The term animism (from Latin anima (soul, life)) commonly refers to belief systems that attribute souls to animals, plants an other entities, in addition to humans. Animism may also attribute souls to natural phenomena, geographic features, everyday objects and manufactured articles. More generally, animism is simply the belief in souls. In this general sense, animism is present in nearly all religions. British anthropologist Sir Edward Burnett Tylor argued in Primitive Culture (1871) that this belief was the most primitive and essential part of religion. Though animism itself is not a religion in the usual Western sense, some scholars believe that it contains the foundations on which religions are built.