the other. There has been much eloquence expended in explaining how
the rough genius of the English people, even in the middle ages,
when it was especially rude, carried into life and practice that
elaborate division of functions which philosophers had suggested on
paper, but which they had hardly hoped to see except on paper.

Secondly, it is insisted that the peculiar excellence of the British
Constitution lies in a balanced union of three powers. It is said
that the monarchical element, the aristocratic element, and the
democratic element, have each a share in the supreme sovereignty,
and that the assent of all three is necessary to the action of that
sovereignty. Kings, lords, and commons, by this theory, are alleged
to be not only the outward form, but the inner moving essence, the
vitality of the Constitution. A great theory, called the theory of
"Checks and Balances," pervades an immense part of political
literature, and much of it is collected from or supported by English
experience. Monarchy, it is said, has some faults, some bad
tendencies, aristocracy others, democracy, again, others; but
England has shown that a Government can be constructed in which
these evil tendencies exactly check, balance, and destroy one
another--in which a good whole is constructed not simply in spite
of, but by means of, the counteracting defects of the constituent
parts.

Accordingly, it is believed that the principal characteristics of
the English Constitution are inapplicable in countries where the
materials for a monarchy or an aristocracy do not exist. That
Constitution is conceived to be the best imaginable use of the
political elements which the great majority of States in modern
Europe inherited from the mediaeval period. It is believed that out