MENTAL SCIENCE AND SOCIOLOGY. 6 77 



manner in which human intelligence and human feeling are influenced 

 by it. Experiences of men's conduct which the legislator has gath- 

 ered, and which lie partially sorted in his memory, furnish him with 

 empirical notions that guide his judgment on each question raised ; 

 and he would think it folly to ignore all this unsystematized knowl- 

 edge about people's characters and actions. But, at the same time, 

 he regards as foolish the proposal to proceed, not on vaguely-gen- 

 eralized facts, but on facts accurately generalized ; and, as still more 

 foolish, the proposal to merge these minor definite generalizations in 

 generalizations expressing the ultimate laws of Mind. Guidance by 

 intuition seems to him much more rational. 



Of course, I do not mean to say that his intuition is of small 

 value. How should I say this, remembering the immense accumula- 

 tion of experiences by which his thoughts have been moulded into 

 harmony with things ? We all know that when the successful man of 

 business is urged by wife and daughters to get into Parliament, that 

 they may attain a higher social standing, he always replies that his 

 occupations through life have left him no leisure to prepare himself, 

 by collecting and digesting the voluminous evidence respecting the 

 effects of institutions and policies, and that he fears he might do mis- 

 chief. If the heir to some large estate, or scion of a noble house 

 powerful in the locality, receives a deputation asking him to stand for 

 the county, we constantly read that he pleads inadequate knowledge 

 as a reason for declining : perhaps hinting that, after ten years spent 

 in the needful studies, he may have courage to undertake the heavy 

 responsibilities proposed to him. So, too, we have the familiar fact 

 that, when, at length, men who have gathered vast stores of political 

 information gain the confidence of voters who know how carefully 

 they have thus fitted themselves, it still perpetually happens that after 

 election they find they have entered on their work prematurely. It is 

 true that beforehand they had sought anxiously through the records 

 of the past, that they might avoid legislative errors of multitudinous 

 kinds, like those committed in early times. Nevertheless, when acts 

 are proposed referring to matters dealt with in past generations by 

 acts long since cancelled or obsolete, immense inquiries open before 

 them. Even limiting themselves to the 1,126 acts repealed in 1823-'29, 

 and the further 770 repealed in 1861, they find that to learn what 

 these aimed at, how they worked, why they failed, and whence arose 

 the mischiefs they wrought, is an arduous task, which yet they feel 

 bound to undertake lest they should reinflict these mischiefs ; and 

 hence the reason why so many break down under the effort, and retire 

 with health destroyed. Nay, more on those with constitutions vig- 

 orous enough to carry them through such inquiries, there continually 

 presses the duty of making yet further inquiries. Besides tracing the 

 results of abandoned laws in other societies, there is at home, year by 

 year, more futile law-making to be investigated and lessons to be 



