Page:Illustrations of the history of medieval thought and learning.djvu/223

Rh illustration. The terms he employs for the officers of government and for the military organization are all foreign to feudal times and almost entirely classical. His authorities for military affairs are Frontinus, Vegetius, and the rest; his general scheme of the state is drawn from the Institutio Traiani ascribed to Plutarch. There is no sign in it even of an order of nobility. All temporary matters John passes by, in order to attain what appear to him to be the eternal principles of civil right. Like the hierarchical doctrine which he expounds, his theory is entirely ideal, and bears almost an ironical complexion if we think of applying it to any monarchy of his own or indeed of any time.

John starts from the notion of equity as the perfect adjustment of things,—rerum convenientia,—of which there are on earth two interpreters, the law and the civil ruler. Having by a previous definition excluded all bad kings, under the common name of 'tyrants,' from the field of his discussion, he is the more free to elevate the ideal grandeur of kingship. When, he says, ''we speak of the prince as released from the bands of the law, it is not that he has license to do wrong, but forasmuch as he ought to be moved not by fear of punishment but by the love of justice to observe equity, to further the advantage of the commonwealth, and in all things to choose the good of others before his private will. But who would speak of the prince's will in public matters? whereas he has no leave to will aught therein, save that which is counselled by law or equity, or determined by the consideration of general utility. In such concerns his will ought to possess the validity of judgement, and most rightly in them, according to the maxim of jurists, his pleasure hath the force of law; because his sentence differs not from the mind of equity.'' Without this understood condition the maxim is false. The king therefore is