d, for instance, that there is any body of theoretic opinion so
compact and so well thought out as Benthamism was in its own day
and generation. Again, in practice, there are ominous signs that
Parliament is likely to break up into groups; and the substitution of
groups for parties is certain, if continental experience is to count
for anything, to create new obstacles in the way of firm and stable
government. Weak government throws power to something which usurps
the name of public opinion, and public opinion as expressed by the
ventriloquists of the newspapers is at once more capricious and more
vociferous than it ever was. This was abundantly shown during the last
five years by a variety of unfortunate public adventures. Then,
does the excitement of democracy weaken the stability of national
temperament? By setting up what in physics would be called a highly
increased molecular activity, does it disturb not merely conservative
respect for institutions, but respect for coherence and continuity of
opinion and sentiment in the character of the individual himself? Is
there a fluidity of character in modern democratic societies which
contrasts not altogether favourably with the strong solid types
of old? Are Englishmen becoming less like Romans, and more like
disputatious Greeks? These and many other considerations of the same
kind are enough to secure a ready welcome for any thinker who can
light up the obscurities of the time.

With profound respect for Sir Henry Maine's attainments, and every
desire to profit by illumination wherever it may be discerned, we
cannot clearly see how the present volume either makes the problems
more intelligible, or points the way to feasible solutions. Though
he tries, in perfect good faith, to be the dispassionate student, he
often comes very close to the polemics of the hour. The truth is
that scientific lawyers have seldom been very favourable to popular
government; and when the scientific lawyer is doubled with the Indian
bureaucrat, we are pretty sure beforehand that in such a tribunal it
will go hard with democracy. That the author extremely dislikes and
suspects the new order, he does not hide either from himself or
us. Intellectual contempt for the idolatries of the forum and the
market-place has infected him with a touch of that chagrin which
came to men like Tacitus from disbelief In the moral government of
a degenerate world. Though he strives, like Tacitus, to take up his
para