THE GEOMETRICAL METHOD. 479 



founded on fear; that the dread of each other is the one 

 motive by which human beings were originally brought 

 into a state of society, and are still held in it. Some of the earlier 

 scientific inquirers into politics, in particular Hobbes, assumed 

 this proposition, not by implication, but avowedly, as the 

 foundation of their doctrine, and attempted to build a com 

 plete philosophy of politics thereupon. It is true that Hobbes 

 did not find this one maxim sufficient to carry him through 

 the whole of his subject, but was obliged to eke it out by the 

 double sophism of an original contract. I call this a double 

 sophism ; first, as passing off a fiction for a fact, and, secondly, 

 assuming a practical principle, or precept, as the basis of a 

 theory ; which is a petitio principii, since (as we noticed in 

 treating of that Fallacy) every rule of conduct, even though it 

 be so binding a one as the observance of a promise, must rest 

 its own foundations on the theory of the subject, and the 

 theory, therefore, cannot rest upon it. 



3. Passing over less important instances, I shall come 

 at once to the most remarkable example afforded by our own 

 times of the geometrical method in politics ; emanating from 

 persons who were well aware of the distinction between science 

 and art; who knew that rules of conduct must follow, not 

 precede, the ascertainment of laws of nature, and that the 

 latter, not the former, is the legitimate field for the application 

 of the deductive method. I allude to the interest-philosophy 

 of the Bentham school. 



The profound and original thinkers who are commonly 

 known under this description, founded their general theory of 

 government on one comprehensive premise, namely, that men s 

 actions are always determined by their interests. There is an 

 ambiguity in this last expression ; for, as the same philoso 

 phers, especially Bentham, gave the name of an interest to 

 anything which a person likes, the proposition may be under 

 stood to mean only this, that men s actions are always deter 

 mined by their wishes. In this sense, however, it would not 

 bear out any of the consequences which these writers drew 



