Monarchies and Republics [pp. 146-156]

MONARCHIES AND REPUBLICS.
expense of the weaker portion and which, in the end, corrupt the
inward monitor in same measure as they succeed.
Thus we have in the beginning of every political organization
of the present day, ignorance, rudeness and-democratic institutions. I humbly beg the kind reader, not to start and throw
the article aside as yet a while-perhaps I have something left
to say which will be less distasteful to him.
As the age advances and the light of Christianity, which is the
light of knowledge and reason, breaks in upon the chaos, which,
as yet, has but a very indifferent claim to the name of a political
body, the right of the strong hand forms empires, and ambitious
minds, like meteors, dart here and there through the darkness,
grasping, collecting and organizing. Their title consists in their
superiority of intellect and would die with them; but by gathering around them a number of followers, whom they reward and
connect by the ties of gratitude, they manage to make their work
live on for some time after them a puny existence. Here is
already a monarchy, in a crude state it is true, and very perceptibly mixed with democratic notions, represented by stout
burghers and restless barons, who think themselves at any time
as good as the lord, and often defy him to his very teeth-still a
monarchy.
For a long time the human mind remains stationary, until the
Reformation, the invention of gunpowder, the discovery of
America and the lightning strokes of the printing-press create a
revolution in the customary ways of thinking. The treasures of
ancient literature are laid open to the hungry gaze of an admiring multitude and comparative progress challenges the strife of
further improvement. New ideas are advanced, the ban of
superstition and blind belief in authority is being removed, and
man begins to feel himself. The voluptuous alnd dissipated luxury of an established aristocracy shows a glaring contrast to the
nameless misery of the lower classes, and a disproportion of share
in the administration which is allotted to by far the greater portion of subjects. Here begins the struggle-the people of Eng land, which, more tenacious and more attentive to their true in terests, had preserved a tighter hold upon the affairs of govern ment, saw and seized upon the opportunity,vand success was with
them. The struggle was desperate and, after having tried the
experiment of a Republic and having found it lacking stability,
they returned to royalty and monarchical institutions, with a fair
sprinkling of democratic restrictions, embodied in a constitution.
But while England was making giant strides towards her
final emancipation from absolutism, the balance of the European
countries were still in the dark. The undisputed sway of kings,
priests and lewd women left the whole power with the privileged
classes for more than a century-French philosophy acting as
sappers and miners for the great explosion to come. And it
came, and with such a crash and carnage and hideous abnormi
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