m that he decidedly prefers, for he calls the people a
many-headed monster and says that the majority of men are incompetent
and bad. Preaching passive obedience to the king, he finds no check on
him, either by tyrannicide or by constitutional magistrates, save only
in the judgment of God.

It is singular that after Bodin had removed all effective checks on the
tyrant in this world, he should lay it down as a principle that no king
should levy {602} taxes without his subjects' consent. Another
contradiction is that whereas he frees the subject from the duty of
obedience in case the monarch commands aught against God's law, he
treats religion almost as a matter of policy, advising that, whatever
it be, the statesman should not disturb it. Apart from the streak of
superstition in his mind, his inconsistencies are due to the attempt to
reconcile opposites--Machiavelli and Calvin. For with all his
denunciation of the former's atheism and immorality, he, with his
chauvinism, his defence of absolutism, his practical opportunism, is
not so far removed from the Florentine as he would have us believe.

[Sidenote: Dutch republicans]

The revolution that failed in France succeeded in the Netherlands, and
some contribution to political theory can be found in the constitution
drawn up by the States General in 1580, when they recognized Anjou as
their prince, and in the document deposing Philip in 1581. Both assume
fully the sovereignty of the people and the omnicompetence of their
elected representatives. As Oldenbarnevelt commented, "The cities and
nobles together represent the whole state and the whole people." The
deposition of Philip is justified by an appeal to the law of nature,
and to the example of other tortured states, and by a recital of
Philip's breaches of the laws and customs of the land.

[Sidenote: Knox]

Scotland, in the course of her revolution, produced almost as brilliant
an array of pamphleteers as had France. John Knox maintained that, "If
men, in the fear of God, oppose themselves to the fury and blind rage
of princes, in doing so they do not resist God, but the devil, who
abuses the sword and authority of God," and again, he asked, "What harm
should the commonwealth receive if the corrupt affections of ignorant
rulers were moderated and bridled by the {603} wisdom and discretion of
godly subjects?" But the duty, he thought, to curb princes in free
kingdoms and realms, does not belong to every pr