1G6 CEREMONIAL INSTITUTIONS. 



and that to the Dahoman king the alternative word &quot; Spir 

 it &quot; is used; so that, when he summons any one, the messen 

 ger says &quot; The Spirit requires you/ 7 and when he has 

 spoken, all exclaim &quot; The Spirit speaketh true.&quot; All 

 which facts make comprehensible that assumption of eu? 

 as a title by ancient kings in the East, which is to moderns so 

 astonishing. 



Descent of this name of honour into ordinary inter 

 course, though not common, does sometimes occur. After 

 what has been said, it will not appear strange that it should 

 be applied to deceased persons; as it was by the ancient 

 Mexicans, who &quot; called any of their dead teotl so and so 

 i. e., this or that god, this or that saint.&quot; And prepared by 

 such an instance we shall understand its occasional use as a 

 greeting between the living. Colonel Yule says of the Iva- 

 sias, &quot;the salutation at meeting is singular Kuble! oh 

 God. &quot; 



403. The connexion between &quot; God &quot; as a title and 

 u Father &quot; as a title, becomes clear on going back to those 

 early forms of conception and language in which the two 

 are undifferentiated. The fact that even in so advanced a 

 language as Sanscrit, words which mean &quot; making,&quot; &quot; fab 

 ricating,&quot; &quot; begetting,&quot; or &quot; generating,&quot; are indiscrim 

 inately used for the same purpose, suggests how naturally in 

 the primitive mind, a father, as begetter or causer of new be 

 ings, ceasing at death to be visible, is then associated in word 

 and thought with dead and invisible causers at large, who, 

 some of them acquiring pre-eminence, come to be regarded 

 as causers in general makers or creators. AVhen Sir 

 Rutherford Alcock remarks that &quot; a spurious mixture of 

 the theocratic and patriarchal elements form 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 de 

 scent; &quot; he adds another to the misinterpretations produced 



