nities, the nobility their privileges, the army their
exemptions, the trades and artisans their guilds. Even the lawyers
formed a union, and medical men a corporation."

"Thus constitutions are gradually moulded and perfected," said Carlton,
"by extra-constitutional bodies, either coming under the protection of
law, or else being superseded by the law's providing for their objects.
In the middle ages the Church was a vast extra-constitutional body. The
German and Anglo-Norman sovereigns sought to bring its operation
_under_ the law; modern parliaments have superseded its operation _by
law_. Then the State wished to gain the right of investitures; now the
State marries, registers, manages the poor, exercises ecclesiastical
jurisdiction instead of the Church."

"This will make ostracism parallel to the Reformation or the
Revolution," said Sheffield; "there is a battle of influence against
influence, and one gets rid of the other; law or constitution does not
come into question, but the will of the people or of the court ejects,
whether the too-gifted individual, or the monarch, or the religion. What
was not under the law could not be dealt with, had no claim to be dealt
with, by the law."

"A thought has sometimes struck me," said Reding, "which falls in with
what you have been saying. In the last half-century there has been a
gradual formation of the popular party in the State, which now tends to
be acknowledged as constitutional, or is already so acknowledged. My
father never could endure newspapers--I mean the system of newspapers;
he said it was a new power in the State. I am sure I am not defending
what he was thinking of, the many bad proceedings, the wretched
principles, the arrogance and tyranny of newspaper writers, but I am
trying the subject by the test of your theory. The great body of the
people are very imperfectly represented in parliament; the Commons are
not their voice, but the voice of certain great interests. Consequently
the press comes in--to do that which the constitution does not do--to
form the people into a vast mutual-protection association. And this is
done by the same right that Deioces had to collect people about him; it
does not interfere with the existing territory of the law, but builds
where the constitution has not made provision. It _tends_, then,
ultimately to be recognised by the constitution."

"There is another remarkable phenomenon of a similar kind now in process
of developmen