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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 November 2014
There was much of the realist in Aristotle, more perhaps than in many political scientists of today. In defence of the moderns, however, it may be claimed that Aristotle had comparatively little to try his patience. The British Empire, which “defies classification,” along with its legal appendage the Dominion of Canada—with all the complications of a federal system—is no doubt sufficient to exhaust the patience of a political scientist who would be sure of his constitutional foundations.
Political scientists as well as others are impatient with the constitutional situation at present existing in Canada. They characterize this situation as uncertain; they want this uncertainty to be corrected so that they can get on with the job of progress. They say that not only are their efforts impeded by constitutional limitations but that many of the constitutional usages now relied on may be merely illusory. So there is a tendency to blame the law and the lawyers even to the point of ridicule. Certainly if all the proposed reforms really do spell progress the law and lawyers have a lot to answer for; and yet should we not be charitable to this law which is required to do the impossible: to stand still and go ahead at the same time?
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