Excerpt from The Christian Examiner, Vol. 6: July, 1868 The notion of an absolute right of rule was upheld in their time by such men as Filmer in England, and Bossuet in France. These theorists did, indeed, maintain that such right appertains to but one man in a nation. In their eyes, this was an inseparable part of the doctrine. Nevertheless, the doctrine contains two wholly distinct propositions: first, all sovereignty, in whomsoever rightfully lodged, is held by an unconditional title, which neither the best use of it can strengthen, nor the worst use anuul; secondly, such power belongs only to exceptional individuals, here Charles, there Louis. The former proposition would state the generic character of the sovereignty; the latter, its numerical form. There is one distinction between a horse and an ox, and quite another between one horse and two or ten thousand. So political sovereignty has its genus, accordingly as in title it is immediate or mediate, absolute or contingent, a proprietary right or an official trust; and it has also its subordinate dis tinction, accordingly as it is singular or plural, simple or composite. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.