The influence of laws and political institutions is certainly very great; they preserve and invigorate the genius of a nation, define its objects, and help to attain them; but though they may develop powers, they cannot create them where they do not already exist. They first receive their imprint from the nation, and then return and confirm it. In other words, it is the nation that fashions the laws, before the laws, in turn, can fashion the nation. Another proof of this fact are the changes and modifications which they undergo in the course of time. I have already said above, that in proportion as nations advance in civilization, and extend their territory and power, their ethnical character, and, with it, their instincts, undergo a gradual alteration. New manners and new tendencies prevail, and soon give rise to a series of modifications, the more frequent and radical as the influx of blood becomes greater and the fusion more complete. England, where the ethnical changes have been slower and less considerable than in any other European country, preserves to this day the basis of the social system of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The municipal organization of the times of the Plantagenets and the Tudors flourishes in almost all its ancient vigor. There is the same participation of the nobility in the government, and the same manner of composing that nobility; the same respect for ancient families, united to an appreciation of those whose merits raise them above their class. Since the accession of James I., and still more since the union, in Queen Anne's reign, there has indeed been an influx of Scotch and Irish blood; foreign nations have also, though imperceptibly, furnished their contingent to the mixture; alterations have consequently become more frequent of late, but without, as yet, touching the original spirit of the constitution.