breathed into it a new fervor. Soon the whole of Asia, from the western frontier of Afghanistan to the Mediterranean, acknowledged their rule. Once firmly established the Seljuk Sultans took on the polish and refinements of their environment. Being virgin soil, their appetite for aesthetic improvement grew on what was fed to it, and presently they were reaching out for the means of advancement, so that when Malek Shah came along, in 1072, Mohammedan Asia came under the dominion of a ruler whose understanding and sense of responsibility have rarely been equalled. A government far superior to anything obtaining in Europe at that time or even much later was developed under the administration of this humane and enlightened ruler. His was an absolute control. Never was the doctrine of the divine right of kings upheld more stoutly. But with this untrammelled power went an equally unequivocal theory of responsibility to the governed. The subject was admittedly entitled to the constant care and consideration of his monarch. No indulgence of selfish desires, inclinations or whims by this overlord. His the obligations of the Spartan, ever mindful of his duties, using privilege only to attain superior service. At Malek Shah's bidding his vizier, Nizam ul Mulk, who was in no small measure responsible for the Sultan's high ideals, wrote a treatise on the principles of government, in which was set down, black on white, for every man to read, those superior conceptions of the duties of rulers which were to guide his master,