PANPSYCHISM. - It is the doctrine that attributes a soul to all things, even those of inorganic nature (πᾶν, all, ψυχή, soul), insofar as it is observed that every being presents a well-defined structure and shows in its action upon the surrounding world a precise and constant finality.
This conception includes the early Greek philosophy (Ionians) and, in part, also Stoic philosophy with the theory of the πᾶν τεχνηκόν, the motive principle of all things. Panpsychism returns in the philosophies of the Renaissance (v.) with the revival of the theory of the anima mundi, which is the act of all things and in turn differentiates itself into the particular souls of individual things: it is the first act of prime matter, according to Giordano Bruno (cf. De la causa, principio et Uno, ed. G. Gentile, Bari 1925, p. 213). In our own time, E. Haeckel (v.) defended panpsychism to provide a foundation for his thesis of universal evolutionism.