LOGIC OF PRACTICE OR ART. 619 



however, as no government produces all possible 

 beneficial effects, but all are attended with more or 

 fewer inconveniences; and since these cannot 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 argu- 

 mentation so commonly mistaken in France for poli- 

 tical 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 Logic of Art (it appears from all that 

 has now been said) consists essentially of this one 

 principle, that inquiry and discussion should take 

 place on the field of science alone. The rules of art 

 are required to conform to the conclusions of science, 

 not to principles or premisses of its own. 



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, con- 

 sists 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 



