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 flesh. They took their general principles from Aristotle, and their precedents from the days of John or Queen Anne; and something surely must have been learnt in the interval. Aristotle's remarks have become platitudes—perhaps because they were so wise; but they surely require a little fresh testing. Bagehot's book upon the British Constitution came like a revelation; simply because he had opened his eyes and looked at the facts. They were known to everybody; they had been known to everybody for generations; and yet, somehow or other, nobody had put them together. Every cog and wheel in the machinery had been described to its minutest details, but the theory supposed to be embodied in its working was hopelessly unreal. It was a kind of fossil erudition; and led to singular misconceptions, and, moreover, to misconceptions of grave practical importance.

Bagehot's main point may illustrate his method. When the Constitution of the United States was framed, the philosophy was supplied by the authors of the famous Federalist. They had read Montesquieu, who was a man of genius, but also a Frenchman. He had naturally taken for granted that the conventional maxims of English