ABSTRACT
In primitive culture it is possible to distinguish two quite different kinds of thinking—animistic thinking, in which one tries to adjust oneself to the external world as to a person, and the ordinary practical thinking by which the daily arts of life are carried on. But the practical arts of life develop alongside of it, and indeed within its very temple, and the actual control of man over his environment begins to be almost as exciting as this rather montonous conjuring of the world-spirit. Moreover, these arts develop a technology which rests upon theoretic assumptions, and these theoretic assumptions begin to be formulated by creative minds in contact with the artisan class. The history of philosophy shows, of course, a confusing interplay of the two attitudes, the attempt to generalize science, and the metaphysician’s art of implanting animism within the assumptions of science.
