n one who, having so long studied the
mechanism of popular government in the most illustrious of assemblies at
the height of its power, has written its history, and taught its methods
to the world.

It is not strange that so delicate and laborious a task should have
remained unattempted. Democracy is a gigantic current that has been fed
by many springs. Physical and spiritual causes have contributed to
swell it. Much has been done by economic theories, and more by economic
laws. The propelling force lay sometimes in doctrine and sometimes in
fact, and error has been as powerful as truth. Popular progress has been
determined at one time by legislation, at others by a book, an
invention, or a crime; and we may trace it to the influence of Greek
metaphysicians and Roman jurists, of barbarian custom and ecclesiastical
law, of the reformers who discarded the canonists, the sectaries who
discarded the reformers, and the philosophers who discarded the sects.
The scene has changed, as nation succeeded nation, and during the most
stagnant epoch of European life the new world stored up the forces that
have transformed the old.

A history that should pursue all the subtle threads from end to end
might be eminently valuable, but not as a tribute to peace and
conciliation. Few discoveries are more irritating than those which
expose the pedigree of ideas. Sharp definitions and unsparing analysis
would displace the veil beneath which society dissembles its divisions,
would make political disputes too violent for compromise and political
alliances too precarious for use, and would embitter politics with all
the passion of social and religious strife. Sir Erskine May writes for
all who take their stand within the broad lines of our constitution. His
judgment is averse from extremes. He turns from the discussion of
theories, and examines his subject by the daylight of institutions,
believing that laws depend much on the condition of society, and little
on notions and disputations unsupported by reality. He avows his
disbelief even in the influence of Locke, and cares little to inquire
how much self-government owes to Independency, or equality to the
Quakers; and how democracy was affected by the doctrine that society is
founded on contract, that happiness is the end of all government, or
labour the only source of wealth; and for this reason, because he always
touches ground, and brings to bear, on a vast array of sifted fact, the
light