§ 4 The difference just adverted to between politics and the physical sciences, is a material fact with respect to the comparative use of the inductive and deductive methods in these two classes of sciences respectively. The matter of the physical sciences is unchangeable, except so far as it is subject to cyclical alternations. When once the facts have been determined by accurate and complete observations, deductive reasoning may be founded on these, to an unlimited extent. No scientific light is derived from fresh observations of phenomena identical with those already observed correctly. It is a mere retravelling of ground already travelled over-a re-measuring of distances already measured-a re-weighing of bodies already weighed a re-enumeration of items already enumerated. When once the periodic times of the planets have been determined, it may be assumed that their cyclical recurrences will be invariable. When once the periodical blowing of the monsoons and of the trade-winds, in each part of the earth, has been settled by a sufficient number of observations, their regular reappearance at the same intervals may be confidently anticipated. When once the specific gravity of a piece of gold or platina has been ascertained, it may be assumed that the specific gravity of other specimens of these metals will be similar. It is therefore true that, as observation in the physical sciences is extended-as it is more precise, more complete, and better registered, the inductive reasoning founded immediately on such observed phenomena is less in demand. The extent of the classes for which the partially-observed phenomena are to serve as specimens has been settled. These generalizations, therefore, serve as fixed points, from which deductive reasoning may proceed. Hence it is true, as Mr. Mill has observed, (2) that in the physical sciences reasoning is now undergoing a transition from the inductive to the deductive stage. But this description cannot be extended to politics. The subject-matter of politics is in an ever-varying state. (12) Syst. of Logie, b. iii. c. 13, § 7. There is a succession of acts in every community, constituting its history, which require an unintermitting observation and registration. The general theorems of politics need to be constantly revised and corrected, as these new series of events arise-as a fresh harvest of facts is annually gathered into the garner of the historian and statistician. They must be confronted with the perpetually-accruing phenomena, and their testimony tried by this test. New forces introduced into society, such as gunpowder, printing, steam-navigation and railways, or new systems of philosophy, or forms of religious belief, or states of religious indifference, render it necessary to modify the propositions founded upon the prior experience. The means of intellectual and physical communication, and the mode of warfare, often determine the action of government: hence the facts bearing on such subjects must be re-classified, and new inductive processes gone through. From the new inductions thus successively obtained, the political philosopher may construct new theorems, either universal or limited-either extending to all mankind, or confined to certain communities. It follows, therefore, that whereas the physical sciences, as their foundations are better ascertained, will become more and more deductive, the occasions for inductive reasoning in politics will be incessantly renewed.(13) § 5 The department of politics which we have called speculative, and to which such works as the Discourses and the Prince of Machiavel, and the Esprit des Lois of Montesquieu, in great part belong, has by some writers been denominated the science of legislation. Filangieri gave this title to his political work, the object of which is to lay down the principles with which laws ought to conform. The Traité de Legislation of M. (13) On admire encore, par habitude, des écrivains qui ont joui d'une juste célébrité, parcequ'au moment où ils ont paru, ils se sont trouvés beaucoup plus avancés que ne l'étaient leurs contemporains. On cite quelquefois leurs ouvrages, mais on les cite sans y croire, et souvent même sans les avoir lus; on les considère moins comme des corps de doctrine, que comme des arsenaux qui peuvent nous fournir des armes contre des ennemis. Ceux qui se donnent la peine de les étudier, sentent qu'ils ont été faits pour un ordre de choses qui n'existe plus, et pour des temps qui ne sauraient revenir.'-Comte, Traité de Legislation, liv. i. c. 1. Charles Comte is a treatise on the science of legislation, as understood by him; that is to say, the science of the natural laws which regulate the condition of nations, and determine their prosperity, decline, or stagnation. (4) Storch, in the introduction to his treatise on political economy, divides the science of government ('la science de l'état') into two branches, social science and politics-the former being the theoretical, the latter the practical department of the subject. (15) The term 'science of legislation' has been lately objected to by Mr. Mill, on the ground that legislation is making laws, and that we do not talk of the science of making anything.(1) Undoubtedly it is more correct to speak of the art, than of the science of legislation. Legislation is a practical work, for which the assistance of different sciences is often requisite. By the science of legislation has been generally understood, a theoretical inquiry into those political principles which serve to guide the legislator-the 'legum leges, ex quibus informatio peti posset, quid in singulis legibus bene aut perperam positum aut constitutum sit.'(7) Speculative treatises on political economy and on (14) 'Je voudrais, à l'aide de ces méthodes, essayer de découvrir et d'exposer quelles sont les lois générales suivant lesquelles les nations prospèrent, dépérissent, ou restent stationnaires.'-Traité de Législation, tom. i. p. 4 (Paris, 1835). La science de la législation a pour objet la connoissance des rapports naturels qui existent, soit entre les divers membres ou les diverses fractions dont chaque société se compose, soit entre les hommes et les choses destinées à pourvoir à leur existence, ou à leur conservation.'-1b. p. 26. See also p. 24, on the wide extent of the science of legislation. (15) Cours d'Economie Politique, tom. i. p. 12-6. (16) The science of legislation is an incorrect and misleading expression. Legislation is making laws. We do not talk of the science of making anything. Even the science of government would be an objectionable expression, were it not that government is often loosely taken to signify, not the act of governing, but the state or condition of being governed, or of living under a government.'-Essays on some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy, p. 136, n. (17) Bacon de Augm. Scient. lib. viii. aph. 6 (vol. ix. p. 85). Concerning the expression leges legum, see Bacon, vol. xiii. p. 138; Stewart, First Diss. p. 36. The expression, as used by a great civilian, appears to refer to general legal maxims, such as those collected in Bacon's tract, which are applicable to a great variety of heads of law; for example, ‘verba fortius accipiuntur contra proferentem.' criminal and civil jurisprudence would, according to this acceptation of the term, form a part of the science of legislation. § 6 When it is perceived that political society and government are not accidental-that the wants, capacities, and feelings of man create certain conditions, with which political institutions must comply, and which circumscribe the free choice of the legislator by fixed limits, and that these conditions are common to the entire human race, it must be admitted that politics contain an element which is susceptible of scientific treatment. A large number of political philosophers, however, have not stopped here they have not been satisfied with saying that there is a science of politics which furnishes theoretical principles, and that it belongs to the art of politics to show how those principles are to be applied in practice; but they have laid it down that there is a universal Law of nature, to which the civil law of every state, and the constitution of every government, ought to conform. We have already pointed out the non-existence of any such universal standard of legislation, or canon of positive law, as the doctrine of the law of nature assumes.(18) Nevertheless, in denying the existence of a law of nature, or, at least, in denying the possibility of affixing any distinct meaning to the phrase, we are not to be understood as maintaining that, because there is no natural law, therefore positive law is independent of human nature, and that its standard is the mere arbitrary will of the legislator.(19) (18) Above, ch. xv. § 3. (19) This is the doctrine of Thrasymachus, in the first book of Plato's Republic, that justice is rò TOû Kрeiттovos σvμþéрov. See i. 12, p. 338, with Ast's note, who says: Scilicet sophistæ, virtutem ipsam pervertentes, et moralem quam dicimus, hominis naturam tollentes, quæ justa et honesta censerentur, non per se (púσe, naturâ) justa et honesta esse statuebant, sed lege et conventione quâdam (vou et déσe). The opinion is here correctly stated, though Mr. Grote is doubtless right in denying that it can be truly attributed to the Sophists' in a mass, Hist. of Gr. vol. viii. p. 530-3: compare the remarks (p. 524) on the same opinion. A similar doctrine was maintained by Carneades: Carneades ergo, quoniam erant infirma quæ a philosophis afferebantur, sumpsit audaciam refellendi, quia refelli posse intellexit. Ejus disputationis summa hæc fuit: jura sibi homines pro utilitate sanxisse, scilicet varia pro moribus; et apud eosdem pro temporibus sæpe mutata: jus autem naturale esse nullum: omnes et The indistinctness which pervades almost all the arguments on the subject, from Plato and Aristotle down to the writers of our own age, is chiefly owing to the indeterminate sense of the word nature. An antithesis is established between that which exists by institution, and that which exists by nature; and the consequences of this opposition are then deduced, before it is made clear what are the two ideas which are thus opposed to each other. The obvious meaning of this opposition is, that nature is a negation of law or positive institution, as it is of art; that it is the state which excludes human agency or interference.(20) Thus marriage, with its accessory rights, is an insti homines, et alias animantes, ad utilitates suas naturâ ducente ferri; proinde aut nullam esse justitiam, aut, si sit aliqua, summam esse stultitiam.'— Lactant. Div. Inst. i. 16. Compare Ritter, Gesch. der Phil. vol. iii. p. 671-3. The arguments of Carneades on justice and injustice are recited at length in the speech of Philus, in the third book of Cicero de Republicâ ; in which, though it is not preserved entire, the course of the reasoning can be followed. The same doctrine is expressed in the following verses of Horace : 'Jura inventa metu injusti fateare necesse est, Sat. i. 3, v. 111-4; where Orelli says: Ex doctrinâ Sophistarum Epicurique nihil justum aut injustum est naturâ, sed legibus ac moribus; contra naturale est discrimen inter bona et mala, et suopte instinctu homo ducitur ad illa appetenda, hæc fugienda.' The same doctrine is implied in the celebrated dictum of Pindar, νόμος ὁ πάντων βασιλεύς, as interpreted in the curious passage of Herodotus, iii. 38 (Fragm. inc. 48.) The opposition of nature and law is laid down by Callicles, in the Gorgias of Plato, (c. 84-87, p. 482-4,) and is stated by Aristotle (Soph. Elench. c. 12, § 8) to have been acknowledged by all the early philosophers. Compare Eth. Nic. i. 1: τὰ δὲ καλὰ καὶ δίκαια, περὶ ὧν n πολιτικὴ σκοπεῖται, τοσαύτην ἔχει διαφορὰν καὶ πλάνην, ὥστε δοκεῖν νόμῳ μόνον εἶναι, φύσει δὲ μή. As to the doctrine attributed to Hobbes, that there is no natural justice, and that the only standard of justice is the will of the ruler, see Cudworth, Systema Intellectuale, vol. ii. p. 598; ed. Mosheim. (20) In the following dialogue, at the beginning of Dryden's Indian Emperor, the new world is represented as being in a state of nature, without arts, and is contrasted on this account with the old world: 'Pasq. Corn, wine, and oil are wanting to this ground, In which our countries fruitfully abound; As if this infant world, yet unarray'd, Naked and bare, in Nature's lap were laid : |