It must be examined, therefore, in concrete fashion how what is rightly considered as the popular will is expressed in practice in modern political democracies. If all the processes of this formation are reduced to their essential elements, discarding all complications that may introduce error, there is revealed this: the fact that between the individual and the people as a whole there interposes itself a third element, the political party. What matter if in some respects one may think that, even under the most favorable circumstances, it is only a necessary evil? The political party is a political means not only indispensable but fecund and perfectly rational. Its essential function is _to transform isolated volitions into a collective will of the ensemble_. Therein, too, the apparent contradiction between the fact that the crowd has no conscious will and the postulate of a popular will is reconciled. The tendencies of individuals, chaotic as they may be, change completely in nature when they are joined to equal or similar tendencies of many other individuals. From the contact of these vague and troubled impulses there springs forth the conscious and clear collective will. Certain impulsive forces particularly powerful disengage from others and unite with adjacent currents to create and to strengthen a movement that can attract the masses. It is only when chaos is thus organized and when impulses are thus transformed into forces that these forces acquire a political significance and can be compared and confronted in a parliament. Such being the primary function of the political party in a democracy, positive legislation must be such as to permit it to fulfil this function in order that the powerful popular will shall be most clearly and easily clarified and formulated by it. We must examine how this has been embodied in German law. * * * * * In conformity with the democratic principle the Constitution in Article 22 provides: “The delegates are elected by universal, equal, direct and secret suffrage by all men and women over twenty years of age, in accordance with the principles of proportional representation. The day for elections must be a Sunday or a public holiday. The details will be regulated by the national election law.” This law is dated April 27, 1920, and was itself followed by an ordinance on May 1, 1920, which specifies each application. I.--GENERAL PRINCIPLES. The system according to which the delegates to the National Assembly were elected has not given complete satisfaction. The principal objection made against it was directed above all against the law of November 30, which permits parties to unite their lists of candidates, a privilege from which the parties that lent themselves to neither alliance nor compromise naturally suffered. Such lists have been criticized as corrupting political morality and obscuring the results of elections.