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 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 politicians corresponded to the vital principles of the British Constitution. His disciples supposed that one such principle was the separation of the legislative from the executive power. This, says Bagehot, was the "literary" and therefore the utterly wrong theory. The Americans naturally had George III on the brain. George III represented the executive in England, and had interfered unduly with the legislative. If the American President was the true analogue of the English monarch, the essential point was to provide security against this abuse. Carry out the principle of the division of powers more thoroughly; separate the President from the Congress; and there

would be no danger of a Washington or a Jefferson becoming a George III or a Cromwell. This involved a thorough misconception. The President was really analogous, not to the King, but to the Prime Minister. To divide his functions from the functions of Congress would, therefore, be like removing the English Prime Minister from the House of Commons. That would clearly involve a complete dislocation of the whole English system. The fact-obscured for a time by George III's personal influence-was that the Minister had really become the centre of the executive power and the organ of the legislative power. The "efficient secret of the British Constitution" was, therefore, not the division, but "the nearly complete fusion" of the two powers. A vital change had been unnoticed, because it had taken place by a tacit and gradual process. The Cabinet has no recognized position in our Constitution; its powers are defined by no definite law; and yet its development implies a profound constitutional change. The Cabinet is, says Bagehot, the "hyphen" which joins the legislative to the executive power. Because the hyphen had not been forged by any legal process, the "fusion" of powers which it indicated had been ignored. The two powers had coalesced by slow, insensible, and unavowed methods, and the coalescence was therefore supposed not to have taken place at all. The "literary" theory not only failed to recognize, but implicitly denied, the essential fact. The radical change had been carried out under a mask of uniformity. The Constitution had come to embody a principle which was the very reverse of the ostensible principle; and as we had only looked at the external forms, we had spoken as though the prerogative of the Crown still represented the same facts as in the days of the Tudors.

When Bagehot pointed out that the

Cabinet was virtually a Committee of the House of Commons, and the real Executive elected by and responsible to the Legislature, he was simply putting together notorious facts. They had, no doubt, been more or less recognized. Yet he was not only clearing away a mass of useless formulæ, but almost making a discovery, and the rarest kind of discovery, that of the already known. He was exposing an error which had misled the ablest founders of the most remarkable of modern Constitutions. They were, without knowing it, exchanging the "Cabinet" for the "Presidential" system. Whether the Presidential system had or had not the disadvantages ascribed to it by Bagehot is a different question. any rate, it was true, as he said, that its founders, while intending to develop a system by accepting its ostensible principle, were really inverting it and acting upon a contradictory principle. To have disengaged the facts so clearly from the mass of conventional fictions was a remarkable achievement. Bagehot revealed a plain fact hidden from more pretentious philosophers who had been blinded by traditional formulæ.

At

Bagehot proceeded to draw conclusions which seemed scandalously cynical to the young reformers who, when his articles first appeared in The Fortnightly Review, were proposing to "shoot Niagara." He admitted that the British Constitution was a whole mass of fictions; its ostensible principles were a mere cover for totally inconsistent practice; and yet that was one of its chief merits. It was a vast make-believe, involving an "organized hypocrisy," and for that reason the best of all possible Constitutions. deify a king in sentiment as we once deified him in doctrine. "This illusion has been, and still is, of incalculable benefit to the human race." The "theatrical show of society" impresses the popular imagination; and the "cli

We

max of the play is the Queen." "Philosophers may deride the superstition, but the results are inestimable.” A Cabinet Government is only possible for "deferential nations:" men who can delegate power to "superior persons.” Public opinion is supreme, and public opinion is the opinion of "the baldheaded man at the back of the omnibus"-whom, in modern slang, we call "the man in the street." He is totally incapable of forming any rational opinion upon any political question whatever; but he can be impressed by his betters. He will choose a "select few" to rule him. They, too, will be heavy, respectable men, "the last people in the world to whom, if drawn up in a row, an immense nation would ever give an exclusive preference;” but they will have sense enough to elect in their turn an Executive of capable statesCarlyle and Bagehot agreedwhat few people can deny-that men are "mostly fools." Carlyle inferred that they should be ruled by heavensent heroes; Bagehot, that they should be impressed by the "shams," as Carlyle would have called them, appropriate to sluggish imaginations. Bagehot delighted in his Somersetshire clown, who regarded the Crimean War as a personal struggle between Queen Victoria and the Emperor Nicholas, and he did not see how it could be ended till the Queen had caught the Emperor and locked him up. The clown, that is, can only understand loyalty to a person. To reach him you must represent general principles by concrete symbols.

men.

The cynic's merit is to see facts; and these facts are undeniable. I have always wondered how some political theories can survive a walk through the Strand. People argue gravely, and as if it were obviously true, that the sovereign power should simply sum up the opinions of its multitudinous component atoms. How many people

would you meet between Temple Bar and Charing Cross who have any real opinion whatever, if "opinion" implies any process of reasoning? They have blind instincts, no doubt, and strong feelings; but by what chemistry can the vague mass of ignorance and prejudice be transmuted into political wisdom? If "stupidity" were enough, we should be in no difficulty. We have stupidity-massive, stolid stupidity-in superabundance. That is a great fact. But if stupidity is to be harmless, it must be a stupidity conscious of its own defects. Bagehot's pert French journalist was an adept in using the phrases to take the place of thought, and enable fools to think themselves philosophers. They took phrases for ideas; and cast aside not only the traditional maxims, but the practical wisdom really embodied in the tradition. English "stupidity" went with docility, "deferential" habits of mind, and therefore willingness to trust a select few. Bagehot argued in a very able article upon the "unreformed Parliament" how, with all its abuses, it had more ог less encouraged this invaluable tendency. The whole system had trained us to act as became well-meaning stupid people, with just enough brains to recognize their betters. The doctrine takes fresh shape in his most popular book, the "Physics and Politics." Bagehot had been profoundly interested in the discussions started by Darwin, and their bearing upon political questions. He was not, and did not in the least affect to be, an original inquirer. He followed the teaching of Mr. Herbert Spencer and Mr. Tylorthough with his own intellect always keenly at work. The book, therefore, is hardly an original contribution to the history of primitive societies, and his dogmas would, I suppose, require to be often stated as more or less plausible conjectures. What especially interests him is their application to contempo

rary problems. The methods which show how men grew out of monkeys might show how early societies grew out of savage hordes; and, then, as most of us are still, if not in the savage, in the infantile stage, how modern societies are actually held together. He invented the now proverbial phrase, "the cake of custom," to express one essential condition. Men can never emerge from pure barbarism till they are capable of forming a body of sacred inviolable laws to hold them together. But, then, if the "cake" be too solid, they will never get any farther. They will crystallize into solid shapes which make progress impossible. How does the "age of discussion" ever succeed to the age of custom? How does "contract" succeed "status;" or, in other words, how do men gain the right to settle their own lives instead of being wedged from birth into a rigid framework? "One of the greatest pains to human nature, he says characteristically, "is the pain of a new idea;" it is "so upsetting." How does so tender a shoot manage to pierce the soil hardened by sacred traditions? His answer suggests a doctrine which has been elaborately worked out (quite independently, I believe) in the singularly ingenious and suggestive writing of M. Tarde. Bagehot remarks that a force is at work in all times, which shows itself in savages and civilized races, in the greatest and smallest affairs, in making nations and starting fashions. That is the force of "imitation." He illustrates it by a literary instance. What, he asks, caused the rise of the Queen Anne literature? Steele "a vigorous, forward man"-struck out the essay; Addison elaborated it and gave it permanent value. Troops of other writers followed and followed, in the main not of set purpose, but by unconscious imitation. The doctrine is, of course, Darwinian. The patronage of favored forms corresponds to the pres

ervation of the fortunate varieties. As Darwin argued from variation in pigeons to variation of species in general, Bagehot argues from a literary fashion to the most important processes of social growth. Religious doctrines, he says, spread not by argument but by the attractiveness of the type; and a great political leader dictates the tone of the community. We were all frivolous under Palmerston, and became "earnest" with Gladstone. Imitation is at work everywhere.

There are obvious criticisms upon which I need not touch. The full development by M. Tarde shows how many consequences may be, at least plausibly, deduced. "Imitation," thus understood, discharges a double function. It produces, on the one hand, the uniformity of life which is essential to civilized society. The stupidity or docility of mankind establishes the laws of conduct which are essential if we are to understand each other and to co-operate. If, on the other hand, the uniformity becomes excessive, individual initiative starts new types. The most effective will succeed, but in any case is adopted without foresight of results by an unconscious instinct. The problem, once more, is to facilitate the play of this natural force, for if the wise man imitates the fool society will stagnate, while it is rather difficult to get the fool to see the merits of the wise. We have to face the old problem: Does not democracy lead to a dead level, and is not democracy incapable? Bagehot felt that difficulty as keenly as other men to whom intellectual culture represents one main charm of life. Will not that "bald-headed man in the omnibus" or the proletarian below him get the upper hand and set the fashion to be universally imitated? Bagehot was to a certain point conservative or aristocratic. The old aristocratic system had, in a blundering way, given a predominance to the select few. When

the Reform Bill became necessary, the slow, clumsy intellect of Lord Althorp secured the passage of an undoubtedly beneficial measure. Unluckily, he was too clumsy. The aristocracy had intelligence, but very limited ideas, and had terribly missed its opportunities. It had properly abolished the old system which, after an awkward fashion, gave influence to the intellectual classes, but it had provided no equivalent. We have, therefore, to face a tremendous difficulty; we have to induce "this self-satisfied, stupid, inert mass of men to admit its own insufficiency." That is hard enough; but it is still harder to suggest remedies, and hardest of all to secure their application. Bagehot discusses Hare's scheme, which Mill had recently declared to provide a panacea, and shows-unanswerably, I think-how it would only lead to the supremacy of caucuses and machine-made politics. He makes a suggestion or two of his own, life-peerages and so forth; but of them it is enough to say that the insufficiency is only too palpable. The democracy is too strong to be hampered by constitutional devices, and very unlikely to adopt any measures deliberately intended to fetter its own powers of action. "I can venture to say," he observes in the last addition to his book on the Constitution, "what no elected Member of Parliament can venture to say, that I am terribly afraid of the ignorant multitude of the new constituencies. We may have a 'glut' of stupidity." Probably, the opinion and the reluctance to utter it are both stronger than when Bagehot wrote (1872). To the democrat, Bagehot's despondency will appear as a proper penalty of his cynicism. One remark is suggested by his whole argument. His essential case is that the British Constitution depends for its excellence upon the elaboration of the purblind political instincts; upon spontaneous "defer

ence" or docility; upon the guided or enlightened "stupidity" which corresponds to his favorite virtue, "animated moderation." It is obvious that if such instincts die out, no political machinery, neither Hare's scheme nor any other scheme, can create them. The problem, that is, passes beyond the merely legal and becomes essentially moral. Loyalty to the monarchy and "deference" to the aristocracy, and, therefore, the corresponding institutions, could not, as Bagehot had insisted, be transplanted to America. No mere political institutions will preserve them if the corresponding instincts really decay. Bagehot had dwelt upon the utility of the "theatrical" elements of the Constitution. It suddenly comes upon him that plain men will take this invaluable element to be superstition and humbug. When you let out the secret that the monarchy is really a part of a stage-play, it will cease to be an effective control of real life. That is the danger which has all along awaited his excessive valuation of "shams." His merit was to have shown more clearly the foundations of the political edifice. If they begin to fail us, the problem of replacing them involves vast moral and social difficulties which lay beyond his peculiar province. They will give work for future generations.

The value of his clear insight into fact remains, and I have only to remark, in conclusion, how well it served him in one other inquiry. Bagehot called himself the last of the old economists. He had a strong sympathy with Ricardo, as with all the

The National Review.

leaders of the old-fashioned do-nothing Liberalism. And yet he showed most effectually one of their weaknesses. His "Lombard Street" owes its power to his imaginative vivacity. Instead of the abstract "economic man"-an embodied formula-he sees the real concrete banker, full of hopes and fires and passions, and shows how they impel him in actual counting-houses. So his discussion of the "Postulates of Political Economy" is an exposition of the errors which arise when we apply mere abstract formulæ, unless we carefully translate them in terms of the facts instead of forcing the facts into the formulæ. When a dull man of business talks of the currency question, says Bagehot, he puts "bills" and "bullion" into a sentence, and does not care what comes between them. He illustrates Hobbes' famous principle that words are the money of fools and the counters of the wise. The word currency loses all interest if we do not constantly look beyond the sign to the thing signified. Bagehot never forgets that condition of giving interest to his writing. Few readers will quite accept the opinion of his editor, that he has made "Lombard Street" as entertaining as a novel. But he has been wonderfully successful in tackling so arid a topic; and the statement gives the impression made by the book. It seems as though the ordinary treatises had left us in the dull leaden cloud of a London fog, which, in Bagehot's treatment, disperses to let us see distinctly and vividly the human beings previously represented by vague, colorless phantoms.

Leslie Stephen.