The numerous factors which contributed towards the worth of Magna Carta may be distinguished as of two kinds, intrinsic and extrinsic. (1) Its intrinsic value depends on the nature of its own provisions. The reforms demanded by the barons and granted by this Charter were just and moderate. The avoidance of all extremes tended towards a permanent settlement, since moderation both gains and keeps adherents. Its aims were practical as well as moderate; the language in which they were framed, clear and straightforward. A high authority has described the Charter as “an intensely practical document.”[220] This _practicality_ is an essentially English characteristic, and strikes the key-note of almost every great movement for reform which has held a permanent place in English history. Closely connected with this feature is another—the essentially _legal_ nature of the whole. As Magna Carta was rarely absent from the minds of subsequent opponents of despotism, a practical and legal direction was thus given to the efforts of Englishmen in many ages.[221] Therein lies another English characteristic. While democratic enthusiasts in France and America have often sought to found their rights and liberties on a lofty but unstable basis of philosophical theory embodied in Declarations of Rights; Englishmen have occupied lower but surer ground, aiming at practical remedies for actual wrongs, rather than enunciating theoretical platitudes with no realities to correspond. ----- Footnote 220: Prof. F. W. Maitland, _Social England_, I., 409. Footnote 221: Cf. Gneist, _Const. Hist._, Chapter XVIII.: “By Magna Carta English history irrevocably took the direction of securing constitutional liberty by administrative law.” ----- Another intrinsic merit of the Charter was that it made definite what had been vague before. Definition is a valuable protection for the weak against the strong; whereas vagueness increases the powers of the tyrant who can interpret while he enforces the law. Misty rights were now reduced to a tangible form, and could no longer be broken with so great impunity. Magna Carta contained no crude innovations, and confirmed many principles whose value was enhanced by their antiquity. King John, in recognising parts of the old Anglo-Saxon customary law, put himself in touch with national traditions and the past history of the nation. Further, the nature of the provisions bears witness to the broad basis on which the settlement was intended to be built. The Charter, notwithstanding the prominence given to redress of feudal grievances, redressed other grievances as well. In this, the influence of the Church and notably of its Primate, can be traced. Some little attention was given to the rights of the under-tenants also, and even to those of the merchants, while the villein and the alien were not left entirely unprotected. Thus the settlement contained in the Charter had a broad basis in the affection of all classes.