and prevent the application of remedies from without to 

 correct the virulence of internal disease. The rapid and 

 palpable decline of the empire during the last century and 

 a half, has convinced the Ottoman princes of the necessity 

 of change; but as the efforts of the despot have hitherto 

 been uniformly defeated by the bigotry of the people, and 

 as the present sultan persists in the attempt which has 

 proved fatal to so many of his predecessors, we will try to 

 investigate, in the construction of the empire itself, the 

 chance of its ultimate reformation. 



The emperor of the Turks unites in himself the power 

 of the kitab and the kilitch, the book and the sword, and 

 consequently claims the exercise of an absolute authority, 

 both spiritual and temporal. Though not of the family 

 of Coureisth, to which the office of Chief Imam is limited 

 by the Koran, yet conquest has supplied to him every 

 defect of title, and he is considered by all true believers as 

 the legitimate successor of the Prophet. The warlike 

 princes, however, who led the Ottomans into Europe, had 

 neither leisure nor inclination to discharge the united offices 

 of judge and priest; they entrusted, therefore, to the 

 mollahs and cadis the administration of justice, to the 

 sheiks and imams the ceremonies of religion, and on the 

 muphty they conferred the general prerogatives of the 

 theocratic character. This was a fatal error in policy. 

 Under a despotic government everything Depends upon 

 the monarch ; when he is strong, the nation also will be 

 strong, while the division of his power does not necessarily 

 accrue to the advantage of the people. The priests and 

 lawyers, united into one body under the muphty, soon 

 profited of the religious bias of the nation, to intercept a 

 large portion of the popular reverence, and to constitute 

 themselves the guardians of right, leaving to the sultan the 

 more questionable exercise of power. But, however the 

 Ottoman princes may be thwarted in practice by the stub- 

 born nature of a theocracy, they hold in theory a despotic 

 sway, and the only limits to their authority are those of a 

 usurped or accidental nature. There are some, indeed, 

 who have thought fit to controvert this point; Peyssonel 

 in particular and Sir James Porter both insist,' that the 



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