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LOGIC OF THE MORAL SCIENCES. 



But this indication may be preceded, 

 or at all events followed, by a confir- 

 mation of a purely statical kind ; for, 

 in politics as in mechanics, the com- 

 munication of motion from one object 

 to another proves a connection be- 

 tw^een them. Without descending to 

 the minute interdependence of the dif- 

 ferent 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 con- 

 temporaneous state of every one of 

 the others ? By a further extension 

 of this consideration, we may conceive 

 the necessary relation which exists 

 between the condition of the sciences 

 in general and that of the arts in 

 general, except that the mutual de- 

 pendence is less intense in proportion 

 as it is more indirect. The same is 

 the case when, instead of consider- 

 ing the aggregate of the social pheno- 

 mena in some one people, we examine 

 it simultaneously in different contem- 

 poraneous nations, between which 

 the perpetual reciprocity of influence, 

 especially in modern times, cannot be 

 contested, though the consensus must 

 in this case be ordinarily of a less de- 

 cided character, and must decrease 

 gradually with the affinity of the cases 

 and the miiltiplicity of the points of 

 contact, so as at last, in some cases, 

 to disappear almost entirely ; as, for 

 example, between "Western Europe 

 and Eastern Asia, of which the vari- 

 ous general states of society appear to 

 have been hitherto almost indepen- 

 dent of one another." 



These remarks are followed by illus- 

 trations of one of the most important, 

 and, until lately, most neglected, of 

 the general principles which, in this 

 division of the social science, may be 

 considered as established ; namely, 

 the necessary correlation between the 

 form of government existing in any 

 society and the contemporaneous state 



of civilisation: a natural law which 

 stamps the endless discussions and in- 

 numerable theories I'especting forms 

 of government in the abstract as 

 fruitless and worthless for any other 

 purpose than as a preparatory treat- 

 ment of materials to be afterwards 

 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 re- 

 quisites of stable political union. 

 There are some circumstances which, 

 being found in all societies without 

 exception, and in the greatest degree 

 where the social union is most com- 

 plete, may be considered (when psy- 

 chological and ethological laws con- 

 firm the indication) as conditions of 

 the existence of the complex pheno- 

 menon called a State. For example, 

 no numerous society has ever been 

 held together without laws, or usages 

 equivalent to them ; without tribu- 

 nals, and an organised force of some 

 sort to execute their decisions. There 

 have always been public authorities 

 whom, with more or less strictness, 

 and in cases more or less accurately 

 defined, the rest of the community 

 obeyed, or according to general opin- 

 ion were bound to obey. By follow- 

 ing out this course of inquiry we shall 

 find a number of requisites which have 

 been present in every society that has 

 maintained a collective existence, and 

 on the cessation of which it has either 

 merged in some other society, or re 

 constructed itself on some new basis, 

 in which the conditions were cou 

 formed to. Although these results, 

 obtained by comparing different forms 

 and states of society, amount in them- 

 selves only to empirical laws, some 

 of them, when once suggested, are 

 found to follow with so much proba- 

 bility from general laws of human 

 nature, that the consilience of the two 

 processes raises the evidence to proof, 

 and the generalisations to the rank of 

 scientific truths. 



This seems to be affirmable (for in- 

 stance) of the conclusions arrived at 



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