intrinsic ground of existence, but now, it is alleged, this is an
historical fossil, an antiquarian relic, venerable because gray with age.
It what, it is asked, can consist the peculiar vocation of the
aristocracy, since it has no longer the monopoly of the land, of the
higher military functions, and of government offices, and since the
service of the court has no longer any political importance? To this
Riehl replies, that in great revolutionary crises, the "men of progress"
have more than once "abolished" the aristocracy. But, remarkably enough,
the aristocracy has always reappeared. This measure of abolition showed
that the nobility were no longer regarded as a real class, for to abolish
a real class would be an absurdity. It is quite possible to contemplate
a voluntary breaking up of the peasant or citizen class in the
socialistic sense, but no man in his senses would think of straightway
"abolishing" citizens and peasants. The aristocracy, then, was regarded
as a sort of cancer, or excrescence of society. Nevertheless, not only
has it been found impossible to annihilate an hereditary nobility by
decree, but also the aristocracy of the eighteenth century outlived even
the self-destructive acts of its own perversity. A life which was
entirely without object, entirely destitute of functions, would not, says
Riehl, be so persistent. He has an acute criticism of those who conduct
a polemic against the idea of an hereditary aristocracy while they are
proposing an "aristocracy of talent," which after all is based on the
principle of inheritance. The Socialists are, therefore, only consistent
in declaring against an aristocracy of talent. "But when they have
turned the world into a great Foundling Hospital they will still be
unable to eradicate the 'privileges of birth.'" We must not follow him
in his criticism, however; nor can we afford to do more than mention
hastily his interesting sketch of the mediaeval aristocracy, and his
admonition to the German aristocracy of the present day, that the
vitality of their class is not to be sustained by romantic attempts to
revive mediaeval forms and sentiments, but only by the exercise of
functions as real and salutary for actual society as those of the
mediaeval aristocracy were for the feudal age. "In modern society the
divisions of rank indicate _division of labor_, according to that
distribution of functions in the social organism which the historical
constitution o