ABSTRACT
The state of political society in England on the eve of its transformation may be summed up in a single sentence: it was the absolute domination of an aristocratic class. The English aristocracy did not exercise its power by virtue of caste privileges, it was not divided from the rest of the population by any legal barriers. The structure of the political organization presided over by this class contributed another element of unity. The village was linked to the capital, and the local to the central administration, by an unbroken series of living ties and not by the fetters of a centralized bureaucracy. In the domain of social life the importance of the individual is relatively still further diminished. The independent fortune and the social rank of the magistrates who took part in the self-government of the county made their public labours more an affair of honour and social duty.
