its very life to the conservative instinct of the English
people is well enough known to every student of history. But to-day,
as ever, the institution rests upon a basis very much more substantial
than a mere national predilection. Monarchy remains impregnably
entrenched because the crown, in addition to comprising an accustomed
feature of the governmental economy, fulfills specific ends which are
recognized universally to be eminently worth while, if not
indispensable. As a social, moral, and ceremonial agency, and as a
visible symbol of the unity of the nation; king and court occupy an
immeasurable place in the life and thought of the people; and even
within the domain of government, to employ the figure of Lowell, if
the crown is no longer the motive power of the ship of state, it is
the spar on which the sail is bent, and as such it is not only a
useful but an essential part of the vessel.[78] The entire
governmental order of Great Britain hinges upon the parliamentary
system, and nowhere has that system been reduced to satisfactory
operation without the presence of some central, but essentially
detached, figure, whether a king or, as in France, a president with
the attributes of kingship. It is fundamentally because the English
people have discerned that kingship is not necessarily incompatible
with popular government that the monarchy has persisted. If royalty
had been felt to stand inevitably in the path of democratic progress,
it is inconceivable that all the forces of tradition could have pulled
it through the past seventy-five or eighty years. As it is, while half
a century ago there was in the country a small republican group which
was fond of urging that the monarchy was but a source of needless (p. 060)
expense, to-day there is hardly a vestige, in any grade of society, of
anti-monarchical sentiment.[79]

[Footnote 78: Government of England, I., 49.]

[Footnote 79: The best brief discussions of the
position of the crown in the governmental system
are Lowell, Government of England, I., Chap, 1;
Moran, English Government, Chaps. 2-3; Marriott,
English Political Institutions, Chap. 3; Macy,
English Constitution, Chap. 5; and Low, Governance
of England, Chaps. 14-15. More extended treatment
of the subject will be found in Anson, Law and