asion
threatened.--Ceraunus prepares to defend himself.--Ceraunus thrown
to the ground and killed.--Consequences of the death of Ceraunus.

The reader will perhaps recollect that when Pyrrhus withdrew from
Macedon, before he embarked on his celebrated expedition into Italy,
the enemy before he was compelled to retire was Lysimachus. Lysimachus
continued to reign in Macedon for some time after Pyrrhus had gone,
until, finally, he was himself overthrown, under circumstances of a
very remarkable character. In fact, his whole history affords a
striking illustration of the nature of the results which often
followed, in ancient times, from the system of government which then
almost universally prevailed--a system in which the supreme power was
considered as rightfully belonging to some sovereign who derived it
from his ancestors by hereditary descent, and who, in the exercise of
it, was entirely above all sense of responsibility to the subjects of
his dominion.

It has sometimes been said by writers on the theory of civil
government that the principle of hereditary sovereignty in the
government of a nation has a decided advantage over any elective mode
of designating the chief magistrate, on account of its _certainty_. If
the system is such that, on the death of a monarch, the supreme power
descends to his eldest son, the succession is determined at once,
without debate or delay. If, on the other hand, an election is to take
place, there must be a contest. Parties are formed; plans and
counterplans are laid; a protracted and heated controversy ensues; and
when, finally, the voting is ended, there is sometimes doubt and
uncertainty in ascertaining the true result, and very often an angry
and obstinate refusal to acquiesce in it when it is determined. Thus
the principle of hereditary descent seems simple, clear, and liable to
no uncertainty or doubt, while that of popular election tends to lead
the country subject to it into endless disputes, and often ultimately
to civil war.

But though this may be in _theory_ the operation of the two systems,
in actual practice it has been found that the hereditary principle has
very little advantage over any other in respect to the avoidance of
uncertainty and dispute. Among the innumerable forms and phases which
the principle of hereditary descent assumes in actual life, the cases
in which one acknowledged and unquestioned sovereign of a country
dies, and leaves one acknowledged and