the service of liberty, except by the self-government which we are contemplating. Patience, as well as desire of action, can exist separately without an institutional government, but in that case they are both destructive to freedom. Activity, without institutions, becomes a succession of unconnected efforts; patience, without institutions that constantly incite by self-government, and rouse as much as they form the mind, becomes mere submission, and ends in Asiatic resignation.

It would seem, also, that by a system of institutional self-government alone the advantage can be obtained of which Aristotle speaks, when he says that the psephisma (the particular and detailed law) ought to be made so as to suit the given cases by the Lesbian canon, and ought to be applied so as to fit the exact demands.

8 The cyclopian walls in Greece and Italy, built before the memory even of the ancients, and many of which still stand as firm as if raised in recent times, have their strength in the irregularity of the component stones, and the close fitting of one to the other, that no interstices are left even for a blade of grass to grow. An irregular polygonal stone was placed first; sheets of lead were then closely fitted to the upper and lateral surfaces. When taken off, they served as the patterns according to which the stones to be placed next were hewn. It was this sheet and this mode of proceeding which was called the Lesbian canon or rule, while the canon or rule which the architect laid down alike for all stones of an intended wall was called a general canon. See On the Cyclopian Walls, by Forchhammer, Kiel, 1847. Now, Aristotle compares the general law, the nomos, to the general canon, but the particular law, the psephisma, ought, as he says, to be made by the Lesbian canon. Ethica ad Nicomachum, 5, 14. It is inelegant, I readily confess, to use a figure which it is necessary to explain, but I

It is on account of the institutional character of the British polity in general and of the English constitution in particular-on account of the supremacy of the law and of the spirit of self-government which in a high degree pervades the whole polity and society of that country, that, long ago, I did not hesitate to call England a royal republic. Dr. Arnold, some five years later, expressed the same idea, when in the introduction to his Roman History he styles his country "a kingly commonwealth.” It will be hardly necessary to add that the British commonwealth is in many respects of a strongly patrician character, that it is occasionally aristocratic, and that the Englishman believes one of the excellencies of his polity to consist in the fact that it contains in the monarch an element of conservatism apparently high above the contending elements of progress and popular liberty." What advantages

am not acquainted with any process in modern arts similar to the one used as an illustration by the great philosopher, except the forming of the dentist's gold plate according to a mould taken from nature itself. I naturally preferred the simile of the philosopher, even with an explanatory note, to the unbidden associations which the other simile carries along with it. Nor would I withhold from my reader the pleasure we enjoy when a figure or simile is presented to us, so closely fitting the thought like the Lesbian canon, and so exact that itself amounts to the enunciation of an important truth, well formulated. This is the case with Aristotle's figure. I was desirous of transferring it into my book. 9 In my Political Ethics, first published in 1838.

10 I do not know that this opinion was ever more strikingly symbolized than lately, when lord John Russell, the leader of the administration in the commons, moved an address of congratulation to the queen on the birth of a prince, and Mr. Disraeli, the leader

and disadvantages may be wound up in this part, and how far the actual position of Great Britain, the state of her population and her historical development may make it necessary, it is not our task to investigate, any more than to inquire whether the steady progress of England has not been toward a more and more fully developed institutional selfgovernment and virtual republicanism, or whether the absolutists of the continent may be right as to this fact when they maintain that England is no bona fide monarchy, and by her unfortunate example is the chief cause of European unrest, by which of course the advocates of despotic power mean the popular longing for liberty.

My expression has been called "very bold." Whether it be so or not is of little importance. I have given my reason why I have called the English polity thus, and I may be permitted to add that in doing so I meant to use no rhetorical expression, but philosophically to designate an idea, the truth of which has been ever since impressed on my mind more strongly by extended study and the ample commentaries with which the last lustre has furnished the political philosopher.

of the opposition in the same branch, seconded the motion, while a similar motion was made in the lords by lord Aberdeen, the premier of the administration, seconded by the earl of Derby, the premier of the lately ousted administration, and very bitter opponent to the present ministry. What the queen is, in this respect, in England, is the constitution or rather the Union in the United States. Our feelings of loyalty centre in these, but not in our president, any more than an Englishman's loyalty finds a symbol in his prime minister.

The opposite idea was expressed by a French politician of distinction, when, in writing favorably of Louis Napoleon after the vote which succeeded the Second of December, but before he ascended the imperial throne, he said: "universal suffrage is the republic." It will be our duty to consider more in detail the question, whether inorganic, bare, universal suffrage has any necessary and intrinsic connection with liberty or not, and to inquire into the consequences to which uninstitutional suffrage always leads. In this place I would only observe that if he means by republic a polity bearing within its bosom civil liberty, the dictum is radically erroneous. If by republic, however, nothing is meant but a kingless state of politics, irrespective of liberty or the good government of freemen, it is not worth our while to stop for an inquiry. Nothing, indeed, is more directly antagonistic to real self-government than inorganic universal suffrage spreading over a wide dominion. I would also allude once more to the fact that universal suffrage is after all a modus, and not the essence. If, however, it leads to the opposite of self-government, we have no more right to call it "the republic," nor to consider it a form of liberty, than the ancient Germans had a right to be proud of their liberty, after they had gamed themselves into slavery, as Tacitus tells us that many did.

11 Mr. Emil Girardin, who has been referred to several times. He is an unreserved writer, who knows how to express his ideas distinctly, and who is a representative of very large numbers of his countrymen.

According to the French writer, the Roman republic might be said to have continued under the Cæsars, who were elected by the prætorians, and an elective monarchy would present itself as an acceptable government, while, in reality, it is one of the worst. For, it possesses nearly all the evils inherent in the monarchical government, without its advantages, and all the disadvantages of a republic, vastly increased, without its advantages. History, I think, fully bears us out in this opinion, notwithstanding one authority-the only one of weight I can remember-to the contrary."

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12 Lord Brougham, in his Political Philosophy, speaks in terms of high praise of the elective government of the former Germanic empire. Native and contemporary writers have not done so. It was only after the expulsion of the French, and when the German people instinctively longed for German unity and dignity, that, at one time, a poetic longing for the return of the medieval empire was expressed by some. If there be any German left who still desires a return to the elective empire, he must be of a very retrospective character.