Professor Tylor has explained how death and all forms of disease were attributed to magic, the essence of which is the belief in the influence of the spirits of dead men. This belief is termed Animism, and Mr. Tylor says: “Animism characterizes tribes very low in the scale of humanity, and thence ascends, deeply modified in its transmission, but from first to last preserving an unbroken continuity, into the midst of high culture. Animism is the groundwork of the philosophy of religion, from that of the savages up to that of civilized men; but although it may at first seem to afford but a meagre and bare definition of a minimum of religion, it will be found practically sufficient; for where the roots are, the branches will generally be produced. The theory of animism divides into two great dogmas, forming parts of one consistent doctrine: first, concerning souls of individual creatures, capable of continued existence after death; second, concerning other spirits, upward to the rank of powerful deities. Spiritual beings are held to affect or control the events of the material world, and man’s life here and hereafter; and it being considered that they hold intercourse with men and receive pleasure or displeasure from human actions, the belief in their existence leads naturally, sooner or later, to active reverence and propitiation.” There is no doubt that the belief in the soul and in the existence of the spirits of the departed in another world arose from dreams. When the savage in his sleep held converse, as it seemed to him, with the actual forms of his departed relatives and friends, the most natural thing imaginable would be the belief that these persons actually existed in a spiritual shape in some other world than the material one in which he existed. Those who dreamed most frequently and most vividly, and were able to describe their visions most clearly, would naturally strive to interpret their meaning, and would become, to their grosser and less poetical brethren, more important personages, and be considered as in closer converse with the spiritual world than themselves. Thus, in process of time, the seer, the prophet, and the magician would be evolved.