CONSTITUTIONAL LAW 



BY ATTILIO BRUNIALTI 



[Attilio Brunialti, Councilor of State and Deputy of Parliament, Rome, Italy, 

 b. Vicenza, Italy, April 2, 1849. Graduate, University of Padua. Editor 

 of II Diritlo, Rome, 1871-82; Vice-Librarian to Parliament, and Secretary to 

 the Geographical Society, 1872-76; Private Secretary to the first Liberal 

 Minister, Depretis, 1876-80; Professor of Constitutional Law, University of 

 Pavia, 1880-81 ; Professor of Constitutional Law, University of Torino, 1881- 

 90. Member of Parliament, 1881-92; member of Parliament and Councilor 

 of State since 1892; member of Central Commission for Taxes, Rates, and 

 Duties in Rome ; member of the Lombard Aademy ; ibid, of Philadelphia, and of 

 the geographical societies of Rome, Paris, Lyons, and Marseilles; Vice-President 

 of Italian Alpine Club; General Counsel of Touring Club. Author of several 

 books and articles on political science and on other scientific subjects.] 



IN this solemn universal Congress of Science and Arts, the con- 

 stitutional law must be satisfied with one of the most modest places. 

 Normative and historical sciences, like the physical, mental, and 

 utilitarian sciences, can show marvelous progresses, whilst among 

 all sciences providing for social regulation, constitutional law is one 

 of the less fortunate, because, if its actual problems are among the 

 most important and interesting, liberty, justice, and welfare of 

 the human race, the scientific apparatus with which it is pre- 

 paring itself to resolve them is one of the most insufficient. Of 

 course we can also glory in discoveries and progress filling us with 

 a just ambition and pride the representative system, the federal 

 state, the bit of presidential government, the values of cabinet gov- 

 ernment, the participation of the people in the legislation. But if 

 we further our researches we have reason to blush and to feel 

 ashamed of our insufficiency, like the Alboino's physician, thinking 

 how little the science of constitutional law has advanced compared 

 with other sciences. We are even distinguishing the forms of gov- 

 ernment with the doctrines of Aristotle; we are praising the republic 

 uith the words of Cicero; we are preaching socialism with the areu- 

 ments of Uang Ngan Shi and of Plato. Th^re was a greater origin- 

 ality of political thought in a road of Athens in the time of Peiicles 

 or in a palace of Florence in Dante's time than in Rome or in New 

 York in the contemporary period. The reason is that other sciences 

 advanced with precise laws in the increasing surety of their elements, 

 whilst observation and experiment will give to them an ever surer 

 basis, and the science of constitutional law, unable to have recourse 

 to experiment and to find an absolute surety by observation, ad- 

 vanced amidst infinite doubts, admitting the most uncertain and 

 varying solutions for problems implicating the welfare, the progress, 

 and the life of all men in the world. 



