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contract ;(118) that is to say, a transaction which did not assume the strict form of a contract, but which the parties understood to be such, and which virtually amounted to the proffer and acceptance of a promise. By this contrivance, the difficulty of proof seems to be diminished; but it is, in truth, equally impossible to establish the existence of any such virtual compact by historical evidence.

As the social compact is a hypothesis, and not a fact; as it is a mythical substratum for a real state of things, invested only with the forms of reality, it varies, like the legends of mythology, and assumes different phases according to the fancy of the theorist. 'A complete though concise exposition (says Mr. Austin) of the various forms or shapes in which various writers imagine and render the hypothesis, would fill a considerable volume.'(19) This, however, all the hypotheses have in common, that they assume a really existing state of things, namely, political law and government, to be the effect of a fictitious cause, namely, a compact which never was made. All these theories have grown out of an unwillingness to admit the simple fact, that law is a command, and not a contract; or rather, that it is a simple command, and that it does not derive its force from a pre-existing contract. Hence, the whole fabric of political government, and all the obligations of political law, have been made to rest on a fiction; just as an imaginary engagement of mutual fidelity is supplied by the poet's fancy for the community of bees.

-Rege incolumi mens omnibus una est,
Amisso rupere fidem.
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(118) See Zacharia, ib. p. 70. Puffendorf lays it down, that the consent of the members of the community to the original convention may be express or tacit (vii. 2, § 7). Compare also the words of Grotius, cited above (p. 425, n. 105).

(119) lb. p. 337. Several of these varieties are enumerated and examined by Zachariä, ib. p. 71-81.

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(120) Instead of looking for the principles of politics in their true sources-that is to say, in the nature of the affections of mankind, and of those secret ties by which they are united together in a state of society, men have treated that science in the same manner as they did natural philosophy in the times of Aristotle, continually recurring to occult causes and principles, from which no useful consequence could be drawn. Thus,

The disposition to supply fictitious causes has exercised as extensive an influence in physical and metaphysical, as in political speculation, and as in historical composition. From the infancy of philosophical reasoning there has been a tendency to imagine occult entities, not the objects of sensation or consciousness, as the principles or causes of apparent phenomena. Hence, general terms have been explained by the Platonic ideas resident in the divine mind. The external world has been

conceived as supported by a substratum of intangible and invisible substance or matter, to which sensible phenomena are attached: hence the humours, spirits, &c., of certain medical schools; hence the various contrivances by which sensations have been supposed to be conveyed to the sensorium; hence the phlogiston of chemists and the vortices of Descartes.

§ 13 In the cases of historical or political causation which we have been considering, the logical connexion between premises and conclusion serves practically as a substitute for an attestation of the fact upon which the inference is founded. The mind is primarily directed to the sufficiency of the alleged cause; and being satisfied with the explanation, considered merely in a logical point of view, omits to inquire whether the circumstance which is affirmed to be the cause ever really happened. Struck by the juxtaposition of two facts which we have not before considered in connexion with each other, and confining our attention to their alleged relation, we forget to ask the question as to the testimony to the existence of the supposed

in order to ground particular assertions, they have much used the word constitution in a personal sense-the constitution loves, the constitution forbids, and the like. At other times they have had recourse to luxury, in order to explain certain events; and at others, to a still more occult cause, which they have called corruption; and abundance of comparisons, drawn from the human body, have been also used for the same purposes. Nor is it only the obscurity of the writings of politicians, and the impossibility of applying their speculative doctrines to practical uses, that proves that some peculiar and uncommon difficulties attend the investigation of political truths; but the singular perplexity which men in general, even the ablest, labour under when they attempt to discuss abstract questions in politics, also justifies this observation, and proves that the true first principles of this science, whatever they are, lie deep in both the human heart and understanding.'-De Lolme, Constitution of England, ch. 18.

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cause, regarded as an insulated phenomenon. In every case, the point of departure is some positive and well-established fact, either a historical event, or a matter of general notoriety, such as the existence of a government or of a national usage. In assigning the cause of this fact, recourse may be had to fiction, in the absence of authentic information, or on account of defective methods of reasoning; but the fact itself is true. Though the support may be rotten, the thing supported is substantial. The invention of imaginary causes of real phenomena resembles the process which takes place in dreams, when a detailed fictitious story is supplied by the mind during sleep, to account for a real sensation, imperfectly felt, and not referred to its true cause. Sometimes, however, the process is inverted, and a forgery is executed to serve as the memorial of a real fact or event. Such, for example, are the wood and nails of the true cross, and other relics preserved in Roman-catholic churches. Such, too, are fabricated busts and pictures of celebrated men ; as the complete series of the portraits of the popes at Rome,(11) and of the Kings of Scotland at Holyrood House. Fabrications of this sort are not intended to support and confirm the belief in a certain fact; but they rather grow out of it, and are designed chiefly to satisfy the curiosity which the existence of the belief engenders. Thus, if we admire any historical personage, we feel a natural desire to become acquainted with the lineaments of his face, and we see with interest a statue or portrait of his person. This sight does not strengthen our belief in the reality of his existence, though it increases the vividness of our conception of him; inasmuch as we constantly associate with our idea of him the same set of features, just as if he were a living man.

§ 14 The process which we have just described is sometimes carried a step further. Not only are there fabrications to serve as memorials of real facts, but there are also fabrications

(121) There is a complete series of portraits of the popes in St. Paul's church, at Rome; but they are found to be imaginary for the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.-Raumer's Hohenstaufen, vol. vi. p. 73.

to serve as memorials of false facts. In this case, a strong belief in the reality of the event serves as a substitute for authentic proof of its occurrence. Examples are afforded by the relics of imaginary persons and things, many of which were shown in ancient Greece and Italy; as the egg of Leda, (12) specimens of the clay from which Prometheus formed the human race, (1) the sacrificial knife of Iphigenia, a fragment of the ship Argo, (124) the ship of Theseus, (125) the ivory rib of Pelops, (1) the cup of Ulysses at Circeum, (127) the tools with which Epeus made the wooden horse,(128) the whetstone of Attius Navius, (19) the boat of Eneas, (130) the teeth of the Calydonian boar, (13) &c. Of a similar nature are the houses of Dives and Lazarus which are shown at Jerusalem, and the round of Jacob's ladder, which is said to have been preserved in a church in Spain.

(122) Pausan. iii. 16, § 1. It was suspended by ribands from the ceiling of a temple in Sparta; it was doubtless the egg of an ostrich.

(123) Pausan. x. 4, § 4. These clay stones had a smell resembling that of human flesh, which circumstance doubtless suggested the idea. (124) Martial, vii. 19.

(126) Plin. H. N. xxviii. 6.

(125) Plutarch, Thes. 23.
(127) Strabo, v. 3, § 6.

(128) Pseud. Aristot. Mirab. Ausa, c. 108.
(129) Niebuhr, Hist. of Rome, vol. i. p. 307.
(130) Procop. de Bell. Goth. iv. 22.

(131) Ib. i. 15. Upon Grecian relics, see Wachsmuth, Hellen. Alt. ii. 2, p. 111.-Grote, vol. i. p. 607. Monuments only prove facts, when those facts are attested by good contemporary evidence.-Voltaire, Essai sur les Maurs, c. 197.

VOL. I.

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434

§ 1

CHAPTER XI.

ON THE DETERMINATION OF HYPOTHETICAL

Ν

CAUSES IN POLITICS.

IN the preceding chapters, we have investigated at length

the problem of causation in politics, so far as it concerns the past, and is a positive and historical problem. We have now to consider the two cases of the hypothetical problem of political causation, which, instead of referring to the past, is either irrespective of time, or relates exclusively to the future.

The first of these is-given a supposed general political effect, to find the cause. Thus, the effect supposed may be the best government, the best administration of justice, or the best system of taxation; and the problem is, to find the causes adequate to the production of the proposed effects. Of this nature is the inquiry of Aristotle, in his Politics: What are the circumstances which tend to preserve respectively the three forms of government-monarchy, oligarchy, and democracy?

This problem is perfectly general in its terms; it has reference to no individual case, nor to any given time or place. If it is capable of solution, the cause assigned must be true both of the past and the future; if, for example, it can be shown that some one mode of taxation is the best possible, all good systems of taxation which have existed, and all good systems of taxation which may exist hereafter, have approximated, and will approximate more or less closely, to this general ideal standard.

The solution of this general problem of causation involves the general determination of the means best fitted to bring about the given end. The given end is the hypothetical effect; and the fittest means the subject of inquiry-constitute the hypothetical cause. For instance, if the supposed effect is the best mode of administering criminal justice; this effect is the end, for which we are to find the proper means; and these means

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