Evolution; Knowledge, Theory of; Philosophy and religion
deaths, and are enforced by their divinely-descended successors; who in
their turns are promoted to the pantheon of the race, there to be
worshipped and propitiated along with their predecessors: the most
ancient of whom is the supreme god, and the rest subordinate gods. For a
long time these connate forms of government—civil and religious—continue
closely associated. For many generations the king continues to be the
chief priest, and the priesthood to be members of the royal race. For
many ages religious law continues to contain more or less of civil
regulation, and civil law to possess more or less of religious sanction;
and even among the most advanced nations these two controlling agencies
are by no means completely differentiated from each other. Having
a common root with these, and gradually diverging from them, we find yet
another controlling agency—that of Manners or ceremonial usages. All
titles of honour are originally the names of the god-king; afterwards of
God and the king; still later of persons of high rank; and finally come,
some of them, to be used between man and man. All forms of complimentary
address were at first the expressions of submission from prisoners to
their conqueror, or from subjects to their ruler, either human or
divine—expressions that were afterwards used to propitiate subordinate
authorities, and slowly descended into ordinary intercourse. All modes
of salutation were once obeisances made before the monarch and used in
worship of him after his death. Presently others of the god-descended
race were similarly saluted; and by degrees some of the salutations have
become the due of all.[9] Thus, no sooner does the originally
homogeneous social mass differentiate into the governed and the
governing parts, than this last exhibits an incipient differentiation
into religious and secular—Church and State; while at the same time
there begins to be differentiated from both, that less definite species
of government which rides our daily intercourse—a species of government
which, as we may see in heralds’ colleges, in books of the peerage, in
masters of ceremonies, is not without a certain embodiment of its own.
Each of these kinds of government is itself subject to successive
differentiations. In the course of ages, there arises, as among
ourselves, a highly complex political organization of monarch,
ministers, lords and commons, with their subordinate administrative
departments, courts of justice, revenue offices, &c., supplemented in
the provinces by municipal governments, county governments, parish or
union governments—all of them more or less elaborated. By its side there
grows up a highly complex religious organization, with its various
grades of officials from archbishops down to sextons, its colleges,
convocations, ecclesiastical courts, &c.; to all which must be added the
ever-multiplying independent sects, each with its general and local
authorities.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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