of prophets on that account. There are many superficial
analogies of the same character. My predecessor, Professor Dicey,
pointed out some of them, to confirm his rather depressing theory that
history is nothing but an old almanac. Let me take a common one, which,
I think, may illustrate our problem. There is a certain analogy between
the cases of Caesar, Cromwell, and Napoleon. In each case we have a
military dictatorship as the final outcome of a civil war. Some people
imagined that this analogy would apply to the United States, and that
Washington or Grant would be what was called the man on horseback. The
reasoning really involved was, in fact, a very simple one. The
destruction of an old system of government makes some form of
dictatorship the only alternative to chaos. It therefore gives a chance
to the one indisputable holder of power in its most unmistakable shape,
namely, to the general of a disciplined army. A soldier accordingly
assumed power in each of the three first cases, although the
differences between the societies ruled by the Roman, the English and
the French dictators are so vast that further comparison soon becomes
idle. Neither Washington nor Grant had the least chance of making
themselves dictators had they wished, because the civil wars had left
governments perfectly uninjured and capable of discharging all their
functions, and had not produced a regular army with interests of its
own. In this and other cases, I should say that such an analogy may be
to some extent instructive, but I should certainly deny that there was
anything like a scientific induction. We, happily, can reason to some
extent upon political matters by the help of simple common sense before
it has undergone that process of organisation, of reduction to precise
measurable statements, which entitles it to be called a scientific
procedure. The resemblance of Washington to Cromwell was of the
external and superficial order. It may be compared to those analogies
which exist between members of different natural orders without
implying any deeper resemblance. A whale, we know, is like a fish in so
far as he swims about in the sea, and he has whatever fishlike
qualities are implied in the ability to swim. He will die on land,
though not from the same causes. But, physiologically, he belongs to a
different race, and we should make blunders if we argued from the
external likeness to a closer resemblance. Or, to drop what may be too
fanc