ABSOLUTE POLITICAL ETHICS. 617 



more must the eight prohibitory clauses of the decalogue be called 

 ethical nihilism. Prof. Huxley nevertheless thought his title a 

 fit one; and has continued to use it in the last edition of his 

 " Critiques and Addresses." This political doctrine held by me 

 remains unchanged, but the view taken of it by Prof. Huxley 

 appears to have been reversed. In an emphatic manner he has 

 recently warned me against " undertaking to preserve the health 

 and heal the diseases of an organism vastly more complicated 

 than the human body/' having for my guides "long chains of 

 deduction from abstract ethical assumptions." So that while 

 represented as one who would have no administration at all, I 

 am represented as advocating dangerous administrative methods 

 of healing diseases of the body politic. My policy is characterized 

 now as a policy of no action, and now as a policy of rash action. 

 These two characterizations are applied to the same set of beliefs, 

 and they stand in direct contradiction. Necessarily there must 

 be extreme error in one or both ; and the latter alternative is the 

 true one : both are wrong. 



The " way of thinking " which Prof. Huxley indicates as sep- 

 arated by a gulf from his own, and which he implies is exclusively 

 pursued by me, is that of reaching conclusions by " long chains of 

 deduction from abstract ethical assumptions, hardly any link of 

 which can be tested experimentally." On the other hand the 

 course he advocates is that of seeking guidance from " inductions 

 based on careful observation and experience" a course which 

 he implies is not pursued by me, either in the political sphere or 

 elsewhere ; certainly not in the political sphere. Now let us ask 

 what is implied by the evidence. Up to the end of the division 

 treating of Ecclesiastical Institutions, where it has stood still for 

 these four years, the "Principles of Sociology" contains more than 

 five thousand facts, gathered from accounts of more than two 

 hundred societies, savage and civilized, ancient and modern. If, 

 then, I am rightly described as pursuing the deductive method 

 (exclusively, as it would appear), there arises this curious ques- 

 tion : How have I used for deductive purposes more facts than 

 have been used by any other writer on Sociology for inductive 

 purposes ? " This is irrelevant," will perhaps be the rejoinder 

 " the question concerns not the method pursued in dealing with 

 Sociology at large, but the method pursued in dealing with govern- 

 mental actions at the present time." Merely remarking that it 

 would be strange had I pursued one method in treating the sub- 

 ject at large and an opposite method in treating a small division 

 of it, I go on to reply that I have not pursued the opposite method 

 but the same method. The views I hold respecting the sphere of 

 governmental action are everywhere supported by inductions. 

 The essay on " Over-Legislation," dating back to 1853, is almost 



