By this we mean that up to 1815 no right was recognised in political life except that which derived its origin from some fact or facts which were supposed to constitute rights, such as successions, conquests, concessions, or gifts. Spain, in virtue of one or other of these titles, ruled the Low Countries and the kingdom of Naples, nor did it occur to any one to discuss the fitness of this strange aggregation of different peoples, united in a single State. It would be tedious to cite all the instances of curious combinations to which the ancient European rights gave rise. Although they had a tendency to dissolve under the influence of recent times, yet the system was maintained up to 1815, the date of the last great treaty which was made on this basis, and of which the effect remained up to 1845. Throughout this protracted period, of which the beginning is confounded with that of European civilisation, a certain progress did, however, take place in the conditions of European society, which advanced from the capitulations of Charles the Great to the English Great Charter, from arbitrary decrees to the statutes of the republic of Florence, and finally, to the legislative acts of Joseph the Second in Austria, of Leopold in Tuscany, Charles the Third in the kingdom of Naples, and of all the contemporary governments which uttered their last word on such progress as was possible to politicians of that period, and which consisted in adapting as far as possible the inflexible exigencies of ancient rights to the necessities of modern facts, and in inducing those who governed by divine right to consider the interests of the people. But this was only up to a certain point, and the relative conditions of the governors and the governed did not cease to be the basis of European policy. Speaking of these things at this day is like speaking of another world. A State which is not governed in the interests of those of whom it consists would be a tyranny. It is held to be an iniquity to hold a people subject to a rule which is independent of ethnographical, geographical, or economical considerations, and such a people would be considered justified in throwing off the yoke, if possible. A war undertaken to maintain a purely dynastic title would be regarded as an intolerable burden, to which no nation is bound to submit.