A horse, hippopotamuses and the polish rule of law

An old Polish encyclopaedia edited several times by the Reverend Chmielowski in the mid-18th century is mostly known for its peculiar definition of a horse: "A horse is, that which everyone sees". This definition became proverbial even if the above-cited sentence was merely the start of a lengthy listing of many interesting breeds-Turkish, Spanish, Samogitian, etc., followed by notorious individual examples of the class ostensibly denoted as Bucephalus or a "Horse in Ruthenia, 36 years of age, of which 27 years have been as a working horse and then living at the House of his Grateful Lord". Even so, the opening statement in those days of global horsepower made sense and ought to be treated as a hidden ostensive definition pointing at a representative of the class in question, especially with regard to the Ruthenian Bucephalos. It therefore comes as no surprise that from the very first moment I was enchanted by the way my friend Martin Krygier approached the description of the rule of law in his very influential 1990 paper feeling the need to supplement the extensive description of two basic elements of the rule of law with two examples. One is an example of the rule of law ideal fulfilled. This is the PM Whitlam dismissal case. All Australians remember, I presume, that in 1975 their PM Gough Whitlam was dismissed by HM Governor General Sir William Kerr. As Martin wrote, there are certainly reasons to assume that Whitlam, an experienced politician, had considered all possible ways to remain in power. However, when discovering that the Governor General had already taken the decision, instead of calling Her Majesty, Whitlam then surrendered. Whitlam entered the new parliamentary elections and lost but these facts bear no relation to the case itself. The PM acknowledged the legal right of the General Governor to act as he had done. Martin's Hungarian Marxist friend could not understand such a low posture while for Krygier it was a clear example of the Rule of Law. The Rule of Law is what everyone sees in Whitlam's dismissal case. Critics of the Reverend Chmielowski's definition of a horse do not realise that there is subtle logic in that the entry "Horse" is immediately followed by the entry on "Seahorse", this time defined in the more conventional way (in those days it was difficult to find members of the Polish gentry or the clergy who were familiar with the beast) as "an animal enjoying [both] sea and land" similar in posture to the English bulldog but with