d in
the form of rights of the subject,[52] while one refers to freedom of
speech in Parliament. When nevertheless all the stipulations of the Bill
of Rights are therein designated as rights and liberties of the English
people,[53] it is through the belief that restriction of the crown is
at the same time right of the people.

This view grew directly out of the mediaeval conception of the Teutonic
state. While the ancient state appears at the beginning of its history
as [Greek: polis] or _civitas_, as an undivided community of citizens,
the monarchical Teutonic state is from the beginning dualistic in
form,--prince and people form no integral unity, but stand opposed to
each other as independent factors. And so the state in the conception of
the time is substantially a relation of contract between the two. The
Roman and Canonical theory of law under the influence of ancient
traditions even as early as the eleventh century attempts to unite the
two elements in that, upon the basis of a contract, it either makes the
people part with their rights to the prince, and accordingly makes the
government the state, or it considers the prince simply as the
authorized agent of the people and so makes the latter and the state
identical. The prevailing opinion in public law, however, especially
since the rise of the state of estates, sees in the state a double
condition of contract between prince and people. The laws form the
content of this compact. They established, therefore, for the prince a
right of demanding lawful obedience, and for the people of demanding
adherence to the limitations placed by the laws. The people accordingly
have a right to the fulfilment of the law by the prince. Thus all laws
create personal rights of the people, and the term people is thought of
in a confused way as referring to the individuals as well as to the
whole--_singuli et universi_.[54] From this point of view it is a right
of the people that Parliament should be frequently summoned, that the
judge should inflict no cruel punishments, and however else the
declarations of the English charters may read.

This conception of law as two-sided, establishing rights for both
elements of the state, runs through all the earlier English history. The
right which is conferred by law passes from generation to generation, it
becomes hereditary and therefore acquirable by birth as one of the
people. Under Henry VI. it is declared of the law: "La ley est le plus