that bias in favour of received ideas which expresses itself in such dogmas as “What every one says must be true,” or “The voice of the people is the voice of God.” On the other hand, the fact disclosed by a survey of the past, that majorities have usually been wrong, must not blind us to the complementary fact, that majorities have usually not been entirely wrong. And the avoidance of these extremes being a prerequisite to catholic thinking, we shall do well to provide ourselves with a safe-guard against them, by making a valuation of opinions in the abstract. To this end we must contemplate the kind of relation that ordinarily subsists between opinions and facts. Let us do so with one of those beliefs which under various forms has prevailed among all nations in all times.
§2. The earliest traditions represent rulers as gods or
demigods. By their subjects, primitive kings were regarded
as superhuman in origin, and superhuman in power. They
possessed divine titles; received obeisances like those made
before the altars of deities; and were in some cases actually
worshipped. If there needs proof that the divine and
half-divine characters originally ascribed to monarchs were
ascribed literally, we have it in the fact that there are still
existing savage races, among whom it is held that the chiefs
and their kindred are of celestial origin, or, as elsewhere, that
only the chiefs have souls. And of course along with beliefs
of this kind, there existed a belief in the unlimited power of
the ruler over his subjects — an absolute possession of them,
extending even to the taking of their lives at will: as even
still in Fiji, where a victim stands unbound to be killed at the
word of his chief; himself declaring, “whatever the king says
must be done.”
In times and among races somewhat less barbarous, we find these beliefs a little modified. The monarch, instead of being literally thought god or demigod, is conceived to be a man having divine authority, with perhaps more or less of divine
