the consecration of death. So we see kings of ancient days who in pestilences atoned with their own blood for the people, or who believed that the public suffering was a penalty for their private or personal sins. Even now, when there is an eclipse of the sun in China, the Emperor is terrified, and reflects whether he has not by some evil act caused the universal darkness, and so does penance that the light of heaven may again shine on his subjects. Among races in which absolutism still reigns in all its holy vigour, as is the case among the north-western neighbours of China even unto the Elbe, it would be taken ill should one preach doctrine of a representative constitution; but it is held to be quite as blamable to teach absolutism in the greater portion of the rest of Europe, where the faith in the divine right is extinct among princes and people.
By declaring that the essential being of Absolutism consists in this, that the will of the king himself governs (regiert), I indicate the character or true nature of representative or of constitutional monarchy the more readily when I say, "This differs from that, because institutions therein replace a royal will."[1] In place of this
- ↑ Institutions and ideas or principles also replace that more elusive and shifting form of despotism or sainthood, as the case may be, known as reliance on genius, coming men, and hero-worship.—Translator.
