all enduring and effective labor must have an element of "play" in it; that all reproof which cures must have an element of wit in it; that all sweetest religion must have an element of good-humor in it; that all truest natures are not too demonstrative; that scolds are the weakest people, and grumblers the most disagreeable; that the meekest

people have the most fortitude, and the humblest the most courage; that the most modest people are the trustiest, and the least ambitious the grandest; and that no sight beneath the skies is comparable to that of a Christly man and a lovely woman walking life's path together in holy fellowship, with touches of a celestial radiance on them. J. A. Benton.

"THE structure and development of the state, as an organism for the concentration and distribution of the political power of the nation, form the subject-matter of analytical politics, or of politics as a science; while the determination of what the state should do falls within the sphere of practical politics, or politics as an art."

This is the opening sentence of a book whose authors have undertaken to expound, in its pages, the fundamental principles of analytical as distinguished from practical politics. The distinction here indicated is important. Analytical politics "treats of the mechanism of government, illustrated by its development. It may be properly termed the science of government";-the science of an ideal or hypothetical state, however, not of any particular ones; for it can be a science only in so far as it formulates general fundamental principles underlying all governments, and such principles find their clearest statement through the medium of ideal relations, from which all special and accidental conditions—the irrelevant factors in the problem-have been removed. (Chapter I.)

In the study of the science of government, we proceed exactly as we do in the other sciences from which we borrow our method; we select those elements which are found by

1 Politics. An Introduction to the Study of Comparative Constitutional Law. By William W. Crane and

Bernard Moses, Ph. D., Professor of History and Political Economy in the University of California. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1884. For sale in San Francisco by A. L. Bancroft & Co.

observation to be fundamental to all national organizations, and we are able to predict that, however much they may be obscured or lost sight of, in consequence of their combination with other ingredients of a special character, they will appear in every form of government, and have their due influence or perform their appropriate office-and in particular we may treat any group of states possessing common characteristics in this manner. These elements are examined with reference to their functional characteristics, are fitted together, and out of them is constructed a hypothetical organism—or to use a homely metaphor, the skeleton-whose every part must have its representative or counterpart in all known forms of government. The illustration is, perhaps, a little forced. No such skeleton has ever been constructed, and the authors of Politics have not formally described it to us, although they have described many of its parts. Let us enumerate some of the prominent features of such an hypothetical state.

In the first place, we are to know what we are to build, and its name should convey the proper idea of its character. Shall we call it a state, a nation, a people, or a government? Let us say nation, and define it "to be a political being consisting of the totality of persons who are subject to the same political sovereignty" (page 8). But it shall be also "an organic social being; a growth, not an artificial creation" (page 6), not a collection of individuals who have organized themselves into a society for the tem

porary administration of their affairs, not a political organization held together by force of arms, not a confederation of states which are not yet ready to renounce their sovereignties and be constituted as parts of a single sovereignty; none of these things which could be created or destroyed in a day, but a political and social entity which has age and growth, and thereby stability, as its reason for existence. (Chapter II.) Neither is it a necessary evil, its necessity arising out of the selfishness and stupidity of mankind (Mr. Nordhoff's view); on the contrary, man's growth, as an intelligent and social being, is inseparably bound up with the growth of the nation of which he is a part. (Page 49.)

The nation, then, is an organism, and as such it has a will, and is possessed of organs or members-like the members of a physical organism-through which that will is expressed. "When we ascertain who, in any given sovereign state, expresses and enforces its supreme will," whether that power of expression and enforcement be vested in one person or many, then we have found what we define to be the sovereign in that state (pages 38-39). The determination, in any given instance, of where the sovereignty lies is always a question of fact (page 40); whether it be found in a king, a cabinet, or a congress, in an aristocracy or the people, the fundamental fact of its exist ence remains. (Chapter III).

The exercise of the supreme will of the sovereign implies the existence of a force, latent or active, which is adequate to the execution of the commands of the sovereign. This is called the physical force of the nation. Without this force there would be no sovereign and no nation; only a form which would fall in pieces on an appeal to force, the ultimate resort. It should be observed, however, that the term physical force, in this connection, involves not merely the physical energy of the individual members of the nation, but also their moral and intellectual energy, as manifested in conduct, which is exercise of physical force. The test of strength as between two contending

"The general functions of a nation's government are, to determine the relations of the nation to other nations of the world-family, and to regulate the actions and relations of the individuals within the nation with reference to one another." (Page 51.)

The next step in the analysis would be to determine what convenient sub-classification can be made under these two general heads. Different schemes are of course possible, but certain ones will be better than others; and those will be best, for purposes of study, which present the most distinctly marked groups of state functions, forces, characteristics, etc., and this grouping may, or may not, be the same as that which any particular state or states have adopted in practice; if it be the same, it should be borne in mind that it is a coincidence, not a necessity. Moreover, according to the point of view from which the state is observed, different classifications will naturally be employed, each in its turn embracing the whole nation within its scope. For illustration, let us refer to the functions of the government of the nation under the three categories:

(1) The Executive; (2) The Legislative; (3) The Judiciary. Let this classification stand until some other is shown to be more serviceable to the scientific study of the subject. It is one which, by a proper definition of the terms used, may be made to include all the possible functions of the national government, and it is also a proper sub-classification under each of the two general

classes of functions above designated as 1 and 2. In general, the administration of both internal and external affairs will be intrusted to the same executive, legislative, and judiciary, with varying power distributed amongst the three. Meanwhile, it should be borne in mind that our classification is one of the functions of government, not one of departments or bureaus. Departments of government lap over into each other, and no strict classification of its acts could be made upon such a basis; while a classification of its functions should enable us to place each act of government in its appropriate category, independently of the propriety or practice of referring it to this or that department. A study of the results which would follow from combining in different proportions the quantity of power to be given to these three divisions of government, would come within the province of our investigations. (Chapter IV.)

Further analysis would bring within our view such topics as constitutional and administrative law (Chapters XI., XII.), systems of the legislature (Chapter XIII.), the initiative in legislation (Chapter XIV.), the tendency of power in different forms of government (Chapters XVII.-XIX.), and so on; and it should not be forgotten that all these things, as we see them in the modern state, are growths, and that their present character is to be studied through the history of their development. The whole subject is, in fact, a study of nation-making, rather than of the nation made.

Thus far we have confined our classification to the activities in the nation's organism, its vital processes-its respiratory and circulatory functions, so to say. But we may also regard the state, as presented externally to our view through its institutions. (Chapter vi.)

"The political movement which we see about us is in wards of cities, or in election precincts, or townships, or counties. . . The will and power of the nation distribute themselves through these by means of political institutions. The growth of these is to be studied in the history of the expan

sion or aggregation of the original units to the nation.

"The political institutions of a country constitute the frame-work of the nation. They are the bones, heart and lungs of the commonwealth, but they are not the life-blood which momentarily courses through the arteries and veins." Their classification is into (1) local and (2) national institutions. (Page 66.)

But, in general, the character of these will be special, each nation distributing its activities through a set of institutions peculiar to itself. At this point, therefore, our study becomes a comparative study of particular governments, and the application of the more fundamental principles previously established.

It would carry this notice to an inappropriate length to follow out the entire analysis of the book, and it is more important that some illustration should be given of the application of the fundamental principles of government in particular emergencies. Let us select an episode in the history of our own country:

The

"It is said that the fathers of the Republic invented a new kind of government, a federal state, founded upon a written constitution. However true this may be, we are now able to assert, that in so far as they violated fundamental principles in government, their work has not been interpreted in all respects as they supposed it would be. intent of the Constitution did certainly violate the fundamental principle that two wills cannot at the same time be sovereign in the same state. The conflict introduced at the very beginning was between the two wills; the one of the state, and the other of the nation. The key to our whole national political history since 1789 is here." (Page 141.)

What was this conflict? Here is a bit of description concerning it, and a commentary which could not have been written without a recognition of the fundamental principles laid down in the opening chapters of the book:

stitutions owed much of its intensity to the peculiar fact that the structure of the government was shaped under the eyes of those who commenced the debate, and only one generation removed from those who pursued it most bitterly. Jefferson and Hamilton began it, and Webster and Calhoun continued it up to within a decade of the Civil War. Both sides overlooked the historical truth, that every great commonwealth is made up of an aggregation of what, at some stage, were smaller sovereignties, and that in the ordinary course of normal development time itself, and the operation of universal laws, will bring about the merging of one into the other, or a fusion of all into one. They saw too closely the processes through which the two opposing forces, which always exist at some stage of every national growth, those of repulsion and those of integration, adjusted temporarily their differences in the attempt permanently to arrest the nation at what is, after all, only a transition stage, by establishing a state midway between a confederacy and a nation. They were powerfully impressed with the purely legal questions involved; they were haggling over the debates of the Constitutional Convention, and the very words of the bond, but failed to cast their eyes back over the whole course of colonial growth during the one hundred and sixtyeight years between the landing at Jamestown and the skirmishing at Lexington, and note that every important political change was a step in the growth of a nation." (Page 239.) Most persons will agree that the picture is here composed in proper perspective. The following application to the present relations of the House of Commons to the English Cabinet is not so clearly drawn :

It is laid down as a fundamental principle, that "where the right to propose the law is in one person or department, and the mere right to approve or reject is in another, the political system where such is the case is in a transition stage, and not in a condition of equilibrium. It is manifest, that under these circumstances there must be a conflict between departments of the government. The creative power, which is the effective one,

the one most eagerly sought for, and without which needed changes cannot be accomplished, must be supplemented by the ability to formulate the power into a command, in order to insure perfect harmony in administration." (Page 188.) In order to show that the English government is now passing through this transition stage, the following facts are adduced; the italics are ours:

"The old power of the monarch to prepare the law and propose it to Parliament is now exercised by the Cabinet, which consists, as we know, of the leaders of the party in power for the time being. They prepare the law, introduce it to the Commons, and the obedient majority approves it. . . . The initi ating power is then, practically, solely in the hands of the few leaders, and sometimes the single leader, of the party. . . . This practice is one of the distinguishing features between party government in Great Britain and this country." (Pages 187-8.)

Mr. Bagehot's answer to this would have been, that the obedient majority elects whom it likes as leaders, and it dismisses them when it pleases.

"The House only goes where it thinks in the end the nation will follow; but it takes its chance of the nation following or not following; it assumes the initiative, and acts upon its discretion or its caprice. When the American nation has chosen its president, its virtue goes out of it, and out of the Transmissive College through which it chooses. But because the House of Commons has the power of dismissal in addition to the power of election, its relations to the premier are incessant. They guide him, and he leads them. He is to them what they are to the nation. He only goes where he believes they will go after him.” 1

But it is not our purpose in this notice to exhaust, or even to classify or enumerate, all the topics which may properly be embraced within this subject. We have merely tried, by actually reproducing portions of the analysis, to give the reader an adequate idea of its scope, as presented in the book before us, and particularly of its method and spirit. 1 The English Constitution, pp. 164-5.

And, indeed, the method and spirit are very important features of the work, and are the prime sources of all the good things contained in it. But, though doubtless admitting that the subject is susceptible of treatment by the method herein described, those who adhere to the so-called historical method in political science will probably deny the importance of the fact. We have only to remark, that the new method appeals solely to such people as have acquired, either by inheritance or actual contact with scientific study, a thorough appreciation of the methods by which modern scientific investigation is carried on. In conclusion, it is well the reader should

be reminded that the book, in respect of its subject matter, is no more than it purports to be, an introductory treatise, and does not by any means exhaust the subject of analytical politics; and while there will be a difference of opinion as to what principles, in certain instances, are most fundamental and most worthy of consideration, it will be generally recognized as one of the merits of such a book that it confines its discussions to fundamental principles only, stated as concisely as possible, and encumbered with few illustrations. The student's work is here only formulated; it must be supplemented by research in many historical fields.

Irving Stringham.

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"THE year is going-let him go," ," "Ring out old forms of party strife,' Ring out the narrowing lust of gold,"-surely, never could we take down our Tennysons and read that magnificent lyric with more appreciation than as this old year of our Lord 1884 turns to New Year 1885! It has been a feverish, hard-living, uncomfortable old year. Six months of it--actually half a year!--have gone to a political struggle and to getting breath back after it; and about three months more went to girding up loins for the struggle. It has brought us a change in the national administration, and many signs of new political experiences; it has brought us hard times, and a close threat of what has seemed to many a far-off and speculative danger-over-production in all lines, agricultural and manufacturing; it has brought little that was great in letters or art or science. Yet, even leaving out of account the rest of the country, on our own coast there have been occurrences of the greatest public value. During the past year has been made public the announcement of Governor Stanford's splendid University plan, which may be said without exaggeration to promise, if carried out according to the wisest judgment and by the wisest hands, a greater benefit to this coast than any other one incident that has ever befallen it. Years ago, when the State went wild with enthusiasm over the completion of the first trans-continental railway, people looked with wonder, almost awe, on the gift that the genius of this man, with a few others, had given to the State. Yet how few years were required to dash with rue that gratitude, that enthusiasm and mutual cordiality! how marred with political complications, class-hostilities, jealousies, suspicion, has that achievement-the crown of an able man's younger and most hopeful

years become! And how fair and perfect and fruitful of all peace and good-will may be this future achievement, born of a peculiarly pathetic private loss, transmuted into a public good! The year has brought a minor incident that suggests much the same train of thought: that is, the announcement of the fina! casting, after many failures, of the great lens for the Lick telescope. It is strange and even awe-inspiring to see how a few years after his death this rich man's life recedes from people's memories, the water closes about the place where it went under, in all connected with his business energies and action, which took up the major part of his years; while in this one direction to which, as a brief afterthought, he turned a part of the fruits of that life-long energy, every year makes him more conspicuously a living force in the world's movements, larger element in people's thoughts. Let it be noted, too, that of the various public uses to which Mr. Lick devoted his money, not one is designed to crown his memory as this telescope will. By this his name is already known to distant countries; to this, pilgrims from the ends of the earth will come; through this, his name goes into history. If Mr. Lick could have foreseen this living and growing result of his act! if all men with the means of action that he had could see which are to be their forever living and growing acts! It is too little understood by public benefactors, that there is a thing still greater and more useful than charity. The relief of suffering appeals to the natural kindliness of the heart; yet a hundred years, a thousand years, go by, and the donations to charities have been long gone underground with the forgotten miseries of forgotten peoples; the endowments of charities stand as they began, unless