Excerpt from Principles of Civil Government

Without this guidance our legislation and our progress must be blundering and haphazard. Measures framed to suit the exigencies or demands of the moment, without considering whether they are consistent with principle or sanctioned by experience, can only work confusion and harm. They will, indeed, be speedily cast aside, but only to be replaced by equally empirical remedies. On the other hand, legislation guided by those who have learned the lessons of the past, and who understand the bases on which civil society rests, directs the advance of mankind in safe channels, and makes prosperity greater by rendering it sure.

Such studies are especially called for at a time which is marked by essential changes in the constitutional system of all civilised nations. At the present moment we are in a state of transition from the rule of the few to the rule of the many. The stage is one of peril, not the less real because it is inevitable.

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