ty. I by no means deny, or
rather I should on due occasion emphatically assert, that the demands
covered by such formulae are perfectly right, and that they rest upon a
base of justice. But I am forced to think that, as they are generally
stated, they can lead to nothing but logomachy. When a man lays down
some such sweeping principle, his real object is to save himself the
trouble of thinking. So long as the first principles from which he
starts are equally applicable,--and it is of the very nature of these
principles that they should be equally applicable to men in all times
and ages, to Englishmen and Americans, Hindoos and Chinese, Negroes and
Australians,--they are worthless for any particular case, although, of
course, they may be accidentally true in particular cases. In short,
leaving to the metaphysicians--that is, postponing till the Greek
Kalends--any decision as to the ultimate principles, I say that every
political theory should be prepared to justify itself by an accurate
observation of the history and all the various characteristics of the
social organisation to which it is to be applied.

This points to the contrast to which I have referred: the contrast
between the keen vigorous good sense upon immediate questions of the
day, to which I often listen with the unfeigned admiration due to the
shrewd man of business, and the paltry little outworn platitudes which
he introduces when he wants to tag his arguments with sounding
principles. I think, to take an example out of harm's way, that an
excellent instance is found in the famous American treatise, the
_Federalist_. It deserves all the credit it has won so long as the
authors are discussing the right way to form a constitution which may
satisfy the wants and appease the prejudices then actually existing. In
spite of such miscalculations as beset all forecasts of the future,
they show admirable good sense and clear appreciation. But when they
think it necessary to appeal to Montesquieu, to tag their arguments
from common sense with little ornamental formulae learnt from
philosophical writings, they show a very amiable simplicity; but they
also seem to me to sink at once to the level of a clever prize essay in
a university competition. The mischief may be slight when we are merely
considering literary effect. But it points to a graver evil. In
political discussions, the half-trained mind has strong convictions
about some particular case, and then finds it e