6 RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 



present day, titles expressing his heavenly descent or rela- 

 tionships; and is still saluted in forms and words as humble 

 as those addressed to the Deity. While the lives and prop- 

 erties of his people, if not practically so completely at his 

 mercy, are still in theory supposed to be his. 



Later in the progress of civilization, as during the mid- 

 dle ages in Europe, the current opinions respecting the rela- 

 tionship of rulers and ruled are further changed. For the 

 theory of divine origin, there is substituted that of divine 

 right. No longer god or demigod, or even god-descended, 

 the king is now regarded as simply God's vice-gerent. The 

 obeisances made to him are not so extreme in their humility; 

 and his sacred titles lose much of their meaning. Moreover 

 his authority ceases to be unlimited. Subjects deny his 

 right to dispose at will of their lives and properties; and 

 yield allegiance only in the shape of obedience to his com- 

 mands. 



With advancing political opinion has come still greater 

 restriction of imperial power. Belief in the supernatural 

 character of the ruler, long ago repudiated by ourselves for 

 example, has left behind it nothing more than the popular 

 tendency to ascribe unusual goodness, wisdom, and beauty 

 to the monarch. Loyalty, which originally meant implicit 

 submission to the king's will, now means a merely nominal 

 profession of subordination, and the fulfilment of certain 

 forms of respect. Our political practice, and our political 

 theory, alike utterly reject those regal prerogatives which 

 once passed unquestioned. By deposing some, and putting 

 others in their places, we have not only denied the divine 

 rights of certain men to rule ; but we have denied that they 

 have any rights beyond those originating in the assent of the 

 nation. Though our forms of speech and our state-docu- 

 ments still assert the subjection* of the citizens to the ruler, 

 our actual beliefs and our daily proceedings implicitly assert 

 the contrary. We obey no laws save those of our own mak- 

 ing. We have entirely divested the monarch of legislative 



