350 POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS. 



thee, the lord of heaven, lord of the earth, sun, life of the whole world, 

 lord of time . . . lord of prosperity, creator of the harvest, fashioner 

 and former of mortals, dispenser of breath to all men ; animater of the 

 whole company of the gods . . . thou former of the great, creator 

 of the small . . . thou our lord, our sun, by whose words out of his 

 mouth Turn lives . . . grant us life out of thy hands . . . and 

 breath for our nostrils. &quot; 



This prayer introduces us to a remarkable parallel. Barneses, 

 whose powers, demonstrated by his conquests, were regarded 

 as so transcendant, is here described as ruling not only the 

 lower world but also the upper world ; and a like royal power 

 is alleged in two existing societies where absolutism is simi 

 larly unmitigated China and Japan. As shown when treat 

 ing of Ceremonial Institutions ( 347) both the Emperor of 

 China and the Japanese Mikado, have such supremacy in 

 heaven that they promote its inhabitants from rank to rank 

 at will. 



That this strengthening of political headship, if not by 

 ascribed godhood then by ascribed descent from a god (either 

 the apotheosized ancestor of the tribe or one of the elder 

 deities), was exemplified among the early Greeks, needs not 

 be shown. It was exemplified, too, among the Northern 

 Aryans. &quot; According to the old heathen faith, the pedigree 

 of the Saxon, Anglian, Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish kings 

 probably also those of the German and Scandinavian kings 

 generally was traced to Odin, or to some of his immediate 

 companions or heroic sons.&quot; 



It is further to be noted that a god-descended ruler who is 

 also chief priest of the gods (as he habitually is), obtains a 

 more effective supernatural aid than does the ruler to whom 

 magical powers alone are ascribed. For in the first place the 

 invisible agents invoked by the magician are not conceived to 

 be those of highest rank ; whereas the divinely-descended 

 ruler is supposed to get the help of a supreme invisible agent. 

 And in the second place, the one form of influence over these 

 dreaded superhuman beings, tends much less than the other 

 to become a permanent attribute of the ruler. Though among 



