chapter 1 - Bentham Science

50 The Primitive Mind and Modern Man John Alan Cohan
as bearing prophetic messages or warnings to us, and it is quite common for us to talk to their dogs or cats or other
animals. Lott and Hart (1977) assert:
Man is one of the few species to enter into an extended and complex social relationship with other
species. In some instances, such as the shepherd with his dog and the cowboy with his horse, this may
involve staking his well-being, and even his life, on the success of a close social relationship with
members of another species (p. 174).
People in primitive cultures have a remarkable and thoroughgoing practical knowledge of the life, origin, habits,
behavior, capacities, and structure of animals in their environment. They can point out individual plants or trees or
birds and ascribe certain traits to them. Animals are thought to have the same sort of vitality, consciousness and will
to survive as do human beings. They are thought to have a language of their own and can understand what human
beings are saying and doing. They live a life that is parallel in many respects to that of human societies.
The modern environmental movement is in large part animistic, with concerns that we have lost touch with how
connected we are to the Earth:
For a long time now, we have been unable to remember our former closeness with the Earth. Due to this
amnesia, the ecological problems now thrust upon us have come as a shock.... We notice the emergence
of an amnesia that is really a double forgetting, wherein a culture forgets, and then forgets it has forgotten
how to live in harmony with the planet (Devereux, Steele & Kubrin, 1989, pp. 2-3).
Animism goes hand in hand with totemism, which we will discuss in the next chapter. Many cultures associate their
own identity with certain animals or plants-their totems.
PHILOSOPHICAL, RELIGIOUS AND SCIENTIFIC GROUNDING OF ANIMISM
Animism takes into account the reality that life is difficult to define, the criteria of what constitutes life is far from
certain, and the difference between living and nonliving entities is hard to make out. As a matter of fact, scientists
cannot define life, so that there “may not be an absolutely rigorous distinction between inanimate matter and matter
in a living state” (Sebeck, 1988, p. 72). Aristotle said: “Nature proceeds little by little from inanimate things to
living creatures, in such a way that we are unable, in the continuous sequence, to determine the boundary line...” (as
quoted in Lloyd, 1966, p. 258).
Quantum physicist David Bohm says:
Dividing the universe up into living and non-living things has no meaning. Animate and inanimate matter
are inseparably interwoven and life, too, is enfolded throughout the totality of the universe. Even a rock is
in some way alive,... for life and intelligence are present not only in all of matter, but in “energy,”
“space,” “time,” the fabric of the entire universe (as quoted in Talbot, 1991, p. 50).
A central feature of animism is the idea that the soul is not unique to humans. What constitutes the soul and why in
principle souls should be the exclusive province of human beings are deep philosophical questions. The idea of a
soul is that we possess, at the same time of having a material body, an intangible and insensible spark of life-a
unique identity-perhaps capable of a separate existence from the body. The soul might be thought of as an ethereal
aspect or counterpart of our bodies, but more permanent than bodies, perhaps eternal. Warneck comments that the
soul is “an elixir of life, a life-stuff, which is found everywhere in nature” (as quoted in Chapman, 1921, p. 298).
Usually primitives believe in the preexistence of souls, the future existence of souls, the existence of souls in the
lower animals and in inanimate objects, in the power of one soul to affect another, and particularly the power of the
spirit of one who has recently died to attract to itself the spirits of the living.
The ancient Greek philosopher, Thales, held that “all things are full of gods,” and that magnets and amber have
souls (as quoted in Lloyd, 1966, pp. 233-234). Heraclitus thought that fire was alive, that it made human souls
(Lloyd, 1966, p. 237). Plato thought that the world, the sun, stars and planets are living creatures with souls (Lloyd,
1966, pp. 254, 257).