ment of loyalty is needful to the well-being and security of all governments. On what grounds then can we blame those who found expression for identically the same views in the maxim that men must obey not only for wrath, but for conscience' sake? A modern thinker has declared that laws and governments need some other sanction than that of military force. Those who endorse the aphorism "You can do anything with bayonets except sit on them" can have little reason for blaming Laud when he declares 'There can be no firmness without law; and no laws can be binding if there be no conscience to obey them; penalty alone could never, can never do it." That government can worthily perform its function only when obedience is enshrined in the hearts of the governed, that laws are vain without loyalty, was the truth for which the men of the seventeenth century were contending, when they asserted that all resistance was damnable. That government of any kind was better than anarchy, they were well assured. Tyranny was in their eyes a more supportable condition than disorder. Despite modern sentimentalism to the contrary, this doctrine has never been disproved. But whether or no it can be maintained that no caprices of autocracy and no oppression of democracy can make resistance to a King a right or defiance of Parliament (or the County Council) a duty, all will agree that the widespread prevalence of a law-abiding sentiment is essential to the stability of the State. It is well that most men should re

1 Laud, Sermons (Works, 1. 112).

1

utilitarian

gard resistance to laws, however unjust, as practically prohibited by the moral law. If there be "cases of resistance," they are best ignored.

Dangers of Now it is hard to imagine a more effectual theory. method of propagating this view than is the theory of Divine Right. Nor is it at all clear that the widespread popular acceptance of a purely utilitarian basis for obedience may not lead to great dangers in the future. Englishmen have cause for gratulation, that, in a time when the tendency is to loosen the bonds of allegiance and to proclaim (generally out of season) the morality of insurrection, there should still exist in the minds of the great majority of their countrymen a deep sense of the majesty of law and of the duty of obedience. This sense is the priceless legacy bequeathed to our own day by the believers in the Divine Right of Kings.

Errors of believers in Divine Right.

It is not contended here that grave errors were not made by these men, that the doctrine of indefeasible hereditary right was ever rational, or that it is now useful. Doubtless extravagant estimates were made of royal prerogative and Parliamentary impotence. Only it is claimed that the main tendency of the doctrine was beneficial and that it was | effective. The fault of the royalist writers arose from the attempt to render absolute and universal a theory which was merely relative to particular conditions. They were blind to the fact that kingship, although it had as good a claim to Divine institution as any other form of government, could not without absurdity be made universal. Many of them were unable to perceive that monarchy is only

a form of government. Impelled by the need of refuting a theory, which claimed to be founded upon eternal principles, they too strove to find fixed and immutable principles of politics, which circumstances might not affect, nor should they be touched by the hand of time.

are im

Their opponents committed the very same error. Dropping the name of Divine Right, they yet preserved in the theory of natural rights the same pretensions to have found a fixed and eternal principle of politics-inalienable freedom and God-given equality. From Locke the notion passed to Rousseau, and is still wide-spread. Yet surely the main practical lesson of the history of this doctrine is that of the relativity of all political dogma. Theories of politics Abstract are the product of historical causes and national idio-politics syncrasies. They change with changing conditions. possible. If pushed to extremes and treated as truths for all time, they will not therefore be permanent, but will give place when their usefulness is gone to fresh doctrines suited to new conditions. The fact that in the past universal validity has been claimed for theories since discarded is the cause for their former services to mankind to be forgotten; for only their transparent absurdity wins for them a lingering memory. Men tried and failed to transform a temporary instrument in a particular struggle into an eternal truth. Nowadays those who see that neither abstract truth nor enduring potency can rightly be claimed for the theory of the Divine Right of Kings, have forgotten that the doctrine was once a force, and treat a faith which has ceased to be credible as though it were never

Error of seeking theories of the State in

the Bible.

creditable. Politics are relative, and when men formulate ideal systems based upon eternal principles and laying claim to universal authority, they are apt to come to grief. At least we can learn this much from the theory of the Divine Right of Kings.

One other practical conclusion may be drawn. The thinkers of the seventeenth century sought to base their politics upon theology, and to use the Bible as though it were a treatise on law and government. There was much to be said in excuse; and their error was probably inevitable. But they were in error, and their attempt was a failure, which has been the pretext for pouring on them obloquy and ridicule far beyond their deserts. Is there any ground for auguring better success for the attempt only now being made to seek the true system of social organization in the New Testament and to base upon the Sermon on the Mount a new order of things, in which the capitalist will for ever have given place to the Trades' Union?

APPENDIX A.

EXTRACTS FROM STATUTES RELATING TO THE

SUCCESSION.

THE progress of the idea of inherent right and the complete decay of the doctrine of election may be illustrated from the statutes passed between 1483 and 1603, which attempt to settle or declare the succession.

(1) In the titulus regius, which gave the Crown to Richard III., we see the two notions of elective kingship and title by inheritance blended together. It is noteworthy that the statute seems to regard Parliament in the light of a supreme court competent to declare the law without appeal, rather than as a legislative body creating new law. Parliament claims no right to alter the succession, but merely to declare it, so as to remove perplexity.

"We consider that ye be the undoubted son and heir of Richard, late Duke of York, very inheritor of the said crown and dignity royal, and as in right King of England by way of inheritance;...and by this our writing choose you High and Mighty Prince, our King and Sovereign Lord. To whom we know it appertaineth of inheritance so to be chosen.......We pray and require your most noble grace that according to this