How Kingship Turns into Tyranny
This then is the natural process of formation among
mankind of the notion of goodness and justice, and their
opposites; and this is the origin and genesis of genuine kingship: for people do not only keep up the government of such
men personally, but for their descendants also for many generations; from the conviction that those who are born from and
educated by men of this kind will have principles also like
theirs. But if they subsequently become displeased with their
descendants, they do not any longer decide their choice of
rulers and kings by their physical strength or brute courage;
but by the differences of their intellectual and reasoning
faculties, from practical experience of the decisive importance
of such a distinction.
Kingship in its turn degenerates into tyranny. |
In old times, then,
those who were once thus selected, and obtained this office, grew old in their royal
functions, making magnificent strongholds and surrounding
them with walls and extending their frontiers, partly for the
security of their subjects, and partly to provide them with
abundance of the necessaries of life; and while engaged in
these works they were exempt from all vituperation or jealousy;
because they did not make their distinctive dress, food, or drink,
at all conspicuous, but lived very much like the rest, and joined
in the everyday employments of the common people. But
when their royal power became hereditary in their family, and
they found every necessary for security ready to their hands,
as well as more than was necessary for their personal support,
then they gave the rein to their appetites; imagined that
rulers must needs wear different clothes from those of
subjects; have different and elaborate luxuries of the table;
and must even seek sensual indulgence, however unlawful the
source, without fear of denial. These things having given rise
in the one case to jealousy and offence, in the other to outburst of hatred and passionate resentment, the kingship
became a tyranny: the first step in disintegration was taken;
and plots began to be formed against the government, which
did not now proceed from the worst men but from the noblest,
most high-minded, and most courageous, because these are
the men who can least submit to the tyrannical acts of their
rulers.
