LOGIC OF PRACTICE OR ART. 549 



ample) must be a right foundation for government, because a 

 government thus constituted tends to produce certain beneficial 

 effects. Inasmuch, however, as no government produces all 

 possible beneficial effects, but all are attended with more or 

 fewer inconveniences ; and since these cannot usually be com- 

 bated by means drawn from the very causes which produce 

 them ; it would be often a much stronger recommendation of 

 some practical arrangement, that it does not follow from what 

 is called the general principle of the government, than that it 

 does. Under a government of legitimacy, the presumption is 

 far rather in favour of institutions of popular origin ; and in a 

 democracy, in favour of arrangements tending to check the 

 impetus of popular will. The line of argumentation so com- 

 monly mistaken in France for political philosophy, tends to 

 the practical conclusion that we should exert our utmost 

 efforts to aggravate, instead of alleviating, whatever are the 

 characteristic imperfections of the system of institutions which 

 we prefer, or under which we happen to live. 



5. The grounds, then, of every rule of art, are to be 

 found in the theorems of science. An art, or a body of art, 

 consists of the rules, together with as much of the speculative 

 propositions as comprises the justification of those rules. The 

 complete art of any matter, includes a selection of such a 

 portion from the science, as is necessary to show on what 

 conditions the effects, which the art aims at producing, depend. 

 And Art in general, consists of the truths of Science, arranged 

 in the most convenient order for practice, instead of the order 

 which is the most convenient for thought. Science groups 

 and arranges its truths, so as to enable us to take in at one 

 view as much as possible of the general order of the universe. 

 Art, though it must assume the same general laws, follows 

 them only into such of their detailed consequences as have led 

 to the formation of rules of conduct ; and brings together from 

 parts of the field of science most remote from one another, the 

 truths relating to the production of the different and hetero- 

 geneous conditions necessary to each effect which the exigen- 

 cies of practical life require to be produced. 



