Social Consequences of Heredity. 377 



sonal. Preserve all the force and all the purity of honours in the 

 state, and never part with this precious capital in favour of any 

 proud class that would quickly turn their advantages against you.' 



IV. 



There still remain a few words to be said on the relations of 

 natural and institutional heredity, with regard to sovereignty. Here 

 again we find the same contrast between heredity and liberty, and 

 between the belief of ancient times and the opinion of the modern 

 world. 



Originally, sovereignty concentrated in the hands of one man, 

 the king, was absolute. Being supreme head, he was regarded as 

 of a nature high above all other men, and as the peer of the gods. 



* The earliest traditions represent rulers as gods or demigods. 

 By their subjects, primitive kings were regarded as superhuman in 

 origin, and superhuman in power. They possessed divine titles, 

 received obeisances like those made before the altars of deities, 

 and were in some cases actually worshipped. If there needs proof 

 that the divine and half-divine characters originally ascribed to 

 monarchs were ascribed literally, we have it in the fact that there 

 are still existing savage races among whom it is held that the 

 chiefs and their kindred are of celestial origin, or, as elsewhere, 

 that only the chiefs have souls.' * At a later period it was deemed 

 sufficient to regard kings as of divine race, descended from gods. 

 Such were the Incas of Peru. This opinion still holds in the east, 

 and notably in China. 



It is easy to see that so long as this belief existed, heredity must 

 have been the ground on which the sovereign power rested. 

 Sovereignty being divine in its origin could only be transmitted by 

 birth. Hence the important part played by hereditary transmis- 

 sion in the history of royal houses, traces of which are still found 

 in the theory of divine right. 



Modern ideas of the principle of sovereignty are the very oppo- 

 site of this doctrine. The dogma of the national will having 

 displaced the dogma of the royal will, the idea' of a necessary 

 transmission of the sovereignty by way of primogeniture is now 



1 Herbert Spencer, First Principles, 2. 



