one branch of the legislature and the rest."

All this is not enough; though, as Bentham was to show in his _Fragment
on Government_, it is already far too much. "A body of nobility," such
is the philosophic interpretation of the House of Lords, "is also more
peculiarly necessary in our mixed and compounded constitution, in order
to support the rights of both the Crown and people, by forming a barrier
to withstand the encroachments of both ... if they were confounded with
the mass of the people, and like them had only a vote in electing
representatives, their privileges would soon be borne down and
overwhelmed by the popular torrent, which would effectually level all
distinctions." "The Commons," he says further, "consist of all such men
of property in the kingdom as have not seats in the House of Lords." The
legal irresponsibility of the King is emphasized. "He is not only
incapable of doing wrong," says Blackstone, "but even of thinking wrong;
he can never mean to do an improper thing; in him is no folly or
weakness," though he points out that the constitution "has allowed a
latitude of supposing the contrary." The powers of the King are
described in terms more suitable to the iron despotism of William the
Norman than to the backstairs corruption of George III. The right of
revolution is noted, with justice, as belonging to the sphere of morals
rather than of law.

"Its true defect," says Professor Dicey of the _Commentaries_, "is the
hopeless confusion both of language and of thought introduced into the
whole subject of constitutional law by Blackstone's habit--common to all
the lawyers of his time--of applying old and inapplicable terms to new
institutions." This is severe enough; yet Blackstone's sins are deeper
than the criticism would suggest. He introduced into English political
philosophy that systematic attention to forms instead of substance upon