[26] Professor Dicey's Lectures on the Law of the Constitution (1885), p. 178. Professor Dicey gives an admirable exposition of the 'rule of law.'
[27] Pollock and Maitland's History of English Law, i. 208.
[28] A characteristic consequence is that Hale and Blackstone make no distinction between public and private law. Austin (Jurisprudence (1869), 773-76) applauds them for this peculiarity, which he regards as a proof of originality, though it would rather seem to be an acceptance of the traditional view. Austin, however, retorts the charge of Verwirrung upon German critics.
[29] This is the theory of Defoe in his Original Power of the People of England (Works by Hazlitt, vol iii. See especially p. 57).
[30] The fourth duke of Newcastle in the House of Lords, 3 Dec. 1830.
CHAPTER II
THE INDUSTRIAL SPIRIT
The history of England during the eighteenth century shows a curious contrast between the political stagnancy and the great industrial activity. The great constitutional questions seemed to be settled; and the statesmen, occupied mainly in sharing power and place, took a very shortsighted view (not for the first time in history) of the great problems that were beginning to present themselves. The British empire in the East was not won by a towering ambition so much as forced upon a reluctant commercial company by the necessities of its position. The English race became dominant in America; but the political connection was broken off mainly because English statesmen could only regard it from the shopkeeping point of view. When a new world began to arise at the Antipodes, our rulers saw an opportunity not for planting new offshoots of European civilisation, but for ridding themselves of the social rubbish no longer accepted in America. With purblind energy, and eyes doggedly fixed upon the ground at their feet, the race had somehow pressed forwards to illustrate the old doctrine that a man never goes so far as when he does not know whither he is going. While thinking of earning an honest penny by extending the trade, our 'monied-men' were laying the foundation of vast structures to be developed by their descendants.