CONSTITUTIONAL LAW 555 



Not only to be able to advance, but almost to become consoli- 

 dated and to live, political sciences were obliged to accept essentially 

 conventional laws, which appearing rather as fictions and leading 

 to real conventional lies, like the so-called right of might, and the 

 law of the greater number, as the judicial axioms for which the igno- 

 rance of the law is never an excuse, or the judged things are held as 

 absolute truth. The contrast appears even greater because politics 

 is one of the most noble and diffused passions of men, and in the 

 mean time the science of constitutional law leaves us almost indiffer- 

 ent, is not entered in the universal culture, and has the poorest 

 literature. Modern writers are often wanting in a solid, sure method, 

 a method knowing itself, a direction attained from higher principles, 

 a great and very scientific inspiration. And that happened also 

 because the cultivators of other sciences proceed unanimously and 

 compactly, like the Macedonian phalanx, and we are consuming 

 ourselves with isolated efforts, elevating Egyptian monoliths, which 

 few persons are able to appreciate. The reason of that crisis of 

 political science cannot be neglected; it is not possible to fix the 

 manner in which attention should be paid to the solution of modern 

 problems which are imposed on it without knowing the condition of 

 the soul constituting the whole of the feelings and moral tendencies 

 of the present generations. For too long a time are we repeating with 

 Cornewall Lewis, 



" The forms of government let fools contest, 

 What is best administered is best." 1 



The enthusiasms determined by the revolutions and the modern 

 reactions for the Republic and for the monarchy are avoided; 'every 

 civilized state rests in the form most convenient for it, and even those 

 that have experimented many forms of government, like France and 

 Spain, seem convinced of the truth declared in the vulgar problem, 

 " Plus qa change et plus c'est la meme chose." The best studied con- 

 stitutional arrangements are not modifying 2 human nature; every 

 form of government has merits and demerits, leaving us little or not 

 at all wanting in radical changes. Consequently, the study of 

 constitutional law is neglected, as we neglect a plant from which 

 we were hoping for wonderful fruits, whilst it grows up not different 

 from the others in the garden of science. 3 



1 Tremenheere, H., A Manual of the Principles of Government as set by the 

 Authorities of Ancient and Modern Times, London, 1882; Brunialti, A., Le forme 

 di governo, Torino, 1886; and see the works of Cornewall Lewis, T. de Parieu, 

 Ippolite Passy, Emile de Laveleye, on forms of government; Hosmer, People and 

 Politics. 



2 " On ne s'enthousiasme plus guere ni pour la Republique, ni pour la Monar- 

 chic. " E. de Laveleye, Le gouvernment dans la democratic, Preface, p. vii. 



3 Renan, E., Discours et Conferences, 2d ed., pp. 99-101; Scherer, E., La demo- 

 cratic en France, pp. 3, 4, Paris, 1884; Deslandres, La crise de la science politique, 

 in the Revue Politique, 1900, xm, pp. 10, etc. 



