XL.] HABIT AND VARIATION IN HISTOKY. 181 



liameutary constitutiou, biit it is quite as important that its 

 merits should not be constantly under discussion. Other 

 legislation would be impossible if Parliament were always 

 engaged in discussing projects for the reform of itself, just 

 as tlie exchange of ideas would be scarcely possible if we 

 had to l)e always thinking of the grammatical construction 

 of our sentences. In a word, as education is possible oidy 

 by actions becoming habitual, so political progress is pos- 

 sible only on condition of institutions becoming in some 

 degi'ee permanent. They are the greatest of political hores Political 

 who think every opportunity a right one for opening a ^°'^^^- 

 discussion on the merits of any institution whatever, 

 though the instinctive conservatism of mankind generally 

 prevents them from being dangerous. 



All this is obvious enough. There is another parallelism, 

 between the mental development of the individual and the 

 progress of society, which is equally real though not so 

 obvious. It is a truth on which I have insisted in the 

 biological part of this work, that the conscious functions Consciou.s 

 are in all cases later developed than the unconscious ones, a™ kT"!-^ 

 and are developed out of them ; and it is scarcely a meta- develoiied 

 phor to say that this is true of political development also, the imiivi- 

 Society acts unconsciously before it learns to act con- ^'^^^ •'^"'^ 



T ^ ,,,.,. , in society. 



sciously. Government at nrst springs up spontaneously ; 

 nations at a later period learn to appoint their governments 

 by a conscious and deliberate act ; but the appointment of 

 a government by a conscious national act would never Govem- 

 have become possible, and indeed could not have been ™'*'^*" 

 thought of, if governments had not first grown into exist- 

 ence as a natural development of paternal authority.^ The 

 same is true of the origin of law. It is a truth which Law. 

 must be understood in order to make primitive history 

 intelligible, that custom is older than lajislation : — laws 

 originate unconsciously in custom before they can be con- 

 sciously modified by legislation ; and legislation would be 

 impossible if it had not a basis in customary law. This 

 ought to be easily intelligible to those who live under the 

 English system of law, in which common law has, or at 



' See Maine oil Ancient Law, clia])ter v. 



