able to any law.
But Professor Amos has pointed out that in proportion as we examine
history, and compare the actions present and past of different nations
and states, the more uniform does human nature appear; the more
calculable the actions, sentiments, and emotions of large masses of
people. As we have already stated, the difficulties of the study are not
likely to deter the professors of Girtham College from the pursuit of
any particular branch of science.

_A priori_ we might suppose from analogy that these polemical laws
existed, as there is no department of nature which is not governed by
law. It is an essential feature in nature, and also in government. What
is political economy but the study of certain laws of nature? These were
first discovered by Adam Smith, and have since been traced and estimated
by such men as Ricardo, the two Mills, Professor Cairnes, Jevons, and
many others. Moreover, our physical constitutions are governed by laws,
which physicians have determined, and which it is perilous to resist.
Our moral constitution is also governed by laws, which evidently exist,
although it is difficult to find them out. But the nation is only an
assemblage of individuals; and since individuals are so governed, it is
only natural to suppose that the nation, composed of individuals, is so
constituted and controlled. And not only is that true, but we shall see
that polemical laws are as permanent and universal, as invariable and
irreversible, as the laws of nature which regulate the courses of the
heavenly bodies, and raise the tides, or depress the sandstone hills.

We may notice first the preponderant impulse observable in a nation's
life in favour of supporting existing facts and institutions; and every
reformer has discovered the difficulty and danger of changing or
opposing the customs and habits of the people. As a wheel will travel
most smoothly along a well-worn groove, whereby friction is diminished,
so there is a natural national tendency always to run along those paths
with which the habits and customs of the people have made them familiar.
This law is nothing else than Newton's first law of motion, which is
quite as applicable to human masses as to lifeless matter. The tendency
of matter to remain at rest, if unmoved by any external agency, and of
persisting to move after it has once been set in motion, is a
conservative tendency; and is as true in political science as in any
other.

The special br