Page:Conventional Lies of our Civilization.djvu/183

169 of them might grow up to be a pretender to his throne and allowed the very one to escape the slaughter who was to become dangerous to him.

The philosophical conception of the State has altered, the relation of the citizen to the State is theoretically that of a member of a society where all have equal rights, every one of the constitutions which have been formed since 1789, being based upon the principle of the sovereignty of the people, but practically the machinery of the State has remained the same. It works today just as it did in the darkest times of the Middle Ages, and if its pressure appears somewhat lighter upon the individual it is only on account of its wearing smoother. The tacit presumption upon which all our laws and regulations are based is now as much as ever before, that the citizen is the personal property of the sovereign, or at least of that impersonal phantom the State, which has inherited all the privileges of the ancient despots, the public functionaries being its visible incarnation. The government official is not the employé of the people, but the agent of the powers of the State, consequently the enemy, overseer and jailor of the people. The laws are intended to give the official the opportunity to defend the interests of his real or ideal master the monarch or the State, against the people, which is credited with a perpetual tendency to rid itself of its task-master. This is the only possible explanation of the respectful consideration and the prominence conceded to the autocratic office holder to this very day. He is not able to dazzle the public by his rich relations, nor by the brilliancy and luxury of his manner of living; neither can he compel the admiration of cultivated minds by his higher culture or greater talents, the utilitarians can not consider his employment any more useful than the class of direct producers, the farmers,