very well in a fairy-tale. But in real life the "benevolent
despot" rarely happens and still more rarely succeeds himself. The
"father of his people" usually has a pompous son and a vicious grandson,
who bring the people to ruin. The melancholy trinity--David, Solomon,
Rehoboam--has reappeared with depressing regularity throughout history.

Furthermore, even the benevolent despot has his limitations. The trouble
with all despots, good or bad, is that their rule is entirely
_personal_. Everything, in the last analysis, depends on the despot's
personal will. Nothing is fixed or certain. The benevolent despot
himself may discard his benevolence overnight, and the fate of an empire
may be jeopardized by the monarch's infatuation for a woman or by an
upset in his digestion.

We Occidentals have, in fact, never known "despotism," in its Simon
Pure, Oriental sense; not even under the Roman Empire. Indeed, we can
hardly conceive what it means. When we speak of a benevolent despot we
usually think of the "enlightened autocrats" of eighteenth-century
Europe, such as Frederick the Great. But these monarchs were not
"despots" as Orientals understand it. Take Frederick, for example. He
was regarded as absolute. But his subjects were not slaves. Those proud
Prussian officers, starched bureaucrats, stiff-necked burghers, and
stubborn peasants each had his sense of personal dignity and legal
status. The unquestioning obedience which they gave Frederick was given
not merely because he was their king, but also because they knew that he
was the hardest-working man in Prussia and tireless in his devotion to
the state. If Frederick had suddenly changed into a lazy, depraved,
capricious tyrant, his "obedient" Prussians would have soon showed him
that there were limits to his power.

In the Orient it is quite otherwise. In the East "there lies upon the
eyes and foreheads of all men a law which is not found in the European
decalogue; and this law runs: 'Thou shalt honour and worship the man
whom God shall set above thee for thy King: if he cherish thee, thou
shalt love him; and if he plunder and oppress thee thou shalt still love
him, for thou art his slave and his chattel.'"[111] The Eastern monarch
may immure himself in his harem, casting the burdens of state upon the
shoulders of a grand vizier. This vizier has thenceforth limitless
power; the life of every subject is in his hands. Yet, any evening, at
the pout of a dancing-girl, the mon