POLITICAL DIFFERENTIATION. 305 



A tendency to subordination of the original ranks, and a 

 substitution of new ranks, is otherwise caused : it accompanies 

 the progress of political consolidation. The change which, 

 occurred in China illustrates this effect. Gutzlaff says 



&quot; Mere title was afterwards (on the decay of the feudal system) the 

 reward bestowed by the sovereign . . . arid the haughty and powerful 

 grandees of other countries are here the dependant and penurious 

 servants of the Crown. . . . The revolutionary principle of levelling 

 all classes has been carried, in China, to a very great extent. . . . This 

 is introduced for the benefit of the sovereign, to render his authority 

 supreme.&quot; 



The causes of such changes are not difficult to see. In the 

 first place the subjugated local rulers, losing, as integration 

 advances, more and more of their power, lose, consequently, 

 more and more of their actual, if not of their nominal, rank : 

 passing from the condition of tributary rulers to the condition 

 of subjects. Indeed, jealousy on the part of the monarch 

 sometimes prompts positive exclusion of them from influential 

 positions; as in France, where &quot; Louis XIV. systematically 

 excluded the nobility from ministerial functions.&quot; Presently 

 their distinction is further diminished by the rise of com 

 peting ranks created by State-authority. Instead of the titles 

 inherited by the land-possessing military chiefs, which were 

 descriptive of their attributes and positions, there come to be 

 titles conferred by the sovereign. Certain of the classes thus 

 established are still of military origin ; as the knights made 

 on the battle-field, sometimes in large numbers before battle, 

 as at Agincourt, when 500 were thus created, and sometimes 

 afterwards in reward for valour. Others of them arise from 

 the exercise of political functions of different grades ; as in 

 France, where, in the seventeenth century, hereditary nobility 

 was conferred on officers of the great council and officers of 

 the chamber of accounts. The administration of law, too, 

 originates titles of honour. In France, in 1607, nobility was 

 granted to doctors, regents, and professors of law ; and &quot; the 

 superior courts obtained, in 1644, the privileges of nobility of 

 the first degree.&quot; So that, as Warnkoenig remarks, &quot; tho 



