In his "History of Civilization" he says, "Men may talk as they will about the reforms which Government has introduced, and the improvements to be expected from legislation; but whoever will take a wider and more commanding view of human affairs will soon discover that such hopes are chimerical. They will learn that lawgivers are nearly always the obstructors of society instead of its helpers; and that in the extremely few cases in which their measures have turred out well their success has been owing to the fact that, contrary to their usual custom, they have implicitly obeyed the spirit of their time, and have been, as they always should be, the mere servants of the people, to whose wishes they are bound to give a public and legal sanction."

While we admit that in the idea of Carlyle on Government-that a few wise and strong men should settle and arrange the duties and responsibilities of life, and enforce their performance-there is at first sight a simplicity and attractiveness which inclines to its acceptance; yet having learned something of the evils of bureaucracy, and the kindly despotism under which it aims at placing men, we are not quite anxious to see it increased or intensified in our and. But neither are we prepared to concur entirely with the extreme advocates of representative legislation-that law should be simply a reflex and enforcement of prevalent public opinion. Pub de opinion is a great power, and no law can be beneficially enacted which greatly contravenes it: but public opinion requires guidance, education, and keeping to the point. The legislator must have some definite principle on which to base his proposals, and he must also have a distinct and practical means to present of getting his proposals adopted and obeyed. Public opinion is availing as to the des rable, legislation has the task of making the desirable, the attainable, if it is just and consistent with the highest interests of mankind. Hence the responsibility of the legislator is weighty, and the task of those who choose them is a much more serious thing than merely proceeding to the poll and registering a vote. At this peculiar juncture, when the electoral constituency by hich the members of the Legislature are chosen has been so conderably extended, this seems to be a suitable topic for a few reflections. What is the province, the aim, and the purpose of islation? For if this were well known and properly considered, thee who were called upon to select advisers to the Government Tould be better qualified to judge of the fitness of men to assume the difficult duty of legislators, either as originators or critics of proposed measures; and, indeed, candidates themselves would have arer views, not only of their claims to the notice of constitencies, but also of their duties to the State and their constituents, they realized to themselves more accurately what can and what ot be effected by legislation, what place legislation holds ong human agencies, and to what extent it may be beneficially oyed in the promotion of the best interests of men. It is in Better qualifications for legislation exist, and may be found if sought than a fluent tongue, and the faculty of getting elected by a consti

the hope that by concentrating our thoughts for a short space on this important topic, our views may be made clearer and our ideas become more correct, that we now proceed to consider, in the best manner in our power, the question in "the Philosophy of Politics," which seems to us to be so important as to deserve serious reflection and thoughtful inquiry-both from ourselves and from our readers.

Legislation is necessary to enable men to live in society without injuring and oppressing each other, to hinder the strong from illusing his weaker neighbour. The main end of legislation, therefore, is to see that no one is allowed to wield his strength (of will, might, wealth, intelligence, or craft) to overawe or overreach his fellow-citizen, and so unduly to sacrifice the good of others to the advancement of his own.

"Legislation" is defined by J. S. Mill as signifying "making laws;" and he affirms that the science of legislation (a term used by Filangieri in 1780) is an incorrect and misleading expression," because we do not talk of the science of making anything." From this decision of the able author of " Essays on some Unsettled Ques tions of Political Economy," we are inclined to dissent. Legisla tion is, like logic, both a science and an art. It includes an inquiry into those political principles which a knowledge of man's nature, capacities, wants, feelings, and conditions shows to be essential as overruling and circumscribing the free choice of those who would make laws, and which must be accepted of and acted upon as imperative by those who would fix the powers and limits of sovereign and of popular rights. Besides this, and more apparent indeed to the ordinary onlooker at Governmental requirements, it implies a practical adaptation of means to ends, a determination of the co-efficients by which the desirable results of order and pro gress are to be brought about. Hence, as Charles Comte in his "Traité de Législation Criminelle" says, "The science of legisla tion has for its object the knowledge of the natural connections which exist either among the different individuals or the different classes of which each social unity or state consists, or among men and the things which are intended to provide for or preserve their existence;" in other words, it is "the science of the natural laws which regulate the conditions of nations, and determine their pros perity, decline, or stationariness." It concerns itself with the leges legum-the laws of laws, the pre-requisite knowledge of man and of nature, to which civil law and social polity must conform, the theoretical principles on which human law must rest, and the

tuency; it would soon be recognised that, in legislation as well as adminis tration, the only task to which a representative assembly can possibly be competent is not that of doing the work, but of causing it to be done; determining to whom or to what sort of people it shall be confided, and giving or withholding the national sanction to it when performed."J. S. Mill, On Representative Government," p. 100.

Law

facts of existence with which it must concur and harmonize. may be, but legislation never is, arbitrary. Law may rest on mere force or convention; legislation must be reasoned and reasonable. Law simply signifies those principles or rules of conduct which have been laid down by some competent and sovereign power for the regulation of the ways and actions of men, obedience to which is enforced or enforceable by constituted authority. They may be well or ill considered, but they must be imperative, and they must be enforceable. Man exists amidst conditions and with powers and capacities which operate with great universality, and are all but independent of time and circumstance; these, under the name of laws of nature, require to be known, recognised, and admitted by the legislator; and in subservience to or in concurrence with these inevitable necessities of being, he is required to determine by what practicable means the well-being of man may be best effected and sustained.

Legislation is a term which must be explained historically as well as etymologically before we can fully comprehend the precise, peculiar, yet very distinct meaning which the word has now assumed in the minds of the highest thinkers on the difficult art of managing men in their social, corporate, and national relations. The early legists proclaimed, prescribed, and ordained duty, they regulated life by statute and force, they decided, and the people were compelled to coincide or suffer. The Greeks, "who called that nomos, that is to say, distribution, which we call law, and defined justice by distributing to every man his own," appointed officials called Nomotheta, who codified the customs of the several tribes, and legitimated what had become usual, and they revised the laws from time to time to bring them into harmony with the customary forms of life. Their inductions had the force of decrees. They determined the bounds of imperative duty, but they left a large margin of the allowable beyond the touch of the legal. Gradually, however, as the allowable became concreted into custom, it came under their cognizance, and the customary became the legal duty of man to man-the institutes of law. In Rome, a magistrate ho proposed a law, or, as we should say, brought in a bill, was said legem ferre ad populum; when his Rogatio or proposal was approved of, or as we should say, passed or carried (lata est), it became lex, a decision which, having been asked, has been confrmed and been made binding. Hence legislator, the carrier of a law, and also legislation, the proper proposal of measures by a competent person before the constituted assembly of the people, so as to obtain the sanction of the right persons to the affirming, confirming, and enforcement of the proposal made as a limiting or regulating decision, binding on those whom it concerned. Thus law becomes the canon or fixed authoritative rule of the sovereign determining power, and is obligatory on all those who are under duty to that

power.

Legislation has as its chief and prime element the word lego,

which originally means "I select and arrange in order, and thereafter I read or proclaim;" and therefore in its most extended and philosophical signification it implies these six elements, viz., (1) The wisdom which perceives and selects the best means for the accomplishment of the proper ends of social and civil life. (2) The knowledge requisite to adapt the proposed means to the present circumstances of the community in its various relations. (3) The capacity of persuading and convincing the several parties, classes, or interests, which the proposal would affect, either as agents in enforcing or as actors in obeying the same, of the propriety and rightness of the plan advocated and the method suggested. (4) The ability to express in clear, distinct, intelligible, and unmistak able language, with definite inclusion of all that is meant and determinate exclusion of all that is not intended, the proposed enactment. (5) The mental acumen to perceive and to apply a prevailing sanction sufficiently active and available to procure obedience or secure punishment. (6) The moral influence which shall be weighty enough to set the proposal before those who are to be affected by it, so as to incline to and induce its immediate acceptance and adoption as a definite rule of life, in so far as it reaches.

Legislation might be called the logic, and jurisprudence the ethics of law. Jurisprudence inquires into and decides upon what rights are due to and what obligations are imperative upon man in his several relations in accordance with justice or equity between man and man, and in harmony with the conditions in the midst and under the power of which human life is passed, which latter constitutes fas, or the supreme law ordained by the divine will; while the former is jus, or the authoritative decisions of morality in regard to human conduct. Jurisprudence is à priori and ultimate, legislation is à posteriori and instrumental; the former seeks out the original principles and reliable sources, the grounds, the extent, and the nature of human rights and duties; the latter endeavours to find means whereby effect may be given to these pre-determinate principles in the actual circumstances of a given period, so that they may really and truly, as far forth and as thoroughly as is possible, be acted upon by all, and act as the safeguards of all. Jurisprudence throws the light of philosophy over human nature as having a social and dutiful part to fulfil on the earth; legislation gathers up the light of jurisprudence, and concentrates it on a single element of the problem of social exist ence, and considers narrowly and keenly how the principles of jurisprudence may be inwrought, with practical efficacy, into the daily duty and life of man, so far as concerns the given portion under survey, and proposes to define and determine what shall henceforth be permissible and what imperative in regard to it. Life is activity; the activities of men, if indulged uncontrolledly, would result in such a series of interferences of the acts of each with the purposes of others, that some regulation becomes necessary even in the interest of the free exercise of will, purpose,

endeavour, and activity. All that series of restraints which men impose upon each other by common consent for mutual protection and the general good, is embraced in the term legal duties or obligations on the one hand, and rights on the other. All that sphere of human activity which cannot be interfered with or restrained, and of which the due use must be permitted, constitutes the irrevocable and necessary right of humanity, any attempt to interfere with the free exercise of which would cut to the roots of life, and be inexcusably tyrannous; and therefore no laws must impede or hinder the proper exercise of the necessary functions of life as a condition of social fellowship and existence.

Between the necessary and the legal there intervenes the allowable-a margin or border-land of unregulated duty and obligation. Here the will and inclinations of men have scope for giving and taking, and the craft and ingenuity of man has opportunity for the exercise of deftness and dexterity so far as to demand caution, and sometimes to elicit precaution. Of the right to exercise some rights which are necessary, some may voluntarily denude themselves; but such acts of volition are seldom endorsed or covered by law; while within the very sweep and sway of law many things are held to be allowable which are not in strictness legal. Of some other matters law refuses to take cognizance, and leaves the responsibility of them and in regard to them with individuals. But beyond the legal there is also another circle of activities, which may be denominated the laudable, the praiseworthy duties, which are not only permitted but encouraged. The proper distinguishing of these respective spheres of human activity is one of the difficulties in regard to legislation. Legislation has its own proper field and province, beyond which, if it endeavours to operate, it becomes tyrannous and obnoxious; and to the full extent of which if it does not exercise its functions it is defective, ineffective, and permissive of abuse. Hence a few remarks on the philosophy of legislation may neither be useless nor out of place. Every man naturally seeks his own gratification; even the anchorite denies himself certain enjoyments which other men pursue with eagerness, in order that he may have what is to him a higher gratification, a sense of superiority over others, a consciousess of self-control, or a more intense rapture arising from the endeavour after nobleness of mind. character, condition, and influance. It is legitimate, according to the natural light of the understanding, for man to endeavour to attain his gratification on the condition that, to procure his gratification he does not interfere ith, hinder, or render less possible the gratification of any other. Thus the free will of each is limited by the free will of all others, and men find it advisable to bind themselves by compact to exerte the good pleasure of their own wills, in accordance with some settled usages, customs, forms, or laws. The widest possible formals of freedom is this-that a man may do what he pleases, so long as by or in his self-gratification he refrains from and avoids