in fact, have exhibited the sams spirit of adherence to precedent, coupled with a power of modifying precedent to suit circumstances, which distinguishes the judicial tribunals. In a constitutional crisis the House of Commons appoints a committee to " search its journals for precedents," just as the Court of Queen s Bench would examine the records of its own decisions. And just as the law, while professing to remain the same, is in process of constant change, so,
too, the unwritten constitution is, without any acknowledgment of the fact, constantly taking up new ground.In contrast with the mobility of an unwritten constitution is the fixity of a constitution written out, like that of the United States or Switzerland, in one authoritative code. The constitution of the United States, drawn up by a Convention in 1789, is contained in a code of articles. It was ratified separately by each State, and thenceforward became the positive and exclusive statement of the constitution. The legislative powers of the legislature are not to extend to certain kinds of bills, e.g., ex post facto bills ; the president has a veto which can only be overcome by a majority of two-thirds in both Houses ; the constitution itself can only be changed in any particular by the consent of the legislatures or conventions of three-fourths of the several States ; and finally the judges of the supreme court are to decide in all disputed cases whether an act of the legislature is permitted by the constitution or not. This is truly a formidable apparatus of provisions against change, and, in fact, only fifteen constitutional amendments have been passed from 1789 to the present day. In the same period the unwritten constitution of England has made a most marked advance, chiefly in the direction of eliminating the separate powers of the Crown, and diminishing those of the House of Lords. The Commons, through its nominees, the Ministry, has absorbed the entire power of the Crown, and it has more and more reduced the other House to a position of secondary importance. The American constitution of 1789 was a faithful copy, so far as it was possible to make one out of the materials in hand, of the contemporary constitu tion of England. The position and powers of the president were a fair counterpart of the royal prerogative of that day ; the Senate and the Congress corresponded sufficiently well to the House of Lords and the House of Commons, allowing for the absence of the elements of hereditary rank and territorial influence. While the English constitution has changed much, the American constitution has changed little, if at all, in these respects. Allowing for the more democratic character of the constituencies, the organization of the supreme power in the United States is nearer the English type of the last century—is less modern, in fact—than is the English constitution of the present day.
One conspicuous feature of the English constitution, by which it is broadly distinguished from written or artificial constitutions, is the presence throughout its entire extent of legal fictions. The influence of the lawyers on the pro gress of the constitution has already been noticed, and is nowhere more clearly shown than in this peculiarity of its structure. As in the common law, so in the constitutions, change has been effected in substance without any corres ponding change in terminology. There is hardly one of the phrases used to describe the position of the Crown which can be understood in its literal sense, and many of them are currently accepted in more senses than one.
Notwithstanding the strongly marked historical character of our political institutions, the fallacy of regarding them as elaborate contrivances devised to effect the end of good government has always more or less prevailed. It finds expression in what is called the theory of checks and balances the theory that power is so distributed among the different elements of the state that each acts as a check oil the other, and none is supreme. So Blackstone and writers of his class tell us that the English constitution is the per fection of political wisdom, inasmuch as it combines the virtues of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy without the faults which would attend any one of these varieties of government unmodified by the others. The tendency to repeat the English type of Parliament, in artificial or paper constitutions, is probably not entirely unconnected with this habit of mind. The question of a second chamber has been a practical difficulty of the first importance in all such constitutions. The attempt to imitate the duality of the English Parliament results in two co-ordinate Houses of le gislature, each of which may at any moment bring legislation to a stop. " In both the American and the Swiss constitu tion," says an eminent writer on this subject (Mr Bagehot), " the Upper House has as much authority as the second ; it could produce the maximum of impediment, the dead-lock, if it liked ; if it does not do so it is owing, not to the goodness of the legal constitution, but to the discreetness of members of the chamber." The explanation may nut unreasonably be found in the impossibility of creating a second chamber with the same character which its history has imposed on the English House of Lords. Our two Houses are far from being of co-ordinate authority. In the last result, the will of the Houso of Commons must prevail.
A further exemplification of this view of the British constitution may be found in the fact that its highest executive council, the Cabinet, is not even known to the law.
Between England and some other constitutional countries a difference of much constitutional importance is to be found in the terms on which the component parts of the country were brought together. All great societies have been produced by the aggregation of small societies into larger and larger groups. In England the process of con solidation was completed before tho constitution settled down into its present form. In the United States, on the other hand, in Switzerland, and in Germany the constitu tion is in form an alliance among a number of independent states, each of which may have a constitution and laws of its own for local purposes. In federal governments it remains a question how far the independence of individual states has been sacrificed by submission to a constitution. In the United States constitutional progress is hampered by the necessity thus created of having every amend ment ratified by the separate vote of three-fourths of the States.
(e. r.)
CONSTITUTION OF BODIES. The question whether the smallest parts of which bodies are composed are finite in number, or whether, on the other hand, bodies are infinitely divisible, relates to the ultimate constitution of bodies, and is treated of in the article Atom.
The mode in which elementary substances combine to form compound substances is called the chemical constitution of bodies, and is treated of in Chemistry.
The mode in which sensible quantities of matter, whether elementary or compound, are aggregated together so as to form a mass having certain observed properties, is called the physical constitution of bodies.
Bodies may be classed in relation to their physical constitution by considering the effects of internal stress in changing their dimensions. When a body can exist in equilibrium under the action of a stress which is not uniform in all directions it is said to be solid.
When a body is such that it cannot be in equilibrium unless the stress at every point is uniform in all directions, it is said to be fluid.
small, is capable of expanding indefinitely, so as to fill any
vessel, however large. These are called gases. There are