516 LOGIC OF THE MORAL SCIENCES. 



case when, instead of considering the aggregate of the social 

 phenomena in some one people, we examine it simultaneously 

 in different contemporaneous nations ; between which the 

 perpetual reciprocity of influence, especially in modern times, 

 cannot be contested, though the consensus must in this case 

 be ordinarily of a less decided character, and must decrease 

 gradually with the affinity of the cases and the multiplicity 

 of the points of contact, so as at last, in some cases, to disap- 

 pear almost entirely; as for example between Western 

 Europe and Eastern Asia, of which the various general states 

 of society appear to have been hitherto almost independent of 

 one another." 



These remarks are followed by illustrations of one of the 

 most important, and until lately, most neglected, of the general 

 principles which, in this division of the social science, may be 

 considered as established ; namely, the necessary correlation 

 between the form of government existing in any society 

 and the contemporaneous state of civilization : a natural law, 

 which stamps the endless discussions and innumerable theories 

 respecting forms of government in the abstract, as fruitless 

 and worthless, for any other purpose than as a preparatory 

 treatment of materials to be afterwards used for the construc- 

 tion of a better philosophy. 



As already remarked, one of the main results of the science 

 , of social statics would be to ascertain the requisites of stable 

 political union. There are some circumstances which, being 

 found in all societies without exception, and in the greatest 

 degree where the social union is most complete, may be con- 

 sidered (when psychological and ethological laws confirm the 

 indication) as conditions of the existence of the complex 

 phenomenon called a State. For example, no numerous 

 society has ever been held together without laws, or usages 

 equivalent to them ; without tribunals, and an organized force 

 of some sort to execute their decisions. There have always 

 been public authorities whom, with more or less strictness and 

 in cases more or less accurately defined, the rest of the com- 

 munity obeyed, or according to general opinion were bound to 

 obey. By following out this course of inquiry we shall find 



