people had, and claimed, no _rights_. The only men to whom rulers
listened, or by whom they were controlled, were those whom they chose as
counsellors and ministers, who were supposed to advise with a view to
the sovereign's benefit, and that of the empire generally.

The same may be said in general of other Oriental monarchies,
especially when embarked in aggressive wars, where the will of the
monarch was supreme and unresisted, as in Persia. In India and China the
government was not so absolute, since it was checked by feudatory
princes, almost independent like the feudal barons and dukes of
mediaeval Europe.

Nor was there probably among Oriental nations any elaborate codification
of the decrees and laws as in Greece and Rome, except by the priests for
their ritual service, like that which marked the jurisprudence of the
Israelites. There were laws against murder, theft, adultery, and other
offences, since society cannot exist anywhere without such laws; but
there was no complicated jurisprudence produced by the friction of
competing classes striving for justice and right, or even for the
interests of contending parties. We do not look to Egypt or to China for
wise punishment of ordinary crimes; but we do look to Greece and Rome,
and to Rome especially, for a legislation which shall balance the
complicated relations of society on principles of enlightened reason.
Moreover, those great popular rights which we now most zealously defend
have generally been extorted in the strife of classes and parties,
sometimes from kings, and sometimes from princes and nobles. Where there
has been no opposition to absolutism these rights have not been secured;
but whenever and wherever the people have been a power they have
imperiously made their wants known, and so far as they have been
reasonable they have been finally secured,--perhaps after angry