o become detached from the trees, which are thenceforward only their
abodes; and here again animism has begun to pass into polytheism.

_Object Souls._--We distinguish between animate and inanimate nature,
but this classification has no meaning for the savage. The river
speeding on its course to the sea, the sun and moon, if not the stars
also, on their never-ceasing daily round, the lightning, fire, the
wind, the sea, all are in motion and therefore animate; but the savage
does not stop short here; mountains and lakes, stones and manufactured
articles, are for him alike endowed with souls like his own; he
deposits in the tomb weapons and food, clothes and implements, broken,
it may be, in order to set free their souls; or he attains the same
result by burning them, and thus sending them to the Other World for
the use of the dead man. Here again, though to a less extent than in
tree cults, the theriomorphic aspect recurs; in the north of Europe,
in ancient Greece, in China, the water or river spirit is horse or
bull-shaped; the water monster in serpent shape is even more widely
found, but it is less strictly the spirit of the water. The spirit
of syncretism manifests itself in this department of animism too; the
immanent spirit of the earlier period becomes the presiding genius
or local god of later times, and with the rise of the doctrine of
separable souls we again reach the confines of animism pure and
simple.

_Spirits in General._--Side by side with the doctrine of separable
souls with which we have so far been concerned, exists the belief in
a great host of unattached spirits; these are not immanent souls which
have become detached from their abodes, but have every appearance
of independent spirits. Thus, animism is in some directions little
developed, so far as we can see, among the Australian aborigines;
but from those who know them best we learn that they believe in
innumerable spirits and bush bogies, which wander, especially at
night, and can be held at bay by means of fire; with this belief may
be compared the ascription in European folk belief of prophylactic
properties to iron. These spirits are at first mainly malevolent;
and side by side with them we find the spirits of the dead as hostile
beings. At a higher stage the spirits of dead kinsmen are no
longer unfriendly, nor yet all non-human spirits; as fetishes (see
FETISHISM), naguals (see TOTEM), familiars, gods or demi-gods (for
which and the gen