to
emphasize the essential differentiation of the product from the
handiwork of the ordinary legislative bodies. In Great Britain,
however, there is, as has appeared, no difference of process, and the
distinction between the law of the constitution and ordinary statute
law is not infrequently all but impossible to trace. If it is to be
traced at all, it must be derived from the circumstances of enactment.
Some measures, e.g., the Habeas Corpus Act, the Act of Settlement, and
the Parliament Act of 1911, relate obviously to the most fundamental
and enduring aspects of state. Others just as clearly have to do with
ephemeral and purely legislative concerns. Precisely where the line
should be drawn between the two no man can say. It is, in the opinion
of Mr. Bryce, because of this obstacle primarily that no attempt has
been made to reduce the English constitution to the form of a single
fundamental enactment.[55]

[Footnote 55: Studies in History and Jurisprudence,
I., No. 3.]

*47. All Parts of the Constitution subject to Amendment.*--In the second
place, no portion whatsoever of the constitution is immune from
amendment or abrogation at the hand of Parliament. So forcefully was
the French observer De Tocqueville impressed with this fact that he
went so far as to assert that there really is no such thing as an
English constitution at all.[56] De Tocqueville wrote, however, from
the point of view of one who conceives of a constitution as of
necessity an "instrument of special sanctity, distinct in character
from all other laws, and alterable only by a peculiar process,
differing to a greater or less extent from the ordinary forms of
legislation";[57] and this conception is recognized universally
nowadays to be altogether inadequate. There is, in every proper sense,
an English constitution. No small portion of it, indeed, is in written
form. And it is worth observing that in practice there is tending to
be established in England in our own day some measure of that (p. 047)
distinction between constituent and legislative functions which
obtains in other countries. There is no disposition to strip from
Parliament its constituent powers; but the feeling is gaining ground
that when fundamental and far-reaching innovations are contemplated
action ought not to be taken until after there shall have been an
appeal to the nation through the medium of a general election at which
the desirab