THE HISTORY OF INSTITUTIONS. 131 



obliged for convenience to speak as if this 

 were so ; as, for instance, when we speak of 

 "mimicry" in insects. This anticipatory mode 

 of expression may cause no harm when applied 

 to the lower animals, though even there it is apt 

 to mislead the uninformed. In the case of human 

 society it is always treacherous : it suggests 

 the opposite exaggeration to that of those who 

 see in human society nothing but mere natural 

 processes and deny the place of deliberate re- 

 flection altogether. The distribution of powers 

 which Montesquieu saw and admired in the 

 English constitution was not the result of re- 

 flection on the part of any legislator ; the dis- 

 tribution of powers which the founders of the 

 American constitution adopted from Montes- 

 quieu's version of the English constitution was 

 due to reflection. 



3. "HEREDITY." 



By heredity in biological evolution is meant 

 the fact that spontaneous variations tend to 

 persist in the race, to be transmitted by 

 descent. But human beings, besides sharing 

 in this biological transmission of inherited 



