ption has been expanded
and modified in a great variety of ways among different peoples, but the
belief in the anthropomorphic nature of the astral bodies has been an
element of all religions except the highest.

+98+. The apparent incongruities in the savage theory--that all things
are endowed with life--need occasion us no difficulty. Complete
consistency and tenability in such theories is not to be expected. Early
men, like the lower animals, were doubtless capable of distinguishing
between things living and things dead: a dog quickly discovers whether a
moving object is alive. Man and beasts have in such questions canons of
criticism derived from long experience.[205]

+99+. But man differs from the beast in that he feels the necessity of
accounting for life by the hypothesis of a soul, and as he seems to
himself to find evidence of life in plants and minerals (movement,
growth, decay), he is justified in attributing souls to all things. He
is interested, however, only in movements that affect his welfare.
Whatever his general theory about rocks, a particular rock, as long as
it does not affect his life, is for him an inert and worthless mass,
practically dead; but if he discovers that it has power to harm him, it
becomes instinct with life, and is treated as a rational being. Man has
shown himself practical in all stages of religion; he is always the
center of his world, and treats objects and theories with sole regard to
his own well-being.

+100+. The world of the savage was thus peopled with souls, and these
came to have an independent existence. That this was the case with human
souls is pointed out above,[206] and by analogy the separateness was
extended to all souls. Thus there arose tree-spirits, river-spirits, and
other similar extrahuman beings. It is convenient to employ the term
'spirit' as the designation of the soul in a nonhuman object, isolated
and independent, and regarded as a Power to be treated with respect. The
term is sometimes used of a disembodied human soul, and sometimes of a
deity resident in an object of nature. It is better to distinguish, as
far as possible, between these different senses of the word. The
functions of a spirit are sometimes practically identical with those of
a god. The difference between these two classes of extrahuman agents is
one of general culture; it is especially determined in any community by
the extent of the organization of such agents that has been effected