Animism in Philosophy.—­The term “animism” has been applied to many different philosophical systems.  It is used to describe Aristotle’s view of the relation of soul and body held also by the Stoics and Scholastics.  On the other hand monadology (Leibnitz) has also been termed animistic.  The name is most commonly applied to vitalism, a view mainly associated with G.E.  Stahl and revived by F. Bouillier (1813-1899), which makes life, or life and mind, the directive principle in evolution and growth, holding that all cannot be traced back to chemical and mechanical processes, but that there is a directive force which guides energy without altering its amount.  An entirely different class of ideas, also termed animistic, is the belief in the world soul, held by Plato, Schelling and others.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.—­Tyler, Primitive Culture; Frazer, Golden Bough; Id. on Burial Customs in J.A.  I. xv.; Mannhardt, Baumkultus; G.A.  Wilken, Het Animisme; Koch on the animism of S. America in Internationales Archiv, xiii., Suppl.; Andrew Lang, Making of Religion; Skeat, Malay Magic; Sir G. Campbell, “Spirit Basis of Belief and Custom,” in Indian Antiquary, xxiii. and succeeding volumes; Folklore, iii. 289. xi. 162; Spencer, Principles of Sociology; Mind (1877), 141, 415 et seq.  For animism in philosophy, Stahl, Theoria; Bouillier, Du Principe vital.

(N.W.T.)

ANIMUCCIA, GIOVANNI, Italian musical composer, was born at Florence in the last years of the 15th century.  At the request of St. Filippo Neri he composed a number of Laudi, or hymns of praise, to be sung after sermon time, which have given him an accidental prominence in musical history, since their performance in St. Filippo’s Oratory eventually gave rise (on the disruption of 16th century schools of composition) to those early forms of “oratorio” that are not traceable to the Gregorian-polyphonic “Passions.”  St. Filippo admired Animuccia so warmly that he declared he had seen the soul of his friend fly upwards towards heaven.  In 1555 Animuccia was appointed maestro di capella at St. Peter’s, an office which he held until his death in 1571.  He was succeeded by Palestrina, who had been his friend and probably his pupil.  The manuscript of many of Animuccia’s compositions is still preserved in the Vatican Library.  His chief published works were Madrigali e Motetti a quattro e cinque voci (Ven. 1548) and Il primo Libra di Messe (Rom. 1567).  From the latter Padre Martini has taken two specimens for his Saggio di Contrapunto.  A mass from the Primo Libra di Messe on the canto fermo of the hymn Conditor alme siderum is published in modern notation in the Anthologie des maitres religieux primitifs of the Chanteurs de Saint Gervais.  It is solemn and noble in conception, and would be a great work but for a roughness which is more careless than archaic.