how they will use that power, has not been even enough to explain to
them that they have such power. The Reform Act of 1832 did not for
many years disclose its real consequences; a writer in 1836, whether
he approved or disapproved of them, whether he thought too little of
or whether he exaggerated them, would have been sure to be mistaken
in them. A new Constitution does not produce its full effect as long
as all its subjects were reared under an old Constitution, as long
as its statesmen were trained by that old Constitution. It is not
really tested till it comes to be worked by statesmen and among a
people neither of whom are guided by a different experience.

In one respect we are indeed particularly likely to be mistaken as
to the effect of the last Reform Bill. Undeniably there has lately
been a great change in our politics. It is commonly said that "there
is not a brick of the Palmerston House standing". The change since
1865 is a change not in one point but in a thousand points; it is a
change not of particular details but of pervading spirit. We are now
quarrelling as to the minor details of an Education Act; in Lord
Palmerston's time no such Act could have passed. In Lord
Palmerston's time Sir George Grey said that the disestablishment of
the Irish Church would be an "act of Revolution"; it has now been
disestablished by great majorities, with Sir George Grey himself
assenting. A new world has arisen which is not as the old world; and
we naturally ascribe the change to the Reform Act. But this is a
complete mistake. If there had been no Reform Act at all there
would, nevertheless, have been a great change in English politics.
There has been a change of the sort which, above all, generates
other changes--a change of generation. Generally one generation in
politics succeeds another almost silently; at every moment men of
all ages between thirty and seventy have considerable influence;