POLITICAL HEADS CHIEFS, KINGS, ETC 737 



elective " is i^roved by tlie existence in later times of an office of in- 

 terrex, which implies that the kingly power did not devolve naturally 

 upon an hereditary successor." Later on it was thus with Western 

 peoples. Up to the beginning of the tenth century " the formality of 

 election subsisted ... in every European kingdom ; and the imper- 

 fect right of birth required a ratification by public assent." And it 

 was once thus with ourselves. Among the early English the bret- 

 waldship, or supreme headship over the minor kingdoms, was at first 

 elective ; and the form of election continued long traceable in our his- 

 tory. 



The stability of the compound headship, made greater by efficient 

 leadership in war and by establishment of hereditary succession, is 

 further increased when there cooperates the additional factor super- 

 natural origin or supernatural sanction. Everywhere, up from a New 

 Zealand king who is strictly tapu, or sacred, we may trace this influ- 

 ence ; and occasionally, where divine descent or magical powers are 

 not claimed, there is a claim to origin that is more than human. Asia 

 yields an example in the Fodli dynasty, which reigned a hundred and 

 fifty years in south Arabia a six-fingered dynasty, regarded with 

 awe by the people because of its continuously-inherited malformation. 

 Europe of the Merovingian period yields an example. In pagan times 

 the king's race had an alleged divine origin ; but in Christian times, 

 says Waitz, as they could no longer mount back to the gods, the 

 myth still clung to the supernatural : " A sea-monster ravished the 

 wife of Chlogio as she sat by the seashore, and from this embrace 

 Merovech sprang." Later days show us the gradual acquisition of a 

 sacred or semi-supernatural character where it did not originally exist. 

 Divine assent to their supremacy was alleged by the Carlovingian kings. 

 During the later feudal age, rare exceptions apart, kings " were not 

 far removed from believing themselves near relatives of the masters 

 of heaven. Kings and gods were colleagues." In the seventeenth 

 century this belief Avas justified by divines. " Kings," says Bossuet, 

 "are gods, and share in a manner the divine independence." 



So that the headship of a compound group, first arising temporarily 

 during war, becoming with frequent cooperation of the groups settled 

 for life, by election, passing presently into the hereditary form, and 

 becoming more stable as fast as the law of succession becomes well 

 defined and undisputed, acquires its greatest stability only when the 

 king becomes a deputy-god, or when, if his supposed godlike nature 

 is not, as in primitive societies, derived from alleged divine descent, 

 it is replaced by a divine commission guaranteed by ecclesiastical 

 authority. 



Where the political head has acquired this absoluteness which re- 

 sults from supposed divine nature, or divine descent, or divine com- 

 mission, there is naturally no limit to his sway. In theory, and often 



TOL. XTIII. 47 



