636 LOGIC OF THE MORAL SCIENCES. 



and in the morbid state, constitutes, at least as much as in the anatomy of 

 the natural body, an indispensable complement to every theory of Socio- 

 logical Statics; without which the indirect exploration above spoken of 

 would often lead into error, 



"This is not the place for methodically demonstrating the existence of 

 a necessary relation among all the possible aspects of the same social or- 

 ganism ; a point on which, in principle at least, there is now little difference 

 of opinion among sound thinkers. From whichever of the social elements 

 we choose to set out, wx may easily recognize that it has always a connec- 

 tion, more or less immediate, with all the other elements, even with those 

 which at first sight appear the most independent of it. The dynamic- 

 al consideration of the progressive development of civilized humanity, af- 

 fords, no doubt, a still more efficacious means of effecting this interesting 

 verification of the consensus of the social phenomena, by displaying the 

 manner in which every change in any one part, operates immediately, or 

 very speedily, upon all the rest. But this indication may be preceded, or 

 at all events followed, by a confirmation of a purely statical kind ; for, in 

 politics as in mechanics, the communication of motion from one object to 

 another proves a connection between them. Without descending to the 

 minute interdependence of the different branches of any one science or 

 art, is it not evident that among the different sciences, as well as among 

 most of the arts, there exists such a connection, that if the state of any one 

 well-marked division of them is sufficiently known to us, we can with real 

 scientific assurance infer, from their necessary correlation, the contempo- 

 raneous state of every one of the others ? By a further extension of this 

 consideration, we may conceive the necessary relation which exists be- 

 tween the condition of the sciences in general and that of the arts in gen- 

 eral, except that the mutual dependence is less intense in proportion as it 

 is more indirect. The same is the case, when, instead of considering the 

 aggregate of the social phenomena in some one people, we examine it si- 

 multaneously in different contemporaneous nations; between wliich the 

 perpetual reciprocity of influence, especially in modern times, can not be 

 contested, though the consensvs nmst 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 disappear almost entirely ; as for, example, between Western Eu- 

 rope and Eastern Asia, of which the various general states of society ap- 

 pear to have been hitherto almost independent of one another. 



These remarks are followed by illustrations of one of the most impor- 

 tant, and until lately, most neglected, of the general principles which, in 

 this division of the social science, may be considered as established ; name- 

 ly, 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 iimumerable 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 after- 

 ward used for the construction 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 excep- 

 tion, and in the greatest degree where the social union is most complete, 

 m.iy be considered (when psychological and ethological laws confirm the 

 indication) as conditions of the existence of the complex phenomena called 



