to the members of the aristocracy who are subject to his command, but yet possess a considerable influence over him? Turning from the classical Hellenes to the boisterous Bedâwî, of Arabia, we discover a conception of God under the very same point of view. A great investigator of Arabia observes: ‘Nor did I ever meet, among the genuine nomade tribes, with any individual who took a more spiritual view, whether of the Deity, of the soul of man, or of any other disembodied being soever. _God is for them a chief_ [a Nomad Sheikh!] ..., somewhat more powerful of course than their own headman, or even than Ṭelâl himself, but in other respects of much the same style and character.’[651] If we turn our thoughts to a religious system of most recent origin, our experience is still the same. To the inhabitants of the Salt-Lake City in America, God is the President of immortal beings. ‘The employment of familiar political ideas, or application of political figures to theocratic ends, as in speaking of the Presidency of God, colonies, eligibility, race, is a natural and obvious device.’[652] This, however, must rather be referred to apperception than to symbolism. In a despotic state the conception of God must take a different direction, because the apperception of the notion of dominion and power is essentially different. This may be observed not only in nations of high culture, but even in tribes living in a state of nature, on a comparison of their religious and political conditions; though in the latter case we have not the means of pursuing the analogy with the same certainty. But, by way of illustration, I will refer to a comparison of the political condition of the Negro tribes which incline to a monotheistic view of religion with those of the polytheistic Polynesians.[653] Molina, too, found in Chili that the god Pillan’s government of the world agrees exactly with the Araucanian political system, and concludes with the observation, ‘These ideas are certainly very rude; but it must be acknowledged that the Araucanians are not the only people who have regulated the things of heaven by those of the earth.’[654] But we will now stay on the firmer ground of civilised nations. Let us take, for instance, the great Assyrian empire. One powerful ruler, endowed with unlimited authority, at whose commands great and small, high-born and slave, bend the knee, to whose arbitrary will almost the whole of Western Asia is subject, guides the destinies of his colossal empire, independent of men. After him follow the Viceroys of the separate provinces, Satraps, and a host of officials of court and state with accurately defined powers and in distinct order of rank. Whoever honours them and is obedient to them, only honours in them the King of kings, and exhibits his obedience to the all-powerful lord. Thus it was at the flourishing period of this immense empire; and to this political system corresponds exactly the religious idea, which grew