By lineal descent the governmental establishments and the powers with which they are vested, in all the Christian nations, are derived from the feudal establishments of the Middle Ages; which, in turn, are of a predatory origin and of an irresponsible character.[2] In nearly all instances, but more particularly among the nations that are accounted characteristically modern, the existing establishments have been greatly altered from the mediaeval pattern, by concessive adaptation to later exigencies or by a more or less revolutionary innovation. The degree of their modernity is (conventionally) measured, roughly, by the degree in which they have departed from the mediaeval pattern. Wherever the unavoidable concessions have been shrewdly made with a view to conserving the autonomy and irresponsibility of the governmental establishment, or the "State," and where the state of national sentiment has been led to favor this work of conservation, as, e.g., in the case of Austria, Spain or Prussia, there the modern outcome has been what may be called a Dynastic State. Where, on the other hand, the run of national sentiment has departed notably from the ancient holding ground of loyal abnegation, and has enforced a measure of revolutionary innovation, as in the case of France or of the English-speaking peoples, there the modern outcome has been an (ostensibly) democratic commonwealth of ungraded citizens. But the contrast so indicated is a contrast of divergent variants rather than of opposites. These two type-forms may be taken as the extreme and inclusive limits of variation among the governmental establishments with which the modern world is furnished.[3] [Footnote 2: The partial and dubious exception of the Scandinavian countries or of Switzerland need raise no question on this head.] [Footnote 3: Cf., e.g., Eduard Meyer, _England: its political organisation and development_. ch. ii.]