There is not anything in the least phantasmal about the Greek god Apollo.
I think, then, that we had better distinguish this wider sense of animism by a different name, calling it "animatism," since that will serve at once to disconnect and to connect the two conceptions.
I am not sure, however, how far we ought to press this "doctrine of universal vitality." Does a savage, for instance, when he is hammering at a piece of flint think of it as other than a "thing," any more than we should?
I doubt it.

He may say "Confound you!" if it suddenly snaps in two, just as we might do.

But though the language may seem to imply a "you," he would mean, I believe, to impute to the flint just as much, or as little, of personality as we should mean to do when using similar language.

In other words, I believe that, within the world of his ordinary work-a-day experience, he recognizes both things and persons; without giving a thought, in either case, to the hidden principles that make them be what they are, and act as they do.
When, on the other hand, the thing, or the person, falls within the world of supernormal experience, when they strike the imagination as wonderful and wonder-working, then there is much more reason why he should seek to account to himself for the mystery in, or behind, the strange appearance.

Howitt, who knew his Australian natives intimately, cites the following as "a good example of how the native mind works." To the black-fellow his club or his spear are part and parcel of his ordinary life.