163 CEREMONIAL INSTITUTIONS. 



sionate f ather, here is some food for you ; eat it ; be kind to 

 us on account of it &quot; we are shown that original identifi 

 cation of fatherhood and godhood, to which all mythologies 

 and theologies carry us back. We see the naturalness of the 

 facts that the Peruvian Yiicas worshipped their father the 

 Sun; that Ptah, the first of the dynasty of the gods who 

 ruled Egypt, is called &quot; the father of the father of the 

 gods; &quot; and that Zeus is &quot; father of gods and men.&quot; 



After contemplating many such early beliefs, in which 

 the divine and the human are so little distinguished, or 

 after studying the beliefs still extant in China and Japan, 

 where the rulers, &quot; sons of heaven,&quot; claim descent from 

 these most ancient fathers or gods; it is easy to see how 

 the name father in its higher sense, comes to be applied to 

 a living potentate. His proximate and remote ancestors 

 being all spoken of as fathers, distinguished only by the 

 prefixes grand, great great, &c., it results that the name 

 father, given to every member of the series, comes to be 

 given to the last of the series still living. With this cause 

 is joined a further cause. Where establishment of descent 

 in the male line has initiated the patriarchal family, the 

 name father, even in its original meaning, comes to be 

 associated with supreme authority, and to be therefore a 

 name of honour. Indeed, in nations formed by the com 

 pounding and re-compounding of patriarchal groups, the 

 two causes coalesce. The remotest known ancestor of each 

 compound group, at once the most ancient father and the 

 god of the compound group, being continuously represented 

 in blood, as well as in power, by the eldest descendant of 

 the eldest, it happens that this patriarch, who is head not 

 of his own group only but also of the compound group, 

 stands to both in a relation analogous to that in which the 

 apotheosized ancestor stands; and so combines in a measure 

 the divine character, the kingly character, and the paternal 

 character. 



Hence the prevalence of this word as a royal title. It is 



