APPROXIMATE GENERALIZATIONS. 137 



proviso. The proposition, Most persons who have uncontrolled 

 power employ it ill, is a generalization of this class, and may 

 be transformed into the following: All persons who have 

 uncontrolled power employ it ill, provided they are not persons 

 of unusual strength of judgment and rectitude of purpose. 

 The proposition, carrying the hypothesis or proviso with it, 

 may then he dealt with no longer as an approximate, but as an 

 universal proposition ; and to whatever number of steps the 

 reasoning may reach, the hypothesis, being carried forward to 

 the conclusion, will exactly indicate how far that conclusion is 

 from being applicable universally. If in the course of the 

 argument other approximate generalizations are introduced, 

 each of them being in like manner expressed as an universal 

 proposition with a condition annexed, the sum of all the 

 conditions will appear at the end as the sum of all the errors 

 which affect the conclusion. Thus, to the proposition last 

 cited, let us add the following : All absolute monarchs have 

 uncontrolled power, unless their position is such that they 

 need the active support of their subjects (as was the case with 

 Queen Elizabeth, Frederick of Prussia, and others). Com- 

 bining these two propositions, we can deduce from them an 

 universal conclusion, which will be subject to both the hypo- 

 theses in the premises ; All absolute monarchs employ their 

 power ill, unless their position makes them need the active 

 support of their subjects, or unless they are persons of unusual 

 strength of judgment and rectitude of purpose. It is of no 

 consequence how rapidly the errors in our premises accumu- 

 late, if we are able in this manner to record each error, and 

 keep an account of the aggregate as it swells up. 



Secondly : there is a case in which approximate proposi- 

 tions, even without our taking note of the conditions under 

 which they are not true of individual cases, are yet, for the 

 purposes of science, universal ones ; namely, in the inquiries 

 which relate to the properties not of individuals, but of multi- 

 tudes. The principal of these is the science of politics, or 

 of human society. This science is principally concerned 

 with the actions not of solitary individuals, but of masses; 

 with the fortunes not of single persons, but of communities. 



