that whatever another body thinks right must necessarily be wrong. It is quite certain that in a really intelligent age so clumsy a system as that of party government will have been relegated to oblivion. The political machinery to replace it will be of a nature determined by causes much too complex to be foreseen, except in the merest outline, as yet; and probably it will, like most political institutions, be a development rather than an invention. The system, already talked of, by which any matter of great national importance should be made a referendum, the subject of a direct vote by the whole nation, is no doubt capable of ingeniously modified arrangement so as to provide for its expeditious use, without undue interference with the course of ordinary business. But obviously this device is only capable of limited application, and it could not be employed at all, without producing dangerous confusions and incongruities, except in a community whose political education had made strides almost inconceivable in the light of our present limited experience. It is difficult to see how the general legislative business of a considerable nation could be carried on unless by committees of a parliamentary character; and limited as we are by the history of political institutions arising out of states of public intelligence which will have become contemptible in comparison with the intelligence of the next century, there is a difficulty in conceiving how such committees or parliaments could work out otherwise than on some sort of party system. But the analogy of progress in general may help us to a conjecture, which is here offered only for what it is worth. All progress, as we know it, is a development from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous. One form of progress consists of the development of specialism. At one time, and not so very long ago, every housewife made her own jams, pickles, perfumes, essences and condiments, which are now purchased ready made. A man of science, in Davy's time, often embraced a number of different branches as his province; whereas now even a single science is seldom completely handled by any individual professor, entomologists differentiating themselves from general biologists, and coleopterists from general entomologists. Does it not appear likely, then, that the functions of the politician and of the legislator will presently be differentiated, with great advantage to nations? In a legislature of the present time professional law-makers are numerically few, and not very highly regarded. While in a matter relatively unimportant, like coach-building, civilisation has made specialism necessary; in a matter of the highest importance, the making of a nation's laws, we continue to trust the general practitioner, and the suggestion that specialists alone should be employed in it would probably awaken a torrent of objection not unmingled with execration. But specialism