2 2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



spoken, all exclaim, "The Spirit speaketh true." All which facts make 

 comprehensible that assumption of Qecx; as a title by ancient kings in the 

 East which is to moderns so astonishing. 



Descent of this name of honor into ordinary intercourse, though not 

 common, does sometimes occur. After what has been said above, it 

 will not appear strange that it should be applied to deceased persons ; 

 as, according to Motolinia, it was by the ancient Mexicans, who " called 

 any of their dead teotl so and so — i. e., this or that god, this or that 

 saint." And prepared by such an instance we shall understand the 

 better its occasional use as a greeting between the living. Colonel 

 Yule says of the Kasias, " The salutation at meeting is singular — 

 'Ruble! OGod!'" 



The connection between " God " as a title and " Father " as a title 

 becomes clear only on going back to those early forms of conception 

 and language in which the two are undifferentiated. The fact that, even 

 in so developed a language as Sanskrit, words which mean " making," 

 " fabricating," " begetting," or " generating," are indiscriminately used 

 for the same ^^urpose, suggests how naturally in the primitive mind the 

 living father, as begetter or visible causer of new beings, becoming at 

 death a causer of new beings who is no longer visible, is associated in 

 word and thought wi'th dead and invisible causers at large, who, some of 

 them acquiring preeminence, come to be regarded as causers in general 

 — makers or creators. When Sir Rutherford Alcock remarks that "a 

 spurious mixture of the theocratic and patriarchal elements forms the 

 bases of all government, both in the Celestial and the Japanese Empires, 

 under emperors who claim not only to be each the patriarch and father 

 of his people, but also divine descent," he adds one to the many mis- 

 interpretations produced by descending from our high conceptions, in- 

 stead of ascending from the low conceptions of the primitive man. For 

 what he thinks a " spurious mixture " of ideas is, in fact, a normal union 

 of ideas ; w4iich, in the cases named, has persisted longer than common- 

 ly happens in developed societies. 



The Zulus show us this union very clearly. They have traditions of 

 Unkulunkulu (literally, the old, old one), " who was the first man," 

 " who came into being and begat man," " who gave origin to man and 

 everything besides " (including the sun, moon, and heavens), and who 

 is inferred to have been a black man because all his descendants are 

 black. The original Unkulunkulu is not worshiped by them because he 

 is supposed to be permanently dead ; but instead of him the Unkulun- 

 kulus of the various tribes into which his descendants have divided are 

 severally worshiped, and severally called " Father." Here, then, the 

 ideas of a Creator and a Father are directly connected. Equally spe- 

 cific, or even more specific, are the kindred ideas conveyed in the an- 

 swers which the ancient Nicaraguans gave to the question, " Who made 

 heaven and earth ? " After their first answers, " Tamagastad and ^ipat- 



