THE GEOMETRICAL METHOD. " 615 



Now a conception similar to this last would appear to have been form 

 ed of the social science, in the minds of the earlier of those who have at- 

 tempted to cultivate it by a deductive method. Mechanics would be a 

 science very similar to geometry, if every motion resulted from one force 

 alone, and not from a conflict of forces. In the geometrical theory of so- 

 ciety, it seems to be supposed that this is really the case with the social 

 phenomena; that each of them results always from only one force, one 

 single property of human nature. 



At the point which we have now reached, it can not be necessary to say 

 any thing either in proof or in illustration of the assertion that such is not 

 the true character of the social phenomena. There is not, among these 

 most complex and (for that reason) most modifiable of all phenomena, any 

 one over which innumerable forces do not exercise influence; which does 

 not depend on a conjunction of very many causes. We have not, there- 

 fore, to prove the notion in question to be an error, but to prove that the 

 error has been committed ; that so mistaken a conception of the mode in 

 which the phenomena of society are produced has actually been ascertained. 



§ 2. One numerous division of the reasoners who have treated social 

 facts according to geometrical methods, not admitting any modification of 

 one law by another, must for the present be left out of consideration, be- 

 cause in them this error is complicated with, and is the effect of, another 

 fundamental misconception, of which we have already taken some notice, 

 and w^hich will be further treated of before we conclude, I speak of those 

 who deduce political conclusions not from laws of nature, not from se- 

 quences of phenomena, real or imaginary, but from unbending practical 

 maxims. Such, for example, are all who found their theory of politics on 

 what is called abstract right, that is to say, on universal precepts ; a pre- 

 tension of which we have already noticed the chimerical nature. Such, in 

 like manner, are those who make the assumption of a social contract, or 

 any other kind of original obligation, and apply it to particular cases by 

 mere interpretation. But in this the fundamental error is the attempt to 

 treat an art like a science, and to have a deductive art; the irrationality 

 of which will be shown in a future chapter. It will be proper to take our 

 exemplification of the geometrical theory from those thinkers who have 

 avoided this additional error, and who entertain, so far, a juster idea of 

 the nature of political inquiry. 



We may cite, in the first instance, those Avho assume as the principle of 

 their political philosophy that government is founded on fear; that the 

 dread of each other is the one motive by which human beings were origi- 

 nally 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 complete philosophy of politics there- 

 upon. It is true that Hobbes did not find this one maxim suflicient 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 soph- 

 ism; first, as passing off a fiction for a fact, and, secondly, nssuming 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 i-ule of 

 conduct, even though it be so binding a one as the observance of a prom- 

 ise, must rest its own foundations on the theory of the subject; and the 

 theory, therefore, can not rest upon it. 



