schooled will naturally shrink from the gaps in evidence which the innovator must boldly face and overstep. May we not in the same way explain the alleged conservatism of men of science? The main theme of Blackstone’s teaching is that of contentment with a constitution which to him seemed as nearly perfect as any work of man can be. “Of a constitution,” he says, “so wisely contrived, so strongly raised, and so highly finished, it is hard to speak with that praise which is justly and severely its due: the thorough and attentive contemplation of it will furnish its best panegyric. It has all the elements of stability; for by a graduated scale of dignity from the peasant to the prince, it rises like a pyramid from a broad foundation, diminishing to a point as it rises. It is this ascending and contracting proportion” he says, with the law of gravitation in his mind, “that adds stability to any government.” “All of us have it in our choice,”these are Blackstone’s words, “to do everything that a good man would desire to do; and are restrained from nothing, but what would be pernicious either to ourselves or our fellow-citizens.” He does not, however, mean us to accept this statement too literally. He allows that the constitution has faults—“lest we should be tempted to think it of more than human structure”—and he is careful to tell us what he means when he says that this or that institution is perfect. As the expounder and historian of English law, he uses words of higher praise than he would do if he wrote as a politician. He feels that he is dealing with the spirit of laws, and that it is not his business to consider every change of circumstances which may have impaired their efficiency. To point out each defect, or to suggest ways of amendment, would, moreover, have been alien from the purpose of a work in which he sought to interpret the laws and to teach respect for them; and therefore he does not guard himself against exaggeration, sharing the opinion of Burke, that we only lessen the authority of the constitution if we circulate among the people a notion that it is not so perfect as it might be, before we are sure of mending it. He has in his mind the idea of a theoretical perfection not incompatible with practical injustice. In a well-known passage he says that _by the law_ as it stood in the time of Charles II., “the people had as large a portion of real liberty as is consistent with a state of society,” naming the year 1679 as the point of time at which he would fix what he calls the _theoretical_ perfection of our public law; and yet he observes that “the years which immediately followed it were times of great _practical_ oppression.”[11] This is in substance the view of Burke when he says that the machine is well enough for the purpose, provided the materials were sound. Indeed there is scarcely one of Blackstone’s thoughts on politics and government which may not be paralleled in the writings and speeches of Burke.