RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 7 



power; and should immediately rebel against his or her ex- 

 ercise of such power, even in matters of the smallest con- 

 cern. In brief, the aboriginal doctrine is all but extinct 

 among us. 



Nor has the rejection of primitive political beliefs, re- 

 sulted only in transferring the authority of an autocrat to a 

 representative body. The views entertained respecting 

 governments in general, of whatever form, are now widely 

 different from those once entertained. Whether popular or 

 despotic, governments were in ancient times supposed to 

 have unlimited authority over their subjects. Individuals 

 existed for the benefit of the State; not the State for the 

 benefit of individuals. In our days, however, not only 

 has the national will been in many cases substituted for the 

 will of the king; but the exercise of this national will has 

 been restricted to a much smaller sphere. In England, for 

 instance, though there has been established no definite the- 

 ory setting bounds to governmental authority ; yet, in prac- 

 tice, sundry bounds have been set to it which are tacitly rec- 

 ognized by all. There is no organic law formally declaring 

 that the legislature may not freely dispose of the citizen's 

 lives, as early kings did when they sacrificed hecatombs of 

 victims; but were it possible for our legislature to attempt 

 such a thing, its own destruction would be the consequence, 

 rather than the destruction of citizens. How entirely we 

 have established the personal liberties of the subject against 

 the invasions of State-power, would be quickly demon- 

 strated, were it proposed by Act of Parliament forcibly to 

 take possession of the nation, or of any class, and turn its 

 services to public ends; as the services of the people were 

 turned by primitive rulers. And should any statesman sug- 

 gest a re-distribution of property such as was sometimes 

 made in ancient democratic communities, he would be met 

 by a thousand-tongued denial of imperial power over in- 

 dividual possessions. ~Not only in our day have these 

 fundamental claims of the citizen been thus made good 



