HISTORICAL METHOD. 597 



the other elements, even with those which at first 

 sight appear the most independent of it. The dyna- 

 mical consideration of the progressive development of 

 civilized humanity, affords, no doubt, a still more effi- 

 cacious means of effecting this interesting verification 

 of the consensus of the social phenomena, by display- 

 ing 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 communi- 

 cation of motion from one object to another proves a 

 connexion between them. Without descending to the 

 minute interdependence of the different branches of 

 any one science or art, is it not evident that among 1 

 the different sciences, as well as among most of the 

 arts, there exists such a connexion, 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 contemporaneous 

 state of every one of the others ? By a further exten- 

 sion of this consideration, we may conceive the neces- 

 sary relation which exists between the condition of 

 the sciences in general and that of the arts in general, 

 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 

 simultaneously in different contemporaneous nations; 

 between which the perpetual reciprocity of influence, 

 especially in modern times, cannot be contested, 

 although the consensus must in this case be ordinarily 

 of a less decided character, and must decrease gradu- 

 ally with the affinity of the cases and the multiplicity 

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



