s, descended of the House of Plantagenet, is a different
sort of being from any one not descended of the Royal House--not
crowned--not anointed. They believe that there is ONE man whom by
mystic right they should obey; and therefore they do obey him. It is
only in later times, when the world is wider, its experience larger,
and its thought colder, that the plain rule of a palpably chosen ruler
is even possible.

These conditions narrowly restrict elective government. But the
prerequisites of a Cabinet government are rarer still; it demands not
only the conditions I have mentioned, but the possibility likewise of a
good legislature--a legislature competent to elect a sufficient
administration.

Now a competent legislature is very rare. ANY permanent legislature at
all, any constantly acting mechanism for enacting and repealing laws,
is, though it seems to us so natural, quite contrary to the inveterate
conceptions of mankind. The great majority of nations conceive of their
law, either as something Divinely given, and therefore unalterable, or
as a fundamental habit, inherited from the past to be transmitted to
the future. The English Parliament, of which the prominent functions
are now legislative, was not all so once. It was rather a PRESERVATIVE
body. The custom of the realm--the aboriginal transmitted law--the law
which was in the breast of the judges, could not be altered without the
consent of Parliament, and therefore everybody felt sure it would not
be altered except in grave, peculiar, and anomalous cases. The VALUED
use of Parliament was not half so much to alter the law, as to prevent
the laws being altered. And such too was its real use. In early
societies it matters much more that the law should be fixed than that
it should be good. Any law which the people of ignorant times enact is
sure to involve many misconceptions, and to cause many evils.
Perfection in legislation is not to be looked for, and is not, indeed,
much wanted in a rude, painful, confined life. But such an age covets
fixity. That men should enjoy the fruits of their labour, that the law
of property should be known, that the law of marriage should be known,
that the whole course of life should be kept in a calculable track is
the summum bonum of early ages, the first desire of semi-civilised
mankind. In that age men do not want to have their laws adapted, but to
have their laws steady. The passions are so powerful, force so eager,
the social