17 The relevant passage is the following: "The brief description of the characteristic merit of the English Constitution is that its dignified parts are very complicated and somewhat imposing, very old and rather venerable; while its efficient part, at least when in great and critical action, is decidedly simple and rather modern. (...) The efficient secret of the English Constitution may be described as the close union, the nearly complete fusion of the executive and the legislative powers. According to the traditional theory, as it exists in all books, the goodness of our constitution consists in the entire separation of the executive and legislative authorities, but in truth its merit consists in their singular approximation. The connecting link is the cabinet. By that new word we mean a committee of the legislative body selected to be the executive body. (...) The legislature chosen, in name, to make laws, in fact finds its principal business in making and in keeping an executive". Walter Bagehot. The English Constitution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 2001, pp. 8-9.
