Their
authority at all times was keyed up to the pitch of a great emergency.
It was supposed to be the immediate expression of the common weal. The
common weal was identified with the security of society and the state.
The security of the state dictated the supreme law. The very authority,
consequently, which was created to preserve order and the Balance of
Power gradually became an effective cause of internal and external
disorder. It became a source not of security, but of individual and
social insecurity, because a properly organized machinery for exercising
such a power and redeeming such a vast responsibility had not as yet
been wrought.
The rulers of the continental states in the eighteenth century explained
and excused every important action they took by what was called "La
Raison d'Etat"--that is, by reasons connected with the public safety
which justified absolute authority and extreme measures. But as a matter
of fact this absolute authority, instead of being confined in its
exercise to matters in which the public safety was really concerned, was
wasted and compromised chiefly for the benefit of a trivial domestic
policy and a merely dynastic foreign policy.
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