We have already seen that the virtue of the corn-spirit, embodied in animal form, is sometimes supposed to reside in the tail, and that the last handful of corn is sometimes conceived as the tail of the corn-spirit.
This indicates a confusion between the conceptions of the corn-spirit as theriomorphic (in animal form) and as anthropomorphic (in human form).
But however we may explain it, the fact remains that in peasant folk-lore the corn-spirit is very commonly conceived and represented in animal form.
However, since the principle itself is conceived under an animal form, the animal seems to incarnate it more fully than the man.
In other societies where totemism has weakened or disappeared, the soul still continues to be thought of in an animal form.
But it also comes to the conclusion that the reincarnation may be in animal form.
Belief in such animal reincarnation has, in its origin, however, no connection with any theory that transmigration from a human to an animal form is a punishment.
Or the doctrine of rebirth may be satisfied by the belief that the soul is reincarnated in animal form.
Because man's physical structure has been developed from an animal form by natural selection, it does not follow that his mental nature, even though developed pari passu with it, has been developed by the same causes only.
On the other hand, some of these survivals may mean no more than that the soul itself has already an animal form, in which it would naturally be seen after death.
And when a god was thus separated from his animal form, myths often arose telling how he himself had slain the animal.
In some cases the dead have an animal form, as in the Voyage of Maelduin, where birds on an island are said to be souls, or in the legend of S.
Sometimes, however, as we shall see, the human soul is conceived not in human but in animal form.
This custom of killing a god in animal form, which we shall examine more fully presently, belongs to a very early stage in human culture, and is apt in later times to be misunderstood.
All this, however, does not explain why a deity of vegetation should appear in animal form.
We have already seen that the virtue of the corn-spirit, embodied in animal form, is sometimes supposed to reside in the tail, and that the last handful of corn is sometimes conceived as the tail of the corn spirit.
M1) However we may explain it, the fact remains that in peasant folk-lore the corn-spirit is very commonly conceived and represented in animal form.
The latter is a description of the variety of animal form, the former is a treatise on the functions of the parts.
Leuckart and Rathke called attention to the absolute impossibility of explaining by materialistic physiology the unity of plan underlying the diversity of animal form.
The custom of killing a god in animal form, which we shall examine more in detail further on, belongs to a very early stage of human culture, and is apt in later times to be misunderstood.
Certain people have had ascribed to them the power of self-transformation, a curious psychical gift which to this day appeals to imaginative people, and which may be regarded as a projection of mind in animal form.
The West African negroes believe that a man can have as many as four souls, one of which lives in animal form out in the bush, and is then called his bush-soul.
The Melanesians of Mota in the New Hebrides, call the soul the atai, and they believe that every person has a second self which is visible and is, in fact, the reflection in animal form of his own personality.
The Egyptians, according to Plutarch, puzzled by the circumstance that so many of their gods were pictured in animal form, invented as an explanation the tale that in a moment of danger the gods concealed themselves in the bodies of animals.
The tales of gods who masquerade as animals are probably reminiscent of a time when they were worshipped in animal form.
M15) All this, however, does not explain why a deity of vegetation should appear in animal form.
M14) The custom of killing a god in animal form, which we shall examine more in detail further on, belongs to a very early stage of human culture, and is apt in later times to be misunderstood.
Just as human souls are assigned to animals, so primitive man often credits trees and plants with souls in both human or animal form.
Spirits of vegetation in ancient and modern Europe and in China are conceived in animal form.
The above list will hopefully provide you with a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "animal form" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this group of words.
