Animism is the belief in non-empirical entities, more precisely, in spirits and souls. Although the term had been used previously, animism as a scholarly concept originates in Edward B. Tylor's Primitive culture (London 1871), in which he argued that animism represented the first stage in the development of religion, a phase that was still observable in the modern era among some primitive peoples. The anthropomorphic attribution of soul and volition to inanimate objects and animals (fetishism and totemism, respectively) is included in the broad category of animism; while