IX GOVERNMENT 4-J] 



liberty, or property, worth speaking of. The j 

 familias of the Aryan stock, at any rate, could 

 say " L'etat c'est moi " with more truth than any 

 later monarch. So far from the preservation of 

 liberty and property and the securing of equal 

 rights being the chief and most conspicuous objects 

 aimed at by the archaic polities of which we know 

 anything, it would be a good deal nearer the truth 

 to say that they were federated absolute mon- 

 archies, the chief purpose of which was the main- 

 tenance of an established Church for the worship 

 of the family ancestors. 



Philosophers, proud of living according to reason, 

 are too apt to forget that people who do not pro- 

 fess themselves to be more than ordinary men 

 mostly live according to unreason ; or what seems 

 such to the philosophers. Moderns, who make to 

 themselves metaphysical teraphim out of the 

 Absolute, the Unknowable, the Unconscious, and 

 the other verbal abstractions whose apotheosis is 

 indicated by initial capitals, may find it difficult to 

 imagine that it seemed good to ancient men to per- 

 form the same theurgic operation upon their very 

 concrete but deceased forefathers ; and to believe 

 that, unless the Manes were regularly propitiated 

 with a supply of such commodities as ghosts can 

 enjoy, they would not only withdraw their benevo- 

 lent protection, but would make things very un- 

 pleasant for their descendants and their fellow 

 countrymen. Yet there can be little question 



