Page:Conventional Lies of our Civilization.djvu/95

Rh interests. The king sends the people to church and the minister bids them kneel before the palace.

The king chants: "There is a God, and I keep prisons and hangmen to take care of those who do not believe in Him." The priest chants the response: "The king was set upon the throne by God Himself, and those who do not believe this will lose their chance of Heaven, to say nothing of punishment on earth." The king maintains that what the priest says is true, and the priest denies any usurpation on the part of the king. Of course it must be truth, what two such important witnesses are constantly repeating and the people accept it with respect, all the more profound because one sits on a throne in purple and ermine, with a crown upon his head, and the other wears gold-embroidered raiment and a cross set with jewels upon his breast. A good judge would not accept the testimony of two mutually interested confederates, but the people have swallowed and believed it for thousands of years.

I am not criticising the monarchical institution in the interests of a republic. I am by no means as enthusiastic as those Liberalists who are carried away by the mere name of a republic, without taking into account the true significance of the term. A republic is the principal ideal of many of the so-called Liberalists, to me it seems very undesirable. A republic, if it is to be a progress and a truth, must be founded upon a number of social political and other institutions, entirely different from those existing at present. As long as Europe continues to live in its present forms of civilization, a republic is a contradiction and an unworthy play upon words. A