FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS OF POLITICS 283 



be consulted at all as to the basis of political organization, her answer 

 would be that inequality and not equality was the universal principle 

 among men, and that, therefore, aristocracy and not democracy 

 was the order of nature; third, the theory that the appropriate 

 social, legal, and political institutions for any people were to be dis- 

 covered, not through any assumption as to the nature of man in 

 general, but by a consideration of the character of the particular 

 people as revealed in its history, and that the institutions which 

 had come to prevail at any particular time through peaceful develop- 

 ment must be presumed to have more inherent justice and validity 

 than any others that might be suggested. 



Of these three views, the first, which defended absolute monarchy 

 on the ground of mystical divine right, was already antiquated, and 

 in the prevailing rationalism found no adherents save a few obscur- 

 antists. The second view had a more intellectual support, and was 

 sustained in a manner that at times manifests no little force by 

 Ludwig von Haller, whose bulky volumes are now rarely opened. 

 The third view characterized the most moderate of the conservatives 

 and determined the actual solution of the problems of the time. It 

 afforded a ground on which the least extreme of both liberals and 

 conservatives were able from time to time to stand together. It 

 triumphed in the Whig reforms in England and in the July Monarchy 

 in France, and it profoundly influenced, if it did not fully control, 

 the application of that principle which on the whole expresses most 

 fully the contribution of this period of the nineteenth century to 

 political science, - - the principle, namely, of constitutionalism in 

 both state and government. 



Let us consider for a moment the source and nature of this prin- 

 ciple. To liberals of every shade in this period, the indispensable 

 token and guarantee of the liberty which they sought was a body 

 of law which should to some extent control and determine the power 

 and procedure of the persons who exercised political authority. 

 With few exceptions, the liberals demanded that this body of law 

 be expressed in a written document. " Constitution ' came to 

 mean specifically "written constitution," and the triumph of liber- 

 alism is no more significantly shown than by the fact that at the 

 middle of the century a great majority of states in the civilized world 

 were equipped with instruments of this kind. But the written 

 constitution was so intimately associated in origin and character with 

 revolution that the established conservative powers could never 

 contemplate it save with abhorrence. Its earliest appearance had 

 been in the abortive efforts of the English Independents during the 

 Puritan Revolution to formulate an operative system that should 

 embody their ideals; it had been resorted to in America on a large 

 scale w r hen the colonies separated from the mother country; and it 



