Literature alone never produces anything, unless it finds in the historical and social conditions ground ready for its working. When one shows the literary origin of an idea, one has by no means therewith discovered the record of its practical significance. The history of political science to-day is entirely too much a history of the literature and too little a history of the institutions themselves. The number of new political ideas is very small; the most, at least in embryo, were known to the ancient theories of the state. But the institutions are found in constant change and must be seized in their own peculiar historical forms. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 46: It harks back finally to the old definition of Florentinus L. 4 D. 1, 5: "Libertas est naturalis facultas eius, quod cuique facere libet, nisi si quid vi aut jure prohibetur."] [Footnote 47: _Arch. parl._ VIII, p. 222.] [Footnote 48: _Ibid._, pp. 438 and 453.] [Footnote 49: Bancroft, VII, p. 243.] [Footnote 50: _Cf._ Blackstone, _Commentaries on the Laws of England_, I, 1, p. 127. (Edited by Kerr, London, 1887, I, p. 115.)] [Footnote 51: Upon this point, _cf._ Cooley, _Constitutional Limitations_, 6th edition, Boston, 1890, Chap. VII. Even if the stipulation contained in the bills of rights that one can be deprived of his property only "by the law of the land" should not be embodied in the constitution by a state, a law transgressing it would be void by virtue of the fundamental limitations upon the competence of the legislatures. _Loc. cit._, p. 208.] [Footnote 52: The right to address petitions to the king (5), and the right of Protestant subjects to carry arms for their own defense suitable to their condition (7).] [Footnote 53: "And they do claim, demand, and insist upon all and singular the premises, as their undoubted rights and liberties."] [Footnote 54: The old English charters put forward as possessors of the "_jura et libertates_" now the "_homines in regno nostro_", now the _regnum_ itself. The Petition of Right speaks of the "rights and liberties" of the subjects, but they are also characterized as "the laws and free customs of this realm".] [Footnote 55: Year Books XIX, Gneist, _Englische Verfassungsgeschichte_, p. 450.] [Footnote 56: "By which the statutes before-mentioned, and other the good laws and statutes of this realm, your subjects have inherited this freedom." Gardiner, _The Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution_, 1889, pp. 1, 2.] [Footnote 57: "And whereas the laws of England are the birthright of the people thereof." Act of Settlement IV, Stubbs, _Select Charters_, 7th ed., 1890, p. 531. Birthright = right by birth, the rights, privileges or possessions to which one is entitled by birth; inheritance, patrimony (specifically used of the special rights of the first-born). Murray, _A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles_, _s. h. v._]