740 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



example. There is an hereditary sacred chief who " was originally 

 the sole chief, possessing temporal as well as spiritual power, and 

 regarded as of divine origin," but who is now politically powerless. 

 Abyssinia shows us something analogous. Holding no direct com- 

 munication with his subjects, and having a sacredness such that even 

 in council he sits unseen, the monarch is a mere dummy. In Gondar, 

 one of the divisions of Abyssinia, the king must belong to the royal 

 house of Solomon, but any one of the turbulent chiefs who has ob- 

 tained ascendancy by force of arms becomes a Ras a prime minister 

 or real monarch ; but he requires " a titular emperor to pei'f orm the 

 indispensable ceremony of nominating a Ras," since the name, at 

 least, of emperor " is deemed essential to render valid the title of 

 Ras." The case of Thibet may be named as one in which the sacred- 

 ness of the original political head is dissociated from the claim based 

 on hereditary descent ; for the Grand Lama, considered as *' God the 

 Father," incarnate afresh in each new occupant of the throne, does 

 not receive his divine nature by natural descent, but, receiving it 

 supernaturally, is discovered among the people at large by certain 

 indications of his godhood ; and with his divinity, involving discon- 

 nection with tempoi'al matters, there goes absence of political power, 

 A like state of things exists in Bootan. " The Dhurma Raja is looked 

 upon by the Bootanese in the same light as the Grand Lama of Thibet 

 is viewed by his subjects namely, as a perpetual incarnation of the 

 Deity, or Buddha himself in a corporeal form. During the interval 

 between his death and reappearance, or, more properly speaking, until 

 he has reached an age sufficiently mature to ascend his spiritual 

 throne, the office of Dhurma Raja is filled by proxy from among the 

 priesthood." And then along with this sacred ruler there coexists a 

 secular one. Bootan " has two nominal heads, known to us and to the 

 neighboring hill-tribes under the Hindoostanee names of the Dhurma 

 and the Deb Rajas. . . . The former is the spiritual head, the latter 

 the temporal one." Though in this case it is said that the temporal 

 head has not great influence (probably because the priest-regent, 

 whose celibacy prevents him from founding a line, stands in the way 

 of unchecked assumption of power by the temporal head), still the 

 existence of a temporal head implies a partial lapsing of political func- 

 tions out of the hands of the original political head. But the most 

 remarkable and at the same time most familiar example is that fur- 

 nished by Japan. Here the supplanting of inherited authority by 

 deputed authority is exemplified, not in the central government alone, 

 but in the local governments. " Next to the prince and his family 

 came the hiros or ' elders.' Their office became hereditary, and, like 

 the princes, they in many instances became effete. The business of 

 what we may call the clan would thus fall into the hands of any 

 clever man or set of men of the lower ranks, who, joining ability to 

 daring and unscrupulousness, kept the princes and the 7tros out of 



