For that daughters should be admitted to the inheritance of a
dominion is in no wise to be allowed.
38. If the king die leaving no male issue, let the next to him in blood
be held the heir to the dominion, unless he chance to have married a
foreign wife, whom he will not put away.
39. As for the citizens, it is manifest (Chap. III. Sec. 5) that every
one of them ought to obey all the commands of the king, and the decrees
published by the great council, although he believe them to be most
absurd, and otherwise he may rightfully be forced to obey. And these are
the foundations of a monarchical dominion, on which it must be built, if
it is to be stable, as we shall show in the next chapter.
40. As for religion, no temples whatever ought to be built at the public
expense; nor ought laws to be established about opinions, unless they be
seditious and overthrow the foundations of the commonwealth. And so let
such as are allowed the public exercise of their religion build a temple
at their own expense. But the king may have in his palace a chapel of
his own, that he may practise the religion to which he belongs.
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1. Curtius, x. 1.
------------------------
CHAPTER VII.
OF MONARCHY (CONTINUATION).
AFTER explaining the foundations of a monarchical dominion, I have taken
in hand to prove here in order the fitness of such foundations. And to
this end the first point to be noted is, that it is in no way repugnant
to experience, for laws to be so firmly fixed, that not the king himself
can abolish them.
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