Page:The Production of Security.pdf/46

 whose utility has not been clearly demonstrated.

It is accordingly fascinating to see the pains theoreticians of the divine right take to establish the superhumanity of the races in possession of human government.

Let us listen, for example, to Joseph de Maistre:

Man does not make sovereigns. At the very most he can serve as an instrument for dispossessing one sovereign and handing his State over to another sovereign, himself already a prince. Moreover, there has never existed a sovereign family traceable to plebeian origins. If this phenomenon were to appear, it would mark a new epoch on earth.

… It is written: I am the Maker of sovereigns. This is not just a religious slogan, a preacher's metaphor; it is the literal truth pure and simple. It is a law of the political world. God makes kings, word for word. He prepares royal races, nurtures them at the center of a cloud which hides their origins. Finally they