rations, complicated as they must be by
innumerable unknown and undiscoverable contingencies, which lie hidden
in the circumstances of the actual situation. The difficulty of this
investigation does not arise, however, from the absence of fixed laws
controlling such events, but solely from our ignorance of those laws,
and the extreme complexity of the conditions in which they act. The
issue of existing causes is as certain as this moment, as it will be
after it shall have become unalterable in history. No accident can
disturb or thwart it; for, in truth, there can be no such thing as
accident, except in our imaginations, and by reason of our incapacity to
trace the continuous thread of inevitable sequence, or causation, which
connects together all events whatever, in their inception, through their
continuance, and to their end. All enlightened thinkers of the present
age have recognized this great truth; and yet none have been able to
apply to social and political affairs the sole admitted test of genuine
philosophy, the prediction of future results from known antecedents.
Indeed, the wisest and most competent of political observers have always
been the most cautious in their indulgence of the prophetic spirit, and
the most ready to acknowledge their ignorance of what the future will
bring forth in the great field of political and social affairs.
Gasparin, in his late admirable book, 'America before Europe' (according
to his American translator), has this very modest passage on this
subject:

'Not feeling any vocation for the character of prophet, I shall
take care not to recount here, in advance, events that are about to
happen. I marvel at people who are so sure of their facts. The
future has not the least obscurity for them; it has much for me. I
confine myself to protesting against the positive assertions which
have contributed but too greatly to mislead the opinion of Europe.
My humbles theory is this: the defeat of the South is _probable_;
the return of the conquered South to the Union is _possible_.'

But while 'political or military vaticination' is proverbially unsafe,
and therefore to be carefully avoided by all judicious inquirers, and
especially by practical statesmen, it must at the same time be admitted
that some of the general laws controlling such events are well
understood; and whenever all the facts of a case are known and
appreciated, and the laws applicable fu