PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION THIS Edition has been carefully revised. The revision consists mainly in the re-arrangement of the subject-matter. The division into lectures has been abandoned. The first lecture appears as what in its nature it really is an introduction to the main thesis of the book. The rest of the treatise is distributed into parts and chapters. The parts correspond with and bring into prominence the three leading branches of the work; each of the chapters is devoted to some special but subordinate topic, such, for example, as the right to personal freedom, or the contrast between French droit administratif and the rule of law prevailing in England. This Edition further contains a good deal of new matter. Most of this new matter is to be found in the Notes which make up the Appendix. To three of these Notes it may be allowable to direct the special attention of readers. Note I. presents in the merest outline some marked characteristics of French con stitutionalism. It will have attained its object if it induces serious inquirers to study the invaluable lessons to be drawn from French experiments in the art of constitution-making. Notes III. and IV. should be read together. The substance of them has already appeared in the Contemporary Review. They answer several questions connected with the right of public meeting, and trace the difficulties besetting the law of public meeting to their true source-the admitted obscurity of the principles determining the legal limits to the right of self-defence. My thanks are due to various friends, and especially to Mr. H. Jenkyns, of the Parliamentary Counsel Office, for valuable help in the detection and correction of errors which had hitherto escaped my notice. A. V. D. July 1889. |