The reader who has followed me this far will not need to be convinced that Switzerland is unusual. He or she may even have begun to find Switzerland interesting. I now want to suggest that what happens in Switzerland matters. Switzerland is not simply another rich, small state in the heart of Europe. It is the living expression of a set of ideas, which may be summed up: although the will of the majority makes law and constitutes the only true sovereign authority, the minorities, however small, have inalienable rights. The dilemma of majority will and minority rights can be overcome by the ingenuity of men. There is nothing startling or very new about these ideas, but it is striking how little they are observed. The Swiss believe that there will always be a political compromise or bit of constitutional machinery which will get round a given difficulty, whether it is the rights of the Jurassiens or conscientious objectors. That the Jurassiens have rights seems to them so obvious that they hardly need to emphasise it. They also believe that no machinery is sacred. The Constitution of 1848 underwent total revision in 1874, and, as we saw in Chapter 3, it is being revised again today. When something does not work, the Swiss tinker with it for a while, sometimes even for decades, and, if it cannot be got working, they scrap it.