One must be very careful, and this may again be insisted upon, not to confuse despotism with absolutism. Even in the feudal states of Western Europe, the rulers exercised, in many cases, power of life and death, free from the trammels of law; but nevertheless such a ruler was impotent as against his “magnates.” So long as he does not interfere with the privileges of the classes, he need not restrain his cruelty, and he may even occasionally sacrifice one of the great men; but woe to him were he to dare to touch the economic privileges of his magnates. It is possible to study this very characteristic phase, completely free, from the standpoint of law, and yet closely hemmed in by political checks, in the great East African empires: “The government of Waganda and Wanyoro is, in theory, based on the rule of the king over the whole territory; but in reality this is only the semblance of government, since, as a matter of fact, the lands belong to the supreme chieftains of the empire. It was they who represented the popular opposition to foreign influences, in the time of Mtesa; and Muanga did not dare, for fear of them, to carry out any innovations. Although the kingship is limited in reality, yet in form it occupies an imposing position in unessentials. The ruler is absolute master over the lives and limbs of his subjects, the mass of the people, and feels himself restrained only in the narrowest circle of the chief courtiers.”[106] Precisely the same statement applies to the inhabitants of Oceania, to mention the last of the great societies that created states: “At no place does one find an entire absence of a representative mediation between prince and people.... The aristocratic principle corrects the patriarchal. Therefore, the extremes of _despotism_ depend more on class and caste pressure than on the overpowering will of any individual.”[107] (c) THE POLITICAL AND SOCIAL DISINTEGRATION OF THE PRIMITIVE FEUDAL STATE Space forbids our detailing the innumerable shadings under which the patriarchal-aristocratic (in some cases plutocratic) mixture of form of government in the primitive feudal state is shown in either an ethnographic, historical or juristic survey. This is likewise of the greatest importance for the subsequent development. It is indifferent how much power the ruler may have had at the beginning, an inevitable fate breaks down his power in a short while; and does this, one may say, the faster, the greater that power was, i. e., the larger the territory of the primitive feudal state of higher grade.