After a death, the ghost remains peaceably in the house four days (if a man) or five (if a woman), and is then dismissed by a ceremony to the grave, to wait there until a child is born in the village, when it is recalled to be the child’s tutelary spirit.[258] § 10. EVOLUTION AND DISSOLUTION OF ANIMISM Animism, originating in the belief in ghosts of men, tends to spread as the explanation of whatever had formerly been attributed to Magic (if we take this to have been earlier); although it is far from occupying the whole region that thus lies open to it. We have seen that the extent of its prevalence as an explanatory principle, and consequently as the basis of cults, differs greatly amongst different peoples. But more interesting than the spread of belief as to the agency of spirits so as to include more and more objects, is the gradual differentiation of some of them from common ghosts in power, character and rank, and their integration into families and polities, such as we see in the _Edda_ and the _Iliad_. A process, going on for ages and varying with every people, cannot be briefly described: the work of E. B. Tylor, Herbert Spencer, W. Wundt and others in this department is well known. In general it may be said that, allowing for the influences of geographical conditions and tradition and foreign intercourse, the chief cause of the evolution of a spirit-world is the political evolution of those who believe in it; so that the patriarchies, aristocracies, monarchies and despotisms of this world are reflected in heaven. Tribes of the lowest culture—some African Pygmies, Fuegians, Mafulu, Semangs, Veddas—have the least Animism; at successive grades—Australians, Melanesians, Congolese, Amerinds, Polynesians—Animism increases and grows more systematic; and it culminates in the barbaric civilisations of Egypt, Babylonia and India, and of Mexico and Peru. But in civilisations of our modern type it rapidly loses ground.