 by physicist/chemist Georg Ernst Stahl (1660-1734) See anima mundi.