tcome of a robust common-sense. Order is
essential to a nation's well-being. There must be discipline in
civilised communities. Officers in authority must be obeyed. These are
the axiomatic bases of every social contract, and no question of the
personal fitness of officers of state impugns their stability.

Twice does Shakespeare define in the same terms what he understands by
the principle of all-compelling order, which is inherent in
government. Twice does he elaborate the argument that precise orderly
division of offices, each enjoying full and unquestioned authority, is
essential to the maintenance of a state's equilibrium.

The topic was first treated in the speeches of Henry V.'s
councillors:--

_Exeter._ For government, though high and low and lower,
Put into parts, doth keep in one consent,
Congreeing in a full and natural close,
Like music.

_Cant._ Therefore doth heaven divide
The state of man in divers functions,
Setting endeavour in continual motion;
To which is fixed, as an aim or butt,
Obedience: for so work the honey-bees,
Creatures that by a rule in nature teach
The act of order to a peopled kingdom.

(_Henry V._, I., ii., 180-9.)

There follows a very suggestive comparison between the commonwealth of
bees and the economy of human society. The well-worn comparison has
been fashioned anew by a writer of genius of our own day, M.
Maeterlinck.

In _Troilus and Cressida_ (I., iii., 85 _seq._) Shakespeare returns to
the discussion, and defines with greater precision "the specialty of
rule." There he approaches nearer than anywhere else in his writings
the sphere of strict philosophic exposition. He argues that:--

The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre,
Observe degree, priority, and place,
Insisture, course, proportion, season, form,
Office, and custom in all line of order.

Human society is bound to follow this celestial example. At all
hazards, one must protect "the unity and married calm of states."
Degree, order, discipline, are the only sure safeguards against brute
force and chaos which civilised institutions exist to hold in check:--

How could communities,
Degrees in schools and brotherhoods in cities,
Peaceful commerce from dividable shores,
The primogeniture and due of birth,
Prerogative of age, crowns