APPROXIMATE GENERALIZATIONS. 359 



character vvlilch distinguishes the cases that accord with the generali- 

 zation from those which are exceptions to it; we may then substitute, 

 for the approximate proposition, an universal proposition with a pro- 

 viso. The proposition, Most persons who have uncontrolled power 

 employ it ill, is a generalization of this class, and may be transformed 

 intt) the lollownig : — All persons vvho have uncontrt)lled power employ 

 it ill, provhled they are not persons of unusual strength of judgment 

 and will, and confirmed habits of virtue. The proposition, carrying 

 the hypothesis or proviso with it, may then be dealt .with no longer as 

 an ap2)roximate, but as an universal proposition ; and to whatever 

 number of steps the reasoning may reach, the hypothesis, being carried 

 forward to the conclusion, will exactly indicate how far tJiat conclusion 

 is from being applicable universally. If in the course of the argument 

 other approximate generalizations are introduced, each of them being 

 in like manner expressed as an universal proposition with a condition 

 annexed, the sum of all the conditions will appear at the end as the 

 sum of all the errors which affect the conclusion. Thus, to the propo- 

 sition last 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, 

 Frederick of Prussia, and others). Combining these two propositions 

 we can deduce from them an universal conclusion, which will be sub- 

 ject to both the hypotheses in the premisses : 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 eiTor, and keep an account 

 of the aggregate as it swells up. 



Secondly: there is a case in wluch approximate propositions, even 

 without our taking note of the conditions under which they are not 

 ti-ue 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 

 ecience 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 speculations and 

 bis 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 >nost persons 

 determines the result pi-oduced by or upon the body at large. He can 

 get on well enough with approximate generalizations on human nature, 

 since what is true approximately of all individuals is true absolutely of 

 all masses. And even when the operations of individual men have a 

 part to play in his deductions, as when he is reasoning of kings, or 

 other single rulers, still as he is providing for indefinite duration, in- 

 volving an indefinite succession of such individuals, he must in general 

 both reason and act as if what is true of most persons were true of all. 



The two kinds of considerations above adduced are a sufficient 

 refutation of the popular error, that speculations on society and govern- 

 ment, as resting ujjon merely probable evidence, must be inferior in 



