Revision summary
Tylor: religion begins as animism, belief in spiritual beings from dreams and death. Müller: gods begin as linguistic personifications of natural forces, especially in the Veda. Both are intellectualist. Durkheim relocates the sacred in the group. Use them as a contrast pair, not as the last word.
Model answer
Copper italics in this answer — like this — are the key facts. Each one is unpacked in the Facts & figures rail.
Introduction
E. B. Tylor and Max Müller both gave intellectualist accounts of religion’s origin. They disagreed on the first idea. Tylor started from the soul in dreams and death. Müller started from language and the naming of natural powers.
Body
Tylor: animism
- In Primitive Culture, religion is belief in spiritual beings.
- Dreams, trance, and death suggest a soul; the idea is extended to animals, plants, and the world.
- Survivals carry old belief into later stages. Evolution is from animism toward more abstract theism.
Müller: nature and speech
- Comparative philology of the Veda: gods arise as names of sun, dawn, and sky that language later personifies.
- Myth is a disease of language: forgotten metaphors become stories of beings.
- India and Indo-European comparison, not only a tribal isolate, are his archive.
Shared limit and Durkheim’s cut
- Both treat the first worshipper as a puzzled philosopher. Emile Durkheim answered that the sacred is social assembly, not a mistaken inference.
- Neither theorised church, caste priesthood, or gendered cult as power.
Comparison stated
- Origin: soul (Tylor) versus spoken nature-names (Müller).
- Method: ethnological survivals versus philology.
- Both remain useful as history of ideas, not as adequate sociologies of religion.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD TYL[Tylor animism soul] --> INT[Intellectualist origin] MUL[Muller language nature gods] --> INT DUR[Durkheim sacred social] --> CRIT[Critique of both]
Conclusion
Tylor’s animism and Müller’s nature-mythology are two intellectualist origins. They differ on soul versus language. Durkheim’s social sacred, and later Weberian meaning, overtake both as sociology, while the two still mark the Victorian debate.
Quick related
Students also ask
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What is cult ? Explain the growth of cults in the contemporary world
Next question on this syllabus topic (2021 · Q5(d)). View answer →
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Did Müller study only India?
India and Indo-European philology were central. The claim was about language and nature more widely.
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Is animism still used?
As Tylor’s evolutionary first stage, it is dated. As a label for spirit cosmologies, ethnography still uses it with care.
Same topic · past papers
UPSC has asked this before
These previous-year questions sit on the same topic. Open one to practise the earlier ask.
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2016 · Q8(b) · Sociology GS 1 · 15 marks
How is Durkheim's theory of religion different from Max Weber's theory of religion?
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