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etween medicine man and priest. Prompted as offerings on graves originally are by affection for the deceased, it naturally happens that such propitiations are made more by relatives than others. The family cult next acquires a more definite form by the devolution of its functions on one member of the family. Hence in ancient Egypt "it was most important that a man should have a son established in his seat after him who should perform the due rites" of sacrifice to his _ka_ or double. Facts also show that the devolution of the sacrificial office accompanies devolution of property, for this has to bear the costs of the sacrifices; and by a natural corollary the head of the village-community combines the characters of priest and ruler. With the increase of a chief's territory there comes an accumulation of business which necessitates the employment of assistants, and among the functions deputed is that of priest, at first perhaps temporarily assumed by a brother. Such is the usual origin of priesthood. Many facts make it clear that, not only the genesis of polytheism but the long survival of it are sequences of primitive ancestor-worship. Eventually there result under favouring conditions a gravitation towards monotheism; and with this an advance towards unification of priesthood. The official proprietors of the deity who has come to be regarded as the most powerful or as the possessor of all power becomes established everywhere. Likeness between ecclesiastical and political organisations when they have diverged is largely due to their community of origin. There results a hierarchy of sacerdotal functionaries analogous to the graduated system of political functionaries; then the agencies for carrying on celestial rule and terrestrial rule eventually begin to compete for supremacy; and there are reasons for thinking that the change from an original predominance of a spiritual power over the temporal power to ultimate subjugation of it is mainly due to the development of industrialism with the moral and intellectual changes involved. PROSPECT What may we infer will be the evolution of religious ideas and sentiments throughout the future? The development of those higher sentiments which no longer tolerate the ascription of inferior sentiments to a divinity, and the intellectual development which causes dissatisfaction with the crude interpretations previously accepted, must force men hereafter to drop the higher
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