Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 19.djvu/365

Rh, open opposition to his will by his advisers is out of the question; and members of his council, singly or in combination, dare do no more than tender humble advice. Moreover, if the line of succession is so settled that there rarely or never occur occasions on which the king has to be elected by the chief men, so that they have no opportunity of choosing one who will conform to their wishes, they are further debarred from maintaining any authority. Hence, habitually; we do not find consultative bodies having an independent status in the despotically governed countries of the East, ancient or modern. Though we read of the Egyptian king that "he appears to have been attended in war by the council of the thirty, composed apparently of privy councilors, scribes, and high officers of state," the implication is that the members of this council were functionaries, having such powers only as the king deputed to them. Similarly in Babylonia and Assyria, attendants and others who performed the duties of ministers and advisers to the god-descended rulers did not form established assemblies for deliberative purposes. In ancient Persia, too, there was a like condition. The hereditary king, almost sacred and bearing extravagant titles, though subject to some check from princes and nobles of royal blood who were leaders of the army, and who tendered advice, was not under the restraint of a constituted body of them. Throughout the history of Japan down to our own time a kindred state of things existed. The Daimios were required to be present at the capital during prescribed intervals, as a precaution against insubordination; but they were never, while there, called together to take any share in the government. And hereditary divine kingship, having this as its concomitant in Japan, has it likewise in China. We read that, "although there is nominally no deliberative or advisatory body in the Chinese Government, and nothing really analogous to a congress, parliament, or tiers-état, still necessity compels the Emperor to consult and advise with some of his officers." Nor does Europe fail to yield us evidence of like meaning. I do not refer only to the case of Russia, but more especially to the case of France during the time when monarchy had assumed its most absolute form. In the age when divines like Bossuet taught that "the King is accountable to no one, . . . the whole state is in him, and the will of the whole people is contained in his"—in the age when the King (Louis XIY), "imbued with the idea of his omnipotence and divine mission," "was regarded by his subjects with adoration" he "had extinguished and absorbed even the minutest trace, idea, and recollection of all other authority except that which emanated from himself alone." Along with establishment of hereditary succession and acquirement of divine prestige, such power of the other estates as existed in early days had disappeared.

Conversely, there are cases showing that where the king has never had, or does not preserve, the prestige of supposed descent from a