[Footnote 1:  Translator’s Note.—­The reader will recollect that Schopenhauer was writing long before the Papal territories were absorbed into the kingdom of Italy.]

[Footnote 2:  See Jean Nieuhoff, L’Ambassade de la Compagnie Orientale des Provinces Unies vers L’Empereur de la Chine, traduit par Jean le Charpentier a Leyde, 1665; ch. 45.]

Constitutional kings are undoubtedly in much the same position as the gods of Epicurus, who sit upon high in undisturbed bliss and tranquillity, and do not meddle with human affairs.  Just now they are the fashion.  In every German duodecimo-principality a parody of the English constitution is set up, quite complete, from Upper and Lower Houses down to the Habeas Corpus Act and trial by jury.  These institutions, which proceed from English character and English circumstances, and presuppose both, are natural and suitable to the English people.  It is just as natural to the German people to be split up into a number of different stocks, under a similar number of ruling Princes, with an Emperor over them all, who maintains peace at home, and represents the unity of the State board.  It is an arrangement which has proceeded from German character and German circumstances.  I am of opinion that if Germany is not to meet with the same fate as Italy, it must restore the imperial crown, which was done away with by its arch-enemy, the first Napoleon; and it must restore it as effectively as possible. [1] For German unity depends on it, and without the imperial crown it will always be merely nominal, or precarious.  But as we no longer live in the days of Guenther of Schwarzburg, when the choice of Emperor was a serious business, the imperial crown ought to go alternately to Prussia and to Austria, for the life of the wearer.  In any case, the absolute sovereignty of the small States is illusory.  Napoleon I. did for Germany what Otto the Great did for Italy:  he divided it into small, independent States, on the principle, divide et impera.

[Footnote 1:  Translator’s Note.—­Here, again, it is hardly necessary to say that Schopenhauer, who died in 1860, and wrote this passage at least some years previously, cannot be referring to any of the events which culminated in 1870.  The whole passage forms a striking illustration of his political sagacity.]

The English show their great intelligence, amongst other ways, by clinging to their ancient institutions, customs and usages, and by holding them sacred, even at the risk of carrying this tenacity too far, and making it ridiculous.  They hold them sacred for the simple reason that those institutions and customs are not the invention of an idle head, but have grown up gradually by the force of circumstance and the wisdom of life itself, and are therefore suited to them as a nation.  On the other hand, the German Michel[1] allows himself to be persuaded by his schoolmaster that he must go about in an English dress-coat, and