NATURE-WORSHIP. The worship of all objective phenomena which man regards as liable to hurt or help him, and which even when life less are deprecated or invoked as powers hav ing volition. Nature-worship is based on spiritism, but this, not being in itself a religion, hut a philosophy, does not imply worship. in many cases the savage simply regards rocks and trees as volitive powers only when they act in a way suggesting volition. So long as a stone, for example. does not interfere with him, he is apt to disregard it altogether; hut when it injures him. or he wishes to use it, he assumes, like a child, that it possesses spiritual power expressed by will. Whether then the savage deprecates or placates, the cult of such an object is a religious phase. Even in the lowest stages of human evolution, it may happen that some one object, like the village tree of the Aryan, or the clan mountain of the Munda, or the family snake of some Dravidians, is regarded as tutelary, and offerings and prayers are made to it although other natural phenomena are either ignored or treated only as inimical spirits. This may lie said
to be a stage between demonolatry and nature worship, though a more general cult of phe nomena usually accompanies the worship of any one side of nature. ,Nature-worship, manifold as nature, shows aspects which may be grouped in categories, but in no elassification can a sharp line be drawn between the different divisions. In arranging the objects of worship only a rough classification, therefore, will here he attempted. As parts of objective nature on a par with others must be included both man and animals, though these are often put into special categories.