From the essay where Rusking originally coined the term (http://www.ourcivilisation.com/smartboard/shop/ruskinj/), it would seem Ruskin meant for the term to be used in a different way, to mean the projection of our feelings onto the world around us:

Thus, for instance, in Alton Locke-

They rowed her in across the rolling foam-
The cruel, crawling foam.

The foam is not cruel, neither does it crawl. The state of mind which attributes to it these characters of a living creature is one in which the reason is unhinged by grief. All violent feelings have the same effect. They produce in us a falseness in all our impressions of external things, which I would generally characterize as the 'Pathetic Fallacy'.


Bingley


Bingley