The Orient's chief handicap has been its vicious political tradition. From earliest times the typical form of government in the East has been despotism--the arbitrary rule of an absolute monarch, whose subjects are slaves, holding their goods, their honours, their very lives, at his will and pleasure. The sole consistent check upon Oriental despotism has been religion. Some critics may add "custom"; but it amounts to the same thing, for in the East custom always acquires a religious sanction. The mantle of religion of course covers its ministers, the priests forming a privileged caste. But, with these exceptions, Oriental despotism has usually known no bounds; and the despot, so long as he respected religion and the priesthood, has been able to act pretty much as he chose. In the very dawn of history we see Pharaoh exhausting all Egypt to gratify his whim for a colossal pyramid tomb, and throughout history Oriental life has been cursed by this fatal political simplicity. Now manifold human experience has conclusively proved that despotism is a bad form of government in the long run. Of course there is the legendary "benevolent despot"--the "father of his people," surrounded by wise counsellors and abolishing evils by a nod or a stroke of the pen. That is all very well in a fairy-tale. But in real life the "benevolent despot" rarely happens and still more rarely succeeds himself. The "father of his people" usually has a pompous son and a vicious grandson, who bring the people to ruin. The melancholy trinity--David, Solomon, Rehoboam--has reappeared with depressing regularity throughout history. Furthermore, even the benevolent despot has his limitations. The trouble with all despots, good or bad, is that their rule is entirely _personal_. Everything, in the last analysis, depends on the despot's personal will. Nothing is fixed or certain. The benevolent despot himself may discard his benevolence overnight, and the fate of an empire may be jeopardized by the monarch's infatuation for a woman or by an upset in his digestion.