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a serious gap in our knowledge when we put aside "the mental state of the millions upon millions of men "who fill what we vaguely call the East as a pheno"menon of little interest and of no instructiveness. "The fact is not unknown to most of us that, among "these multitudes, Literature, Religion, and Art-or "what corresponds to them-move always within a

distinctly drawn circle of unchanging notions; but "the fact that this condition of thought is rather the "infancy of the human mind prolonged than a dif"ferent maturity from that most familiar to us, is very seldom brought home to us with a clearness 'rendering it fruitful of instruction.

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"I do not, indeed, deny that the difference between "the East and the West, in respect of the different speed at which new ideas are produced, is only a "difference of degree. There were new ideas produced " in India even during the disastrous period just before "the English entered it, and in the earlier ages this production must have been rapid. There must have "been a series of ages during which the progress of "China was very steadily maintained, and doubtless

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our assumption of the absolute immobility of the "Chinese and other societies is in part the expression "of our ignorance. Conversely, I question whether "new ideas come into being in the West as rapidly "as modern literature and conversation sometimes suggest. It cannot, indeed, be doubted that causes,

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"unknown to the ancient world, lead among us to the multiplication of ideas. Among them are the neverceasing discovery of new facts of nature, inventions changing the circumstances and material conditions "of life, and new rules of social conduct; the chief of "this last class, and certainly the most powerful in the "domain of law proper, I take to be the famous maxim "that all institutions should be adapted to produce the greatest happiness of the greatest number. Never

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theless, there are not a few signs that even conscious "efforts to increase the number of ideas have a very "limited success. Look at Poetry and Fiction. From "time to time one mind endowed with the assemblage "of qualities called genius makes a great and sudden "addition to the combinations of thought, word, and "sound which it is the province of those arts to pro

duce; yet as suddenly, after one or a few such efforts, "the productive activity of both branches of invention ceases, and they settle down into imitativeness for

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perhaps a century at a time. An humbler example may be sought in rules of social habit. We speak "of the caprices of Fashion; yet, on examining them "historically, we find them singularly limited, so much that we are sometimes tempted to regard Fashion "as passing through cycles of form ever repeating "themselves. There are, in fact, more natural limita"tions on the fertility of intellect than we always "admit to ourselves, and these, reflected in bodies

So,

"of men, translate themselves into that weariness of novelty which seems at intervals to overtake whole "Western societies, including minds of every degree "of information and cultivation.

"My present object is to point out some of the "results of mental sterility at a time when society is in "the stage which we have been considering. Then, "the relations between man and man were summed up "in kinship. The fundamental assumption was that "all men, not united with you by blood, were your "enemies or your slaves. Gradually the assumption "became untrue in fact, and men, who were not blood "relatives, became related to one another on terms of peace and mutual tolerance or mutual advantage. "Yet no new ideas came into being exactly harmonis"ing with the new relation, nor was any new phraseo"logy invented to express it. The new member of "each group was spoken of as akin to it, was treated as

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akin to it, was thought of as akin to it. So little

were ideas changed that, as we shall see, the very "affections and emotions which the natural bond "evoked were called forth in extraordinary strength "by the artificial tie. The clear apprehension of these "facts throws light on several historical problems, and "among them on some of Irish history. Yet they "ought not greatly to surprise us, since, in a modified "form, they make part of our everyday experience. "Almost everybody can observe that, when new cir

"cumstances arise, we use our old ideas to bring them "home to us; it is only afterwards, and sometimes "long afterwards, that our ideas are found to have "changed. An English Court of Justice is in great

part an engine for working out this process. New "combinations of circumstance are constantly arising, "but in the first instance they are exclusively interpreted according to old legal ideas. A little later "lawyers admit that the old ideas are not quite what they were before the new circumstances arose.

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"The slow generation of ideas in ancient times 66 may first be adduced as necessary to the explanation "of that great family of Fictions which meet us on "the threshold of history and historical jurispru"dence."

ESSAY IV.

THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES.

THE Constitution of the United States of America is much the most important political instrument of modern times. The country, whose destinies it controls and directs, has this special characteristic, that all the territories into which its already teeming population overflows are so placed, that political institutions of the same type can be established in every part of them. The British Empire contains a much larger population, but its portions lie far apart from one another, divided by long stretches of sea, and it is impossible to apply the popular government of the British Islands to all of them, and to none of them can it be applied without considerable modifications. Russia has something like the compactness of the United States, and her population is at present more numerous, although her numbers seem likely to be overtaken in no long time by those included in the American Federation. All the Russian Empire is nominally governed through the sole authority of the