er produces anything, unless it finds in the
historical and social conditions ground ready for its working. When one
shows the literary origin of an idea, one has by no means therewith
discovered the record of its practical significance. The history of
political science to-day is entirely too much a history of the
literature and too little a history of the institutions themselves. The
number of new political ideas is very small; the most, at least in
embryo, were known to the ancient theories of the state. But the
institutions are found in constant change and must be seized in their
own peculiar historical forms.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 46: It harks back finally to the old definition of Florentinus
L. 4 D. 1, 5: "Libertas est naturalis facultas eius, quod cuique facere
libet, nisi si quid vi aut jure prohibetur."]

[Footnote 47: _Arch. parl._ VIII, p. 222.]

[Footnote 48: _Ibid._, pp. 438 and 453.]

[Footnote 49: Bancroft, VII, p. 243.]

[Footnote 50: _Cf._ Blackstone, _Commentaries on the Laws of England_,
I, 1, p. 127. (Edited by Kerr, London, 1887, I, p. 115.)]

[Footnote 51: Upon this point, _cf._ Cooley, _Constitutional
Limitations_, 6th edition, Boston, 1890, Chap. VII. Even if the
stipulation contained in the bills of rights that one can be deprived of
his property only "by the law of the land" should not be embodied in the
constitution by a state, a law transgressing it would be void by virtue
of the fundamental limitations upon the competence of the legislatures.
_Loc. cit._, p. 208.]

[Footnote 52: The right to address petitions to the king (5), and the
right of Protestant subjects to carry arms for their own defense
suitable to their condition (7).]

[Footnote 53: "And they do claim, demand, and insist upon all and
singular the premises, as their undoubted rights and liberties."]

[Footnote 54: The old English charters put forward as possessors of the
"_jura et libertates_" now the "_homines in regno nostro_", now the
_regnum_ itself. The Petition of Right speaks of the "rights and
liberties" of the subjects, but they are also characterized as "the laws
and free customs of this realm".]

[Footnote 55: Year Books XIX, Gneist, _Englische Verfassungsgeschichte_,
p. 450.]

[Footnote 56: "By which the statutes before-mentioned, and other the
good laws and statutes of this realm, your subjects have inherited this
freedom." Gardiner, _The Constitutional Documents of the Puritan
Revolution_, 1889, pp.