[72] At the last moment before going to press, it is cheering to find this contention (treated more fully by the present writer in an article in the Anglo-Italian Review, Dec., 1918), corroborated by Prof. A. J. Grant, who, in an article on “Dante’s conception of History” (History, Vol. VI, Jan., 1922), speaks thus of the Poet’s praise of the Empire: “It is a demand for a world-order resting on laws that are sensible and generally known, and which control the lives of states as well as of individuals. It is little exaggeration to say that it is a plea for a League of Nations; and the De Monarchia is not a bad handbook for those who are called upon to speak for the League” (p. 229).
[73] Par. xxii. 151.
[74] Mon. iii. 16; Oxf., p. 376; Bemp. p. 411.
[75] Mon. I, xi; Oxf. p. 345; Bemporad, p. 364.
[76] Mon. I, xi., ut supra.
[77] Mon. I, xi.
[78] III, iv. init. Oxf., p. 365; Bemporad, p. 394. Dante combats and refutes the traditional argument in vogue in his day, which assumed that the creation of sun and moon in Gen. i. had a mystical reference to the Spiritual and Temporal powers respectively and argued that therefore, because the moon derives her light from the sun, the Temporal must owe its authority to the Spiritual; but, later in the chapter (Oxf., p. 366 sq.; Bemporad, p. 396), he seems to admit a workable analogy between the luminaries and the authorities.
[79] Purg. xvi. 106 sqq.
[80] Par. vi. 121 sq.
[81] 2 Cor. iii. 17.