722 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tliem. In Dahomey, where the militant type is so far developed that 

 women .are warriors, men are almost daily sacrificed by the monarch 

 to please his dead father; and the ghosts of old kings are invoked for 

 aid in war by blood sprinkled on their tombs. The war-god of the 

 Mexicans (originally a conqueror), the most revered of their gods, had 

 his idol fed with human flesh ; wars being undertaken to supply him 

 with victims. And similarly in Peru, where there were habitual hu- 

 man sacrifices, men taken captive w^ere immolated to the father of the 

 Incas, the sun. How militant societies of old in the East similarly 

 evolved deities, who were similarly propitiated by bloody rites, needs 

 merely indicating. Habitually their mythologies represent gods as 

 conquerors; habitually their gods are named "the strong one," 

 " the destroyer," " the avenger," " god of battles," " lord of hosts," 

 "man of war," and so forth. As we read in Assyrian inscriptions, 

 wars were commenced by their alleged will; and, as we read else- 

 where, peoples were massacred wholesale in professed obedience to 

 them. How its theological government, like its political government, 

 is essentially military, we see even in late and qualified forms of the 

 predatory type; for, down to the present time, absolute subordina- 

 tion, like that of soldier to commander, is the supreme virtue, and 

 disobedience the crime for which eternal torture is threatened. 



Similarly with the accompanying ecclesiastical organization. Very 

 generally, where the militant type is highly developed, the political 

 head and ecclesiastical head are identical the king, chief descendant 

 of his ancestor, who has become a god, is also chief propitiator of him. 

 It was so in ancient Peru ; and in Tezcuco and Tlacopan (Mexico) 

 the high-priest was the king's second son. The Egyptian wall- 

 paintings show us kings performing sacrifices; as do also the As- 

 syrian. Babylonian records harmonize with Hebrew traditions in 

 telling us of priest-kings. In Lydia it was the same; Croesus was 

 king and priest. In Sparta, too, the kings, while military chiefs, were 

 also high-priests; and a trace of the like original relation existed in 

 Rome. A system of subordination, essentially akin to the military, has 

 habitually characterized the accompanying priesthoods. The Feejeeans 

 have an hereditary priesthood, forming a hierarchy. In Tahiti, Avhere 

 the high-priest was royal, there were grades of hereditary priests be- 

 longing to each social rank. In ancient Mexico the priesthoods of 

 different gods had different ranks, and there were three ranks within 

 each priesthood; and in ancient Peru, besides the royal chief priest, 

 there were priests of the conquering race set over various classes of 

 inferior priests. A like type of structure, with subjection of rank to 

 rank, has characterized priesthoods in the ancient and modern bel- 

 ligerent societies of the Old World. The like mode of government 

 is traceable throughout the sustaining organization also, so long as 

 the social type remains predominantly militant. Beginning with 

 simple societies, in which the slave-class furnishes the warrior-class 



