152 INDUCTION. 



cited, let us add the following : All absolute monarchs 

 have uncontrolled power, unless their position is such 

 that they need the active support of their subjects (as 

 was the case with Queen Elizabeth, Frederic of Prussia, 

 and others). Combining these two propositions we 

 can deduce from them an universal conclusion, which 

 will be subject to both the hypotheses in the pre- 

 misses : -All absolute monarchs employ their power 

 ill, unless their position makes them need the active 

 support of their subjects, or unless they are persons of 

 unusual strength of judgment and will, and confirmed 

 habits of virtue. It is of no consequence how rapidly 

 the errors in our premisses accumulate, if we are able 

 in this manner to record each error, and keep an 

 account of the aggregate as it swells up. 



Secondly: there is a case in which approximate 

 propositions, even without our taking note of the 

 conditions under which they are not true of individual 

 cases, are yet, for the purposes of science, universal 

 ones ; namely, in the scientific inquiries which relate 

 to the properties not of individuals, but of multitudes. 

 The principal of these is the science of politics, or of 

 human society. This science is principally concerned 

 with the actions not of solitary individuals, but of 

 masses; with the fortunes not of single persons, but 

 of communities. For the statesman, therefore, it is 

 generally enough to know that most persons act or 

 are acted upon in a particular way ; since his specula- 

 tions and his practical arrangements refer almost 

 exclusively to cases in which the whole community, 

 or some large portion of it, is acted upon at once, and 

 in which, therefore, what is done or felt by most 

 persons determines the result produced by or upon 

 the body at large. He can get on well enough 

 with approximate generalizations on human nature, 



