All the rude nations that have attained civilisation seem to begin in a consultative and tentative absolutism. The king has a council of elders whom he consults while he tests popular support in the assembly of freemen. In England a very strong executive was an imperative necessity. The assemblies summoned by the English sovereign told him, in effect, how far he might go. Legislation as a positive power was very secondary in those old parliaments; but their negative action was essential. The king could not venture to alter the law until the people had expressed their consent. The Wars of the Roses killed out the old councils. The second period of the constitution continues to the revolution of 1688. The rule of parliament was then established by the concurrence of the usual supporters of royalty with the usual opponents of it. Yet the mode of exercising that rule has since changed. Even as late as 1810 it was supposed that when the Prince of Wales became Prince Regent he would be able to turn out the ministry. It is one of our peculiarities that the English people is always antagonistic to the executive. It is their natural impulse to resist authority as something imposed from outside. Hence our tolerance of local authorities as instruments of resistance to tyranny of the central authority. Our constitution is full of anomalies. Some of them are, no doubt, impeding and mischievous. Half the world believes that the Englishman is born illogical. As a matter of fact, I am inclined to believe that the English care more even than the French for simplicity; but the constitution is not logical. The complexity we tolerate is that which has grown up. Any new complexity, as such, is detestable to the English mind. Let anyone try to advocate a plan of suffrage reform at all out of the way, and see how many adherents he can collect. This great political question of the day, the suffrage question, is made exceedingly difficult by this history of ours. We shall find on investigation that so far from an ultra-democratic suffrage giving us a more homogeneous and decided House of Commons it would give us a less homogeneous and more timid house. With us democracy would mean the rule of money and mainly and increasingly of new money working for its own ends. * * * * * VOLTAIRE The Age of Louis XIV