478 LOGIC OF THE MORAL SCIENCES. 



necessary to say anything either in proof or in illustration of 

 the assertion that such is not the true character of the social 

 phenomena. There is not, among these most complex and 

 (for that reason) most modifiable of all phenomena, any one 

 over which innumerable forces do not exercise influence ; 

 which does not depend on a conjunction of very many causes. 

 We have not, therefore, to prove the notion in question to be 

 an error, but to prove that the error has been committed ; 

 that so mistaken a conception of the mode in which the 

 phenomena of society are produced, has actually been ascer 

 tained. 



2. One numerous division of the reasoners who have 

 treated social facts according to geometrical methods, not 

 admitting any modification of one law by another, must for 

 the present be left out of consideration ; because in them this 

 error is complicated with, and is the effect of, another funda 

 mental misconception, of which we have already taken some 

 notice, and which will be further treated of before we con 

 clude. I speak of those who deduce political conclusions not 

 ^ from laws of nature, not from sequences of phenomena, real 

 or imaginary, but from unbending practical maxims. Such, 

 for example, are all who found their theory of politics on what 

 is called abstract right, that is to say, on universal precepts ; 

 a pretension of which we have already noticed the chimerical 

 nature. Such, in like manner, are those who make the assump 

 tion of a social contract, or any other kind of original obliga 

 tion, and apply it to particular cases by mere interpretation. 

 But in this the fundamental error is the attempt to treat an 

 art like a science, and to have a deductive art ; the irra 

 tionality of which will be shown in a future chapter. It will 

 be proper to take our exemplification of the geometrical theory 

 from those thinkers who have avoided this additional error, 

 and who entertain, so far, a juster idea of the nature of 

 political inquiry. 



We may cite, in the first instance, those who assume as 

 the principle of their political philosophy that government is 



