negative, and are common to nearly all problems in the same subject-matter (such, for example, in dynamical problems, as friction, or the interposition of a solid body-or, in optical problems, the interposition of an opaque body), they may in general be safely omitted, without exposing the inquirer or learner to any chance of error. Their enumeration would savour of pedantic precision, and would fatigue the attention without any equivalent advantage.

For these reasons, the statement of physical causes and effects may, in general, be usefully simplified, by eliminating many essential conditions, and by confining the attention to one leading antecedent, which may alone be designated the cause.

In the investigation of physical causes, the philosopher may, indeed, sometimes deem it right to construct the entire cause, by the complete enumeration of the conditions necessary to the effect. Such a process may enable him to institute an exhaustive analysis of his subject. But it is not necessary that all these details of his mental laboratory should be laid before the reader, more than it is necessary for the logician to state, in formal syllogisms, all the arguments which he may have drawn out at length in order to assist his own judgment.

If, however, it be true that the relation of cause and effect is never a simple problem in physics; if, in the external world, it can never be said that an effect follows invariably from a single antecedent, this proposition applies with still greater force to political science. In politics, the number of antecedents necessary for the production of a given effect is always very large; and as the problems are more complex than in the physical world, the danger of error, arising from an incautious attempt at undue simplification, is perpetual.

§ 5 In order to appreciate this difference more clearly, it will be convenient to take the two main classes of political problems separately, and to compare them with the corresponding classes of problems in physics.

These two classes of problems are, first, to determine the cause of a given effect; and, secondly, to determine the effects of

a given cause. Both of these arise with respect to the past. In attempting to decipher the results of our experience, we may either seek to assign the circumstances which have produced a certain event; or we may seek to trace the consequences to which a certain event has given rise. This, which may be called the historical problem, is the simplest problem of causation included within the range of politics; at the same time, it serves as a foundation for all the others, and is a necessary element in their solution. For this reason, it will be the first to demand our attention.

Being confined to singulars, and relating to the past, it is a positive problem; but the problem concerning singulars which relates to the future is necessarily hypothetical. We may suppose some future event, and then suppose the cause which tends to produce it. For example, during a scarcity of food in any country, we may suppose abundance, or a less degree of scarcity; and we may then suppose the cause which would produce that supposed effect. Again, we may suppose some future event, and then suppose the effects which it would tend to produce. Thus, we may suppose that a treaty now subsisting between two countries will continue in force, or that the proposed terms of a treaty are agreed to between them; and we may then set about considering what effects such treaty, in the supposed case, would be likely to produce.

The methods employed in solving these political problems, all of which relate to singulars, will be first examined. We shall then proceed to the mode of solving the general problem, which is sometimes confined to the past, as when it undertakes to sum up in a single formula the results of all past experience and is sometimes independent of time, and lays down universal principles of government. The latter problem involves the subject of political theory, with which we shall, therefore, combine its consideration.

332

CHAPTER IX.

UPON THE DETERMINATION OF POSITIVE CAUSES IN POLITICS.

§ 1 IN most of the physical sciences, the facts which require

observation are obscure, on account of their minuteness, their vastness, or their remoteness; and their determination is a matter of great labour and difficulty. Thus astronomy, the most perfect of the physical sciences, must have stopped far short of the point which it has now reached, if it had not been assisted by the telescope and other optical instruments. In politics, the 'facts to be observed are patent and obvious; though the registration of them, in a historical form, is a work requiring much skill and intelligence. Accordingly, the difficulty of solving a problem of political causation consists not so much in the obscurity and uncertainty of the facts themselves, as in the necessity of disentangling the ravelled skeins into which they are formed, and of discovering a clue in the labyrinth of human action. The inquirer finds himself in the same position as a traveller wandering in a forest, who can clearly discern every object near his eyes, but is bewildered by their number and density.

In attempting to assign the cause of a political fact, the inquirer will at once perceive that the nature of his problem differs essentially from that of the physical philosopher. In physics, the ordinary problem of causation is general; in referring a fact to a constant antecedent, a law of nature is determined. For example, when it is said that the motion of the earth on its axis is the cause of the trade winds, or that the refraction of the sunbeams through globules of water is the cause of the rainbow, a constant connexion of phenomena is affirmed. Hence the physical inquirer can, in investigating a phenomenon, institute new observations, and verify former experiments by

repetition. The subject-matter of his researches is perpetually recurring, in a renewed but identical shape; and each successive fact which exhibits itself will, if properly selected, serve as a correct representative of the entire series.

The political inquirer, in dealing with a problem of past causation, is, however, in the first instance, confined to singulars. His problem is essentially historical, and it must be solved by the actual facts which are known, from authentic testimony, to have preceded the event in question. These facts cannot be reproduced at the pleasure of the inquirer, nor are they to be considered as mere specimens of a class: their individual character must be estimated, and the connexion of cause and effect determined accordingly.

1

§ 2 In order that a historical problem in politics should be adequately solved, we must make a complete enumeration of the conditions which were necessary, in the given case, for the production of the effect. Having determined these conditions, we may, if we think fit, arrange them in the order of their importance, and we may select some one or two of the most prominent, which we may describe as the cause or causes of the event. In order, however, to givé a perfectly correct explanation of the phenomenon, the enumeration of the conditions necessary for its occurrence, of the antecedents, without which the effect could not have been produced, ought to be as complete as possible.

に

Thus, Homer and the other poets of antiquity describe the injury done to Menelaus by Paris, in carrying off Helen to Troy, as the cause of the Trojan war. If the Trojan war were to be considered as a historical event, and to be treated historically, it could only be accounted for by showing what were the other circumstances, in the actual condition of the Trojans and Greeks, and in their mutual relations, without which this injury would not have led to so serious a retaliation. It would further be necessary to inquire what foundation there is, beyond his own conjecture, for the view of Thucydides, who considers the abduction of Helen as an inadequate explanation, and seeks a cause for the war in the wealth and power, and consequent

ambition, of Agamemnon.(') Dionysius, in like manner, attributes the war between Rome and the Sabine cities, in the time of Romulus, not so much to the rape of the virgins, as to jealousy at the rise and rapid growth of Rome. () Descending, however, to a period of certain history, we may observe that Thucydides describes the increased power of Athens, and the fear of that power entertained by Sparta, as the true cause of the Peloponnesian war, though the interference of Athens in the Corcyræan war, and other recent events, were the reasons assigned for the rupture of the treaty subsisting between these two states.(3) By the cause, Thucydides here understands that state of things, out of a multitude of successive events, all necessary elements in the sequence, which had the largest share in producing the result.

The causes of the second Punic war are fully investigated by Polybius, whose discussion of the subject deserves to be read at length, as throwing much light on the method of treating this problem.(1)

'Among the writers that have transmitted to us the history of Hannibal, there are some who assign two causes of the second war between the Carthaginians and the Romans. The first, they say, was the siege of Saguntum; and the other, the passage of the Carthaginians over the river Iberus, in direct breach of treaties. Now, that these two incidents were the beginning of the war, I shall readily allow; but by no means that they were the causes of it. It might with equal reason be affirmed, that the first irruption of Alexander into Asia was the cause of his war against the Persians; and the arrival of Antiochus with an army at Demetrias,(5) the cause of that war which

(4) As to the invasion of Greece by Darius and Xerxes being the assigned reason or pretext for Alexander's invasion of the Persian empire, see the letter of Alexander to Darius Codomannus, after the battle of Issus, in Curt. iv. 1, where, after reciting these aggressions, he says— 'Repello igitur bellum, non infero.'

(5) See Thirlwall's History of Greece, vol. viii. p. 341.