This animistic tendency is a marked characteristic of primitive Man in every land.
His world-conception is highly animistic. He feels the thrill of life everywhere, in plants, earth, stars, the total universe.
Tylor, makes the foundation of all religion animistic, but recognizes the non-human character of polytheistic gods.
With the rise of species, deities and the cult of individual animals, the path towards anthropomorphization and polytheism is opened and the respect paid to animals tends to lose its strict animistic character.
All over the world agricultural peoples practise elaborate ceremonies explicable, as Mannhardt has shown, on animistic principles.