I apprehend, a blow would fall similar to the blow which fell upon the House of Lords, only it would cut deeper. Shearing the House of Lords of political power did not dislocate the administration of English justice, because the law lords are exclusively judges. They never legislate. Therefore no one denounced them. Not even the wildest radical demanded that their tenure should be made elective, much less that they should be subjected to the recall. With us an entirely different problem would be presented for solution. A tribunal, nominally judicial, would throw itself across the path of the national movement. It would undertake to correct a disturbance of the social equilibrium. But what a shifting of the social equilibrium means, and what follows upon tampering with it, is a subject which demands a chapter by itself. FOOTNOTES: [18] 6 Cranch 135. [19] New Jersey _v_. Wilson, 7 Cranch 164; decided in 1812. [20] Coates _v_. Mayor of New York, 7 Cowen 585. [21] Charles River Bridge _v_. Warren Bridge, 11 Peters 420, 553. [22] Boston & Maine Railroad _v_. County Commissioners, 79 Maine 393. [23] Wynehamer _v_. The People, 13 N.Y. 393. [24] Mugler _v._ Kansas, 133 U.S. 623. [25] Fertilizing Co. _v_. Hyde Park, 97 U.S. 659. [26] Slaughter House Cases, 16 Wallace 78, decided in 1873. [27] 94 U.S. 113. [28] Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Ry. _v._ Minnesota, 134 U.S. 461, decided March 24, 1890. [29] Noble State Bank _v._ Haskell, 219 U.S. 104. [30] See the extraordinary case of Douglas _v._ Kentucky, 168 U.S. 488, which must be read in connection with Gregory _v._ Trustees of Shelby College, 2 Metc. (Kentucky) 589. [31] Brass _v._ North Dakota, 133 U.S. 391. [32] 169 U.S. 466. [33] _The Federalist_, No. LXXVIII. [34] 221 U.S. 91. [35] 60th Congress, 2d Session, Senate, Report No. 848, Adverse Report by Mr. Nelson, Amending Anti-trust Act, January 26, 1909, page 11. [36] Standard Oil Company _v_. United States, 221 U.S. 1. [37] United States _v_. American Tobacco Company, 221 U.S. 191, 192. [38] 221 U.S. 69. [39] To Spencer Roane, Sept. 6, 1819, Ford, 10, 141. CHAPTER IV THE SOCIAL EQUILIBRIUM I assume it as self-evident that those who, at any given moment, are the strongest in any civilization, will be those who are at once the ruling class, those who own most property, and those who have most influence on legislation. The weaker will fare hardly in proportion to their weakness. Such is the order of nature. But, since those are the strongest through whom nature finds it, for the time being, easiest to vent her energy, and as the whole universe is in ceaseless change, it follows that the composition of ruling classes is never constant, but shifts to correspond with the shifting environment. When this movement is so rapid that men cannot adapt themselves to it, we call the phenomenon a revolution, and it is with revolutions that I now have to do.