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Biology has only recently begun to receive mathematical treatment. 
Politics, economic sciences, sociology, anthropology, and language have, 
however, hitherto firmly resisted attempts to bring them under mathematical 
guidance. In some cases attempts have been made, as, for example, when 
that great mathematician Professor Sylvester endeavoured to formulate a 
mathematical poetry. Unfortunately he put his theories into practice, but the 
mathematical poems which he composed were not such as to encourage the 
adoption of his methods. The above sciences have, indeed, passed out of the 
theological stage. We no longer ascribe political maxims to the direct com- 
mands of God, nor social phenomena to direct Divine interposition. But all the 
social sciences are for the most part still in the metaphysical stage. The 
doctrine of the divine right of kings has only disappeared in order to be re- 
placed by the doctrine of the divine right of majorities. Yet from a positive 
point of view neither of these stands on a footing much firmer than that of the 
other. ‘The duty of obedience to authority’ and ‘the right of resistance’ are 
in the same condition. ‘The right to work,’ ‘the right to live,’ ‘the right to a 
living wage,’ ‘the right to the vote’ are all metaphysical propositions assumed 
as axiomatic by various energetic writers and speakers, and which are usually 
advanced with a dogmatism proportioned to the uncertainty of their foundation. 
Yet on what basis do they rest? One might with equal cogency declare for 
“the right of the stronger to destroy the weaker,’ ‘the duty to improve the race 
by permitting and encouraging the forcible elimination of the unfit.’ Or again, 
we might argue that animals have a right to be protected against attempts made 
upon their life or property, and to be considered in any scheme for the pro- 
motion of the greatest happiness of the greatest number. ‘This problem is said 
to have perplexed Bentham in his later years. For by a negation of the 
doctrine of the immortality of the soul it was difficult for him to see why they 
were not to be put on a par with man. Or, again, take Proudhon’s aphorism : 
‘Everyone has a right to that which he has made. Who made the land ?—God. 
Then, proprietor, begone.’ Even if the major premiss were granted, it is easy to 
see that the proprietor might logically refuse to give up the land till God came 
Himself to ask for it, and decline to surrender it to one who had no more 
share in making it than the person actually in possession. Another example 
is the metaphysical aphorism that every right involves a corresponding duty, 
so that if I have a right to do a thing it is the duty of others concerned in the 
action to let me do it. This axiom seems at first sight to have a certain amount 
of plausibility. But does it follow, from the fact that I have a right to kill 
my ducks, that it is their duty to come and be killed? Nor in this case does 
the reason addressed to the ducks by the girl in the nursery rhyme appear likely 
to be very convincing to them. Thus also the right to individual property, the 
right to an equality of enjoyment, the right to an equality of opportunity, the 
right of an individual to be considered as an end in himself, the duty of an 
individual to be considered only as part of an organised society, are all meta- 
physical assumptions having no firm positive basis. Equally baseless is the 
axiom that wherever the State enjoins a duty, as on a parent to educate his 
children, the State ought to pay for it. Or that a local authority contributing 
funds to an object has a right in every case to interfere with their administration. 
Yet these are mere chance specimens of the political dogmas that have for years 
been flying about, and which emphasise the undoubted fact that politics and 
social science have not yet entered the positive stage of thought. 
In what stage is political economy? It appears still the battle-ground of 
opposite schools. Some there are who tell us that it has ‘gone to Saturn.’ 
But this only raises the question what is meant by going to Saturn? Ts it meant 
that the so-called laws of economics are not laws at all, and that the whole 
pretended science is built on false foundations? Or is it meant that those 
engaged in the practical politics of the country have resolved to legislate in 
defiance of the laws of economics, and to settle the problems of free trade 
and protection, the taxation of fixed and movable property, and the regulation 
of ib as though these problems were not subjected to any natural laws 
at all? 
The latter position would, of course, be particularly dangerous if it turned 
out that there were laws, and that those laws were being ignored. For example, 
