734- THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



resentative of the Divinity on earth, and of the same substance " ; 

 and not only did he in many cases become a god after death, but he 

 was worshiped as a god during life ; as witness the following prayer 

 to Rameses II : 



When they had come before the kiug . . . they fell down to the ground, and 

 with their hands they prayed to the king. They praised this divine benefactor, 

 . . . speaking thus : " We are come before thee, the lord of heaven, lord of the 

 earth, sun, life of the whole woi-ld, lord of time, . . . lord of prosperity, creator 

 of the harvest, fashioner and former of mortals, dispenser of breath to all men ; 

 animater of the whole company of the gods, . . . thou former of the great, 

 creator of the small, . . . thou our lord, our sun, by whose words out of his 

 mouth Tum lives, . , . grant us life out of thy hands . . . and breath for our 

 nostrils." 



This prayer introduces us to a remarkable parallel. Rameses, 

 whose powers, demonstrated by his conquests, were regarded as so 

 transcendent, is here described as ruling not only the lower world but 

 also the upper world ; and a like royal power is alleged in two existing 

 societies where absolutism is similarly unmitigated China and Japan, 

 As shown when treating of " Ceremonial Institutions," both the Em- 

 peror of China and the Japanese Mikado have such supremacy in 

 heaven that they promote its inhabitants from rank to rank at will. 



That this strengthening of political headship, if not by ascribed 

 godhood then by ascribed descent from a god (either the apotheosized 

 ancestor of the tribe or one of the elder deities), was exemplified 

 among the early Greeks, needs not be shown. It was exemplified, too, 

 among the Northern Aryans. " According to the old heathen faith, 

 the pedigree of the Saxon, Anglian, Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish 

 kings probably also those of the German and Scandinavian kings 

 generally' was traced to Odin, or to some of his immediate companions 

 or heroic sons." 



It is further to be noticed that a god-descended ruler who is also 

 chief priest of the gods (as he habitually is) obtains a more effectual 

 supernatural aid than does the ruler to whom magical powers alone are 

 ascribed. For in the first place the invisible agents invoked by the 

 madcian are not conceived to be those of highest rank ; whereas the 

 divinely-descended ruler is supposed to get the help of a supreme in- 

 visible agent. And, in the second place, the one form of influence over 

 these dreaded superhuman beings tends much less than the other to 

 become a permanent attribute of the ruler. Though among the Chib- 

 chas we find a case in which magical power was transferred to a suc- 

 cessorthough " the cacique of Sogamoso made known that he [Bochi- 

 ca] had left him heir of all his sanctity, and that he had the same 

 power of making rain when he liked," and giving health or sickness 

 (an assertion believed by the people) yet this is an exceptional case. 

 Speaking generally, the chief whose relations with the supernatural 

 world are those of a sorcerer does not transmit his relations ; and he 



