24 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ways by the absence of those "schools" in art, philosophy, etc., which, 

 among Continental peoples, are formed by the submission of disciples 

 to an adopted master. That in England men show, more than else- 

 where, a jealousy of dictation, and a determination to act as they think 

 fit, will not, I think, be disputed. 



The diminished subordination to authority, which is the obverse of 

 this independence, of course implies decrease of loyalty. Worship of 

 the monarch, at no time with us reaching to the height it did in France 

 early in the last century, or in Russia down to recent times, has now 

 changed into a respect depending very much on the monarch's personal 

 character. Our days witness no such extreme servilities of expression 

 as were used by ecclesiastics in the dedication of the Bible to King 

 James, nor any such exaggerated adulations as those addressed to 

 George III by the House of Lords. The doctrine of divine right has 

 long since died away ; belief in an indwelling supernatural power (im- 

 plied by the touching for king's evil, etc.) is named as a curiosity of 

 the past ; and the monarchical institution has come to be defended on 

 grounds of expediency. So great has been the decrease of this senti- 

 ment which, under the militant regime, attaches subject to ruler, that 

 nowadays the conviction commonly expressed is that, should the 

 throne be occupied by a Charles II or a George IV, there would 

 probably result a republic. And this change of feeling is shown in 

 the attitude toward the Government as a whole. For not only are 

 there many who dispute the authority of the state in respect of sun- 

 dry matters besides religious beliefs, but there are some who passively 

 resist what they consider unjust exercises of its authority, and pay 

 fines or go to prison rather than submit. 



As this last fact implies, along with decrease of loyalty has gone 

 decrease of faith, not in monarchs only but in governments. Such 

 belief in royal omnipotence as existed in ancient Egypt, where the 

 power of the ruler was supposed to extend to the other world, as it 

 is even now supposed to do in China, has had no parallel in the West ; 

 but still, among European peoples in past times, that confidence in the 

 soldier-king essential to the militant type displayed itself, among other 

 ways, in exaggerated conceptions of his ability to cure evils, achieve 

 benefits, and arrange things as he willed. If we compare present 

 opinion among ourselves with opinion in early days, we find a decline 

 in these credulous expectations. Though, during the late retrograde 

 movement toward militancy, state-power has been invoked for various 

 ends, and faith in it has increased ; yet, tap to the commencement of 

 this reaction, a great change had taken place in the other direction. 

 After the repudiation of a state-enforced creed, there came a denial 

 of the state's capacity for determining religious truth, and a growing 

 movement to relieve it from the function of religious teaching, held 

 to be alike needless and injurious. Long ago it had ceased to be 

 thought that Government could do any good by regulating people's 



