Naturism is the term proposed by Reville to designate the worship of nature. The core and essence of nature worship is that nature is animated throughout. Tylor considers nature – worship as connecting bond between Fetishism and Polytheism. This theory is sometimes called personification of natural forces , but only in the sense that nature is conceived as living , as vital with creative and preservative powers. Personification in the strict ‘sense’’ of investing material things with the attributes of a person is far above the power of early man and appears only in later forms of developed belief.
Primitive man faces the world about him in childlike wonder. The succession of the seasons, of night and day, of storm and cloud, the growth of living things, exhibit nature in constant and varied changes. He views natural phenomena as the effects of causes beyond his comprehension and/control. Conscious of his own agency , though unable yet to distinguish soul from the parts of the body , he attributes agency like his own to the objects with surrounded him. that’s why they called sun rises , tree giving fruits , river flowing etc were used same as human actions. Awe and delight possess him. Having no idea at all God , writes Keary , he makes the things themselves gods by worshiping them.
Thus Naturism teaches that man originally was destitute of religion , and that ignorant awe in face of natural forces was the cause of his earliest faith.