Beside Adam Smith stands David Hume. An accomplished reasoner and a profound thinker, he lacked the invaluable quality of imagination. This is the underlying defect of his history. Important and novel as are Hume's doctrines, his method was also deductive, and, like Adam Smith, he rests little on experience. After these two, Reid was the most eminent among the purely speculative thinkers of Scotland, but he stands far below them both. To Hume the spirit of inquiry and scepticism is essential; to Reid it is a danger. The deductive method was no less prevalent in physical philosophy. Now, induction is more accessible to the average understanding than deduction. The deductive character of this Scottish literature prevented it from having popular effect, and therefore from weakening the national superstition, from which Scotland, even to-day, has been unable to shake herself free. * * * * * WALTER BAGEHOT The English Constitution Walter Bagehot was born at Langport in Somerset, England, Feb. 3, 1826, and died on March 24, 1877. He was educated at Bristol and at University College, London. Subsequently he joined his father's banking and ship-owning business. From 1860 till his death, he was editor of the "Economist." He was a keen student not only of economic and political science subjects, which he handled with a rare lightness of touch, but also of letters and of life at large. It is difficult to say in which field his penetration, his humour, and his charm of style are most conspicuously displayed. The papers collected in the volume called "The English Constitution" appeared originally in the "Fortnightly Review" during 1865 and 1866. The Reform Bill, which transferred the political centre of gravity from the middle class to the artisan class had not yet arrived; and the propositions laid down by Bagehot have necessarily been in some degree modified in the works of more recent authorities, such as Professor Dicey and Mr. Sidney Low. But as a human interpretation of that exceedingly human monument, the British Constitution, Bagehot's work is likely to remain unchallenged for all time. _I.---The Cabinet_ No one can approach to an understanding of English institutions unless he divides them into two classes. In such constitutions there are two parts. First, those which excite and preserve the reverence of the population, the dignified parts, if I may so call them; and, next, the efficient parts, those by which it, in fact, works and rules. Every constitution must first win the loyalty and confidence of mankind, and then employ that homage in the work of government.