is not always safe to urge a country
forward at too great a speed; and security and stability are quite as
important to the nation's life as actual progress.

There are other impulsive forces which act occasionally in the sphere
of politics, and which baffle all our calculations, and exclude
scientific considerations of the polemical problems which arise.
_Ambition_ is such an impulsive force, and when the rulers of the people
are actuated by it, and struggle for money, place, and power, politics
is degraded from its position as a science, and it becomes impossible to
estimate the result of forces so generated.

In my next lecture I propose to treat the important subject of the Laws
which govern States and Governments, and which regulate, generate, and
control the social forces which we have seen at work in the body
politic.

PAPER VII.

LAWS OF POLITICAL MOTION.

Since the last time I had the honour of addressing you on polemical
matters, I have met with a passage in the writings of M. Auguste Comte
which afforded me much pleasure. It seemed to be the one word for which
I had been waiting, and confirmed many of my own impressions and
speculations. He lays down two propositions: first, that the
constructive politics of the future must be based on the history of the
past; and second, that political science is a composite study, and
presupposes the complete apprehension of every branch of science,
beginning with the physical, such as astronomy, and ending with the
moral, such as ethics and sociology. M. Comte evidently does not regard
as a vain dream and imaginative speculation the theory that it will be
possible for statesmen to calculate a policy, and to determine a course
of action by purely scientific considerations. May I entertain the hope
that in this university, where all branches of physical science have
found a home, and are studied by most able and learned professors, the
science of politics may be pursued under most favourable circumstances?
I trust that each professor will bring before me the results of their
deliberations, and contribute to the growth of this particular science
for which our university has already become deservedly famous.

My present lecture is devoted to the important consideration of _Law_.
At first sight it may appear to you that the wills and passions of
mankind are so diverse and unknowable, that it would be absurd to
suppose that they can be calculated, or rendered amen