24 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



equality was pointed out, with finger-snappings, lest it might offend the 

 roj'al toe, and a running accompaniment of 'Dadda! dadda ! ' (Grand- 

 father ! grandfather !) and of ' Dedde ! dedde ! ' (softly ! softly !) was 

 kept up." In Asia, we find cases in which the titles "Lord Raja and 

 Lord Father" are joined together. In Europe, at the present time, 

 father is applied to the czar ; and in ancient times, under the form s^Ve, 

 it was the common name for potentates of various grades — feudal lords 

 and king's : and still continues to be one of the names used in address- 

 ing a monarch.' 



More readily than usual, perhaps from its double meaning, has this 

 title been diffused. Everywhere we find it becoming the name for any 

 kind of superior. Not to the king only among the Zulus is the word 

 " baba," father, used; but also by inferiors of all ranks to those above 

 them. In Dahomey a slave applies this name to his master, as his 

 master applies it to the king. And Livingstone narrates how he was 

 referred to as " our father " by his attendants, as also was Burchell by 

 the Bachassins. It was the same of old in the East ; as when " his ser- 

 vants came near, and spake unto Naaman, and said. My father," etc. ; 

 and it is the same in the remote East at the present time. A Japanese 

 "apprentice addresses his patron as 'father.'" In Siam "children of 

 the nobles are called ' father and mother ' by their subordinates ; " and 

 Hue narrates how he saw Chinese laborers prostrating themselves be- 

 fore a mandarin, exclaiming, " Peace and happiness to our father and 

 mother ! " Then, as a stage in the descent to more general use, may be 

 noted its extension to those who, apart from their rank, have acquired 

 the superiority ascribed to age : a superiority sometimes taking prece- 

 dence of rank, as in Siam, and in certain ways in Japan and China. Such 

 extension occurred in ancient Rome, where pater was at once a magis- 

 terial title and a title given by the younger to the elder, though not re- 

 lated ; and in Russia, at the present time, the equivalent word is used 

 to the czar, to a priest, and to any aged man. Eventually it spreads to 

 young as well as old. Under the form sire, at first applied to feudal 

 rulers, major and minor, the title of father originated our familar sir ^ 

 once general among us in speech and still in letters. 



A curious group of derivatives, common among uncivilized and semi- 

 civilized peoples, must be named. The wish to compliment by ascrib- 

 ing that dignity which fatherhood implies, has in many places led to 

 the practice of replacing a man's proper name by a name which, while 

 it recalls this honorable paternity, distinguishes him by the name of his 



' Though the disputes respecting the origins of nre and sieur have ended in the con- 

 clusion that they are derived from the same root, meaning originally elder, yet it has be- 

 come clear that sire was a contracted form in use earlier than sieiir (the contracted form 

 of seigneur)^ and hence acquired a more general meaning, which became equivalent to 

 father. Its applicability to various persons of dignity besides the seigneur, is evidence 

 of its previous evolution and spread ; and that it had a meaning equivalent to father, is 

 shown by the fact that in early French grant-sire is used as an equivalent for grand-pere, 

 and also by the fact that sire was not applicable to an unmarried man. 



