452 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



nothing to embarrass the scramble for offices. The New York " Sun " 

 lately reminded the Democrats that their business was "to elect a 

 President," not to reform the tariff. Seek first, it says, to " elect a 

 President," and all good things will be added unto you ; but grapple 

 with a great question like the tariff, and your opponents will surely 

 get the better of you. Another leading organ observes that, now that 

 the offices are no longer generally available, owing to the passage of the 

 Pendleton civil-service bill, for the reward of political services, there 

 remains nothing for a victorious party but " a damned barren ideality." 

 The strength of the language, which we reproduce with absolute faith- 

 fulness, may be taken as a gauge of the disgust which the average 

 politician feels when he sees nothing before him but a chance of doing 

 his duty, without any special reward therefor. The novel, " Democ- 

 racy," about which so much has been said, does not overstate the case 

 in the least. When Mrs. Lee, in that lively story, tells the senator, 

 who pays her the compliment of consulting as to the best course to 

 take in a certain complication, to do " what is most for the public 

 good," her counsel falls utterly pointless and abortive, simply because 

 " the public good " had nothing whatever to do with the matter in 

 hand. The senator himself could not pretend to tell her at what point 

 the two things came into any kind of relation with each other. The 

 questions involved were questions purely of self-interest, and, what- 

 ever course was taken, the country had nothing to gain. 



If we turn to England, signs are not wanting that there too the ab- 

 sence of political principles is leading up to a crisis. " The notion," 

 said the London " Times " recently, " that any particular set of men 

 are in possession of principles especially calculated to promote the na- 

 tional well-being, or that any particular trick of government could add 

 appreciably to the sum of happiness, is one which nowadays finds re- 

 markably few advocates. Moreover, there is a pretty general feeling 

 that it is very little use to rely upon principles of any kind. ... At 

 the present time we are not proceeding upon any principle known to 

 either political party ; and it is that fact which explains the hollowness 

 of all political discussion, and the marked incredulity of the intelli- 

 gent public toward all political professions. The fact is, that our 

 political principles are worn out, and that the conflict which raged 

 around them while they were vital is being mechanically carried on by 

 men whose business it is to fight about something." When remarks 

 like these can be made by the " leading journal," it would certainly 

 seem as if Comte was not far wrong in his prediction that the English 

 system would before long reveal its essential weakness. The question 

 then arises, Can government be permanently carried on under these 

 conditions ? As Comte has remarked, the absence of principle in public 

 life reacts upon private life ; and certainly, in the latter sphere, the dis- 

 order we now witness is not what might have been expected in an age 

 of such general enlightenment. It would seem as if, before long, those 



