, sceptres, laurels,
But by degree stand in authentic place?
Take but degree away, untune that string,
And, hark, what discord follows! each thing meets
In mere oppugnancy: the bounded waters
Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores,
And make a sop of all this solid globe:
Strength should be lord of imbecility,
And the rude son should strike his father dead:
Force should be right; or rather, right and wrong,
Between whose endless jar justice resides,
Should lose their names, and so should justice too.
Then every thing includes itself in power,
Power into will, will into appetite;
And appetite, an universal wolf,
So doubly seconded with will and power,
Must make perforce an universal prey,
And last eat up himself.

Deprived of degree, rank, order, society dissolves itself in "chaos."

Near the end of his career, Shakespeare impressively re-stated his
faith in the imperative need of the due recognition of social rank and
grade in civilised communities. In _Cymbeline_ (IV., ii., 246-9) "a
queen's son" meets his death in fight with an inferior, and the
conqueror is inclined to spurn the lifeless corpse. But a wise veteran
solemnly uplifts his voice to forbid the insult. Appeal is made to the
sacred principle of social order, which must be respected even in
death:--

Though mean and mighty, rotting
Together, make one dust; yet reverence,--
That angel of the world,--doth make distinction
Of place 'twixt high and low.

"Reverence, that angel of the world," is the ultimate bond of civil
society, and can never be defied with impunity, it is the saving
sanction of social order.

V

I have quoted some of Shakespeare's avowedly ethical utterances which
bear on conditions of civil society--on morals in their social aspect.
There is no obscurity about their drift. Apart from direct ethical
declaration, it may be that ethical lessons touching political virtue
as well as other specific aspects of morality are deducible from a
study of Shakespeare's plots and characters. Very generous food for
reflection seems to be offered the political philosopher by the plots
and characters of _Julius Caesar_ and _Coriolanus_. The personality of
Hamlet is instinct with ethical suggestion. The story and personages
of _Measure for Measure_ present the most persistent of moral
problems. But discussion of the ethical import of Shakespea