_ 170 Tanquam e vinculis sermocinantur_, says _Bacon_ (De Dignit. et Augm. Scient., III, 3), of those who have written in a not non-practical way on the laws. _Hugo_, also (Naturrecht, 1819, p. 9), calls attention to the resemblance of the so-called laws of nature, to the positive law in force at the time. As to political idealism, see _Roscher_: De historicæ doctrinæ apud sophistas majores vestigiis (Gött. 1838, 26 ff.). The only exceptions to this rule are the eclectics, who form their own system from the blossoms of all foreign ones, a system, indeed, without root, and which therefore must soon wither. 171 In this place, naturally, such an assertion can be made only as a programme to be carried out, the proof whereof is to be sought in the rest of the work. By “the people,” we do not mean the governed, to the exclusion of the governing classes, but both classes together. We attach to the expression the most extensive meaning possible. We do not limit it to the present generation, but intend it to cover all the generations from the beginning of a people’s history to its end. 172 The custom, which has become general, of calling all democratic movements, and them only, revolutions (thus _Stahl_: Was ist Revolution? 1852, and many other writers of an entirely opposite tendency, especially in France), is not warranted. It is true that democratic (and imperial) revolutions are more frequent than others in our times, just as aristocratic revolutions were in the middle ages, and monarchical at the beginning of modern history. The essence of revolution, however, is in the operation of change contrary to positive law, acknowledged as such by the consciousness of the people. 173 Compare, especially, the first pages of _Sir J. Stewart_, Principles of Polit. Economy. 174 See _Colton_, Public Economy of the United States, p. 28, who, indeed, unwarrantedly, refers to the whole of Political Economy, what properly belongs to its precepts. _ 175 Je n’impose rien, je ne propose même rien: j’expose._ (_Ch. Dunoyer_). _Cherbuliez_, Précis de la Science économique, 1862, p. 7 ff., has exaggerated this idea in a strangely non-practical manner. That the historical method does not differ essentially from the statistical as recently recommended, see _Roscher_, Gesch. der Nat. Œk., 1035 seq. _ 176 Storch_, Handbuch, II, 222.