THE GEOMETRICAL METHOD. 483 



tion towards the things which were for the real interest of those 

 savages ? 



I am not here attempting to establish a theory of govern- 

 ment, and am not called upon to determine the proportional 

 weight which ought to he given to the circumstances which 

 this school of geometrical politicians left out of their system, 

 and those which they took into it. I am only concerned to 

 show that their method was unscientific; not to measure 

 the amount of error which may have affected their practical 

 conclusions. 



It is but justice to them, however, to remark, that their 

 mistake was not so much one of substance as of form ; and 

 consisted in presenting in a systematic shape, and as the 

 scientific treatment of a great philosophical question, what 

 should have passed for that which it really was, the mere 

 polemics of the day. Although the actions of rulers are by 

 no means wholly determined by their selfish interests, it is 

 chiefly as a security against those selfish interests that con- 

 stitutional checks are required; and for that purpose such 

 checks, in England, and the other nations of modern Europe, 

 can in no manner be dispensed with. It is likewise true, that 

 in these same nations, and in the present age, responsibility to 

 the governed is the only means practically available to create 

 a feeling of identity of interest, in the cases, and on the points, 

 where that feeling does not sufficiently exist. To all this, 

 and to the arguments which may be founded on it in favour 

 of measures for the correction of our representative system, 

 I have nothing to object; but I confess my regret, that the 

 small though highly important portion of the philosophy of 

 government, which was wanted for the immediate purpose 

 of serving the cause of parliamentary reform, should have 

 been held forth by thinkers of such eminence as a complete 

 theory. 



It is not to be imagined possible, nor is it true in point of 

 fact, that these philosophers regarded the few premises of their 

 theory as including all that is required for explaining social 

 phenomena, or for determining the choice of forms of govern- 



312 



