Page:The Production of Security.pdf/47

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The Production of Security

appear, crowned with glory and honor; they take their places.[1]

According to this system, which embodies the will of Providence in certain men and which invests these chosen ones, these anointed ones with a quasi-divine authority, the subjects evidently have no rights at all. They must submit, without question, to the decrees of the sovereign authority, as if they were the decrees of Providence itself.

According to Plutarch, the body is the instrument of the soul, and the soul is the instrument of God. According to the divine right school, God selects certain souls and uses them as instruments for governing the world.

If men had faith in this theory, surely nothing could unsettle a government based on divine right.


  1. Du principe générateur des constitutions politiques (On the Generating Principle of Political Constitutions) Preface.