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THE POLITICAL LIE.

regard to their shape and size. They must have a special cell, made to fit their angles and planes. They rebel against the laws which do not fit their case, in whose creation they had no share, and they shake their fists in the face of the government official who attempts to give instead of receiving commands. There is no room at all for such natures in an absolute monarchy. This form of government is usually stronger than their power of expansion and they are worsted in their attempt to overthrow it. But before they succumb they shake the State until the king trembles upon his throne and the peasant in his cottage is thrown down by the violence of the shock.

They become regicides, rebels or at least highway robbers or freebooters. In the Middle Ages they wandered through the forests as Robin Hood, or as leaders of a band of brigands, became the terror of princes and peoples. Later as Cortez and Pizarro, they conquered and plundered the New World, fought at Pavia as captains of freelances, and as soldiers of fortune during the Thirty Years War rented their services to the different generals and rose to power, or were broken upon the wheel like Schinderhannes and Cartouche. Today they are called in Russia Nihilists, as yesterday they were known in the Ottoman Empire as Mehemet Ali. A representative government allows these men with the powerful Ego to act out their impulses, maintain their individuality, without disturbing or even threatening the State. Much less exertion is required to be elected to Parliament than to climb to Wallenstein's position, and it is even easier to become prime minister in a constitutional state than to overthrow an ancient throne. A member of Parliament can hold his head high where Hans would be obliged to stoop, and a prime minister may have to struggle but never to obey another's will. Hence Parliamentism in a