+337+. Many cases, in fact, are reported in which living men are worshiped as gods; but such reports are often open to doubt and need confirmation. Travelers and other observers are not always in position to state the facts precisely; particularly they do not always distinguish between awe and religious worship, and the statements of savages on this point are often vague. Frazer has collected a considerable number of examples of alleged worship of living men.[623] One of these, that of the dairyman (_palol_) of the Todas of Southern India, is not supported by the latest observer, who says that the palol is highly respected but not worshiped.[624] An apparently clear case of worship is the Panjab god Nikkal Sen, said to be General Nicholson;[625] and it is not improbable that in other cases mentioned by Frazer (Marquesas Islands, Raiatea, Samoa, Fiji) actual deification takes place. +338+. Among many more-advanced communities divinity has been ascribed to living monarchs: to the kings of ancient Egypt; to many early Babylonian kings; to the emperor of China; to some of the Ptolemies and Seleucids; to certain Roman emperors; to the kings of Mexico and Peru; and in more modern times to the emperor of Japan. Whether such titles involve a real ascription of divinity, or are only an assertion of kinship with the gods, or express nothing more than the adulation of courtiers, it may not be easy always to determine; probably all these conceptions have existed at various times. The conception that men are akin to gods, that there is no difference of nature between the two classes, is an old one, and the ascription of divinity to a king might involve, in earlier stages of civilization or even in relatively advanced stages, no break in the order of things. The custom once established, it might continue to be observed, long accepted seriously by the mass of the people, but coming gradually to be regarded by the educated classes as a mere form. +339+. The development of the custom appears most plainly in _Egypt_.[626] The identification of the king with Horus (apparently the ancient patron deity of Egypt) runs through the history down to the Persian conquest: he is called "Horus" or "Golden Horus," and sometimes (as, for example, Mentuhotep IV) "heir of Horus," or is said to sit on the throne of Horus, and has a "Horus name," the affirmation of his divine character; even the monotheistic reformer Amenhotep IV is called "Golden Horus." At the same time he is styled the "son" of this or that deity--Re, Min, Amon, Amon-Re, Osiris--according to the particular patron adopted by him; the liberal interpretation of such filial relation is illustrated by the title "son of the gods of the Northland" given to one monarch. The king is "the good god"; at death he flies to heaven (so, for instance, Totmose III, of the eighteenth dynasty).