If, as we are perfectly justified, we have been considering science, at least that which is true and divine, as a power of a higher kind, we must still remember that it is not so in the same way as religion or government. The latter rests on a divine foundation of eternal justice; and therein lies the source of its vital efficacy. Religion is the legitimate form of a living dispensation of the divine strength and grace. True science is the mind’s lofty pursuit, in a Godward direction, of perfect knowledge; and this direction forms the characteristic distinction between it and false science. In the state, in like manner, its loftiest character lies in the sacred foundation of justice. It is, therefore, a very wrongful and a most pernicious error to look for the inmost essence of the state, or the true source of political prosperity, in any external form or formula. For this external form is in many cases nothing but the shape in which the national mind displays itself--the theater which it erects for its political manifestations. But, in another point of view, also, the form of the state is subordinate to the essence and its foundation of right. In the legitimate state, an hereditary monarchy, _i.e._, the act of crowning, is, no doubt, a very beautiful, highly significant, and, indeed, an essential sacred right. But, with the exception of certain special cases and positive institutions in some existing constitutions, the monarch’s right is not dependent thereon, but even before the anointing he is truly and fully a sovereign. Far different is the case, however, where the political authority is only delegated and vicarious, as with an ambassador or a plenipotentiary deputed to negotiate a peace, or other treaty. For in such cases there is no authority but what is derived solely and entirely from the delegating source, and on the legal act by which the right or power was delegated. Without this, it is absolutely null and void. This remark extends to every case and every sphere of legitimate transference of a higher authority, even though the latter be of a divine origin. And it is simply on this account that in religion, as the proper sphere for the dispensing of divine strength and grace, the form is so highly important and so thoroughly essential--even as much so as the matter itself--or the imparted light of the spirit, and properly is inseparable from it.