that of the settled folk. The Nordic peoples came into Italy and Greece under leader kings; they did not bring any systematic temple cults with them, they found such things in the conquered lands and adapted as they adopted them. The Greeks and Latins lapsed very easily again into republics, and so did the Aryans in India. There was a tradition of election also in the early Frankish and German kingdoms.[1] The early Caliphs were elected, the Judges of Israel and the "kings" of Carthage and Tyre were elected, and so was the Great Khan of the Mongols until Kublai became a Chinese monarch.... Equally constant in the settled lands do we find the opposite idea, the idea of a non-elective divinity in kings and of their natural and inherent right to rule.... As our history has developed we have noted the appearance of new and complicating elements in the story of human societies; we have seen that nomad turned go-between, the trader, appear, and we have noted the growing importance of shipping in the world. It seems as inevitable that voyaging should make men free in their minds as that settlement within a narrow horizon should make men timid and servile.... But in spite of all such complications, the broad antagonism between the method of obedience and the method of will runs through history down into our own times. To this day their reconciliation is incomplete.
Civilization even in its most servile forms has always offered much that is enormously attractive, convenient, and congenial to mankind; but something restless and untamed in our race has striven continually to convert civilization from its original reliance upon unparticipating obedience into a community of participating wills. And to the lurking nomadism in our blood, and particularly in the blood of monarchs and aristocracies, we must ascribe also that incessant urgency towards a wider range
- ↑ The early Frankish and other German kings were not elective. They were hereditary; but as there was no primogeniture, there was either partition among the sons, or a struggle to decide which son or relative should succeed. In such a struggle the nobles might take part, and this might mean some form of election. But heredity is the thing: reges ex nobilitate sumunt, says Tacitus: the king must have the nobility of being Woden-born, or he cannot be king. The genealogies of our early Saxon kings all go back to Woden, and George V is Woden-born.—E. B.
