The element in that loose triad of social forces that was first formulated into a more distinct type, and endowed with more imperative efficiency, was the kingship. The power of the king was increased, which of course implies that the power of the people, and specially of the aristocracy, was diminished. And here let it be observed generally that the progress of civilisation in its natural and healthy career is the progress of limitation and the curtailment in various ways of that freedom which originally belonged to every member of the community. The tanned savage of the backwoods is the freest man in existence; next to him, the nomad or the wandering gipsy, such as may still be seen in their glory at St. James' fair in Kelso, whose house is at once his dwelling-place, his manufactory or place of business, and his travelling car; least free is the civilised citizen hemmed in on all sides by police-officers, soldiers, sentinels, door-keepers, and game-keepers, and the whole fraternity of dignified but unpopular officials of various kinds whose business it is to the general public to say No! This accretion of strength to the king proceeded first from his mere personal influence and the general deference paid to him during the continuance of a prolonged and easily-exercised sovereignty; all classes, even the aristocracy, whose ambition is thus kept in check and their perilous enmities softened, feel the benefit of a wise head and a firm hand; but the party specially benefited by the kingship is the demos; for this body, from its position peculiarly liable to be trampled on by an insolent aristocracy, naturally looks up to the king as the father of the whole family, who, on his part, feels his position strengthened and his respect increased by performing with tact and firmness the delicate functions of a mediator. But the great social force which operates in giving prominence and predominance to the monarchy is WAR; and, though war is unquestionably an evil, it is an evil only as death is, and a form of dying accompanied not seldom with an exhibition of more manhood than the experience of many a peaceful deathbed can show. In fact, as stout old Balmerino said on the scaffold in 1746, "The man who is not ready to die is not fit to live;" that is, we hold our life under the condition that we may at any time be called on to sacrifice it, whether for the preservation of our own self-respect, or for the integrity of the community of which we are a member. All great nations, in fact, have been cradled in war, the Hebrews no less than the Greeks and Romans; and it is only an amiable sentimentalism, pardonable in women, but inexcusable in men, that, in contemplation of the hard blows, red wounds, and gashed bodies with which war is accompanied, will allow itself to forget the hardihood, endurance, courage, self-sacrifice, and devotion to public duty, of which, under Providence, it has always been the great training