Page:An Essay on the Age and Antiquity of the Book of Nabathaean Agriculture.djvu/140

124 the morrow a chief who takes off their heads at pleasure. And when that happens, no one complains of violated rights. David attained his kingdom by means of a sort of energetic brigandage (condottiere), which was not inconsistent with his being a very religious man, and a king after God’s own own [sic] heart; Solomon succeeded to and maintained the throne by the same means as are used by Sultans in every age, which did not prevent his passing for the wisest of kings. When the Prophets attacked royalty, it was not in the name of a political right; it was in the name of the Theocracy. Theocracy, anarchy, despotism—such, gentlemen, is, in few words, the epitome of Shemitic political economy; happily it is not ours. Political economy deduced from Holy Scripture (very imperfectly deduced, it is true) by Bossuet, is a detestable system. In politics as in poetry, in religion, and in philosophy, the duty of the Indo-European nations is to search out subtleties, to reconcile antagonistic claims, and that