tion as to what they _will_ do.
'Thou shalt not steal,' 'thou shalt not kill,' 'thou shalt not commit
adultery;'--all these and many more are moral laws; but of not one of
them--the more's the pity--is the observance sufficiently regular, to
give it the smallest pretension to be styled a scientific law. General
propositions, too, there are in abundance, representing with more or
less accuracy the probable results of particular lines of conduct. Such
are the proverbial sayings, that 'Honesty is the best policy,' that 'A
rolling stone gathers no moss,' that 'The racecourse is the road to
ruin.' But adages like these were never supposed to afford any basis for
prophecy. It may be that an honest man more commonly gets on in the
world than a knave, though there is also much to be said on behalf of
the counter-proposition, that 'The children of darkness are wiser in
their generation than the children of light;' but, at any rate, there is
no doubt that a man may be honest without being prosperous, and that he
is often all the poorer for his probity. But, indeed, is there any one
conceivable situation in life in which a positive rule can be laid down
as to the course which men will follow? Can it even--to make use of an
illustration which has been very effectively employed on the other
side--can it even be said that a man will certainly marry a woman with
whom he is deeply in love, who returns his affection, whom he can marry
if he likes, and whom he has the means of maintaining in a suitable
manner? Nine times out of ten he probably will; but in the tenth
instance a Brahmin's passion may be checked by fear of contamination
with a Pariah, or a King Cophetua's pride may prevent his wedding a
beggar-maid, or the titled owner of an entailed estate may decline to
illegitimatise his offspring by espousing his deceased wife's sister, or
betrothed lovers may be parted by some such mysterious barrier as
sprang up between Talbot Bulstrode and Aurora Floyd, or an Adam Bede, in
spite of the example set by George Eliot's hero, may refrain from
marrying Dinah for fear of breaking his brother Seth's heart.

Equally vain would be the search for any rule invariably applicable to
political affairs. Even general propositions which sound like truisms
are not universally true. It cannot even be said that misgovernment
always produces discontent, or that the combination of superior strength
and superior strategy is always successful in war; for exam