prospect of expense to the mother country?'

However the

general maxim might be combined with peculiar circumstances for the indefinite number of other colonies which may be conceived to exist, the question before us is to determine its applicability under the circumstances of this individual case, and subject to the conditions thus indicated.

§ 7 In the discussion of a practical question, it is not unfrequently said that the case must be decided on its own merits, and that every new case will depend upon its own circumstances. Now every case, however peculiar and abnormal it may be, must be decided on some principle or combination of principles. Every practical syllogism must have its major premise, affirming the general maxim, as the minor premise lays down the facts. The meaning of the remark just adverted to is, that when the circumstances of a case are numerous or exceptional, it is necessary to specialize the governing principle in the manner above described. Its generality must be limited, by making allowance for the additional circumstances beyond those assumed in the abstract hypothesis. These additional circumstances differentiate the problem, and thus create a necessity of modifying the general maxim accordingly.

This is the meaning of what, in legal language, is called a 'special case.' Every case, however special, involves some principle; but the principle involved in a special case is not of extensive generality and wide application. It is encumbered by qualifications, and entangled with other principles, which correspond with the complexity of the facts, and therefore it is inapplicable to cases which are simpler, or which, though complex, have a different complexity, and are formed by the aggregation of a different set of circumstances around the same nucleus.

88 The other species of disturbing influences to which a political cause is subject, is where its operation, instead of being retarded, is accelerated-instead of being counteracted, is augmented, by an external agency.

Thus, legislative measures intended to lower the prices of

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food by encouraging importation, may be assisted by plentiful harvests; a concession to popular demands, which would have been prudent under ordinary circumstances, may be rendered dangerous in its consequences by the outbreak of revolutionary excesses in a neighbouring state, which are contagious, and communicate a disposition to violence which otherwise would not exist. Inasmuch as a given effect may not only be due to several conditions, together constituting one cause, but may be produced by several causes acting independently of each other, it follows that, where one cause is set in motion, and other independent causes of the same effect accidentally supervene, the combined effect of all the causes is greater than that of any one singly. Thus, in medicine, the effect of a curative process may be accidentally increased by some unexpected concurrent circumstance; some natural action of an organ, or change of temperature, may conspire with the treatment in producing a given effect.

Where a decisive blow is to be struck, the concurrence of other unforeseen causes tending in the same direction is a gain. For example: in war, if at the time of an attack on the enemy some of his forces unexpectedly desert, or change sides, or if the effects of a blockade are assisted by a pestilence, the concurrent cause helps. But if the intention is to hold a middle course, and to avoid all extremes, an unexpected circumstance increasing the action of the cause, and carrying the effect beyond the calculation, defeats the original design. Hence, in fitting a general maxim into a practical syllogism, it is necessary to consider, not only whether the cause is likely to be resisted, but whether it is likely to be aggravated in the individual case, and to make allowance accordingly.

A rule is always weakened, and not confirmed, by exceptions to it.(14) If we form a practical maxim upon the proposition, that absolute monarchs hate good men, the maxim is defective in the exact proportion to the number of absolute monarchs who

(14) See above, ch. ix. § 19 (vol. i. p. 387).

do not hate good men, as compared with those who do. Exceptions to a rule may often be enumerated and classified, and the rule amended accordingly, as in grammatical rules. To the extent of the exceptions thus admitted, the rule is inapplicable and false; but when a cause is disturbed in its operation, in the way either of counteraction or aggravation, the general maxim cannot be said to be unsound, because it is founded on a theorem which does not contemplate the disturbing agency. The disturbance is not in the nature of an exception, but it is a supervening external influence, which must be allowed for in the individual case, if its occurrence can be foreseen and its force measured.

§ 9 One important set of circumstances which modifies the operation of all political causes, for which an allowance must be made in all the practical applications of political theory and political maxims, and which enters as a perpetual though variable term in all political equations, may be comprehended under the name of habit. The habits of a people exercise so constant a modifying influence upon all the political forces to which it is exposed, that their nature and action require a full examination.

The subject of habit has the closest bearing upon everything which concerns human nature and human action. Even in the involuntary and instinctive functions of the body, with which the science of physiology deals, habit is of great importance. The body, considered without reference to the mind, is capable of contracting both healthy and morbid habits, and even temperaments may be acquired. The ordinary animal functions, such as eating, sleeping, &c., are determined, within certain limits, by habit; diseased actions of the system likewise become recurrent and periodical. (1) That ethical or moral science is intimately connected with habit, its names alone bear witness.(16)

(15) Cabanis, Rapports du Physique et du Moral de l'Homme, mém. ix. § 3, tom. ii. p. 145: Personne ne peut ignorer,' &c.

(16) ἡ δ ̓ ἠθικὴ [ἀρετὴ] ἐξ ἔθους περιγίνεται, ὅθεν καὶ τοὔνομα ἔσχηκε μι ρν ПаρEккλîνον ȧTÒ Tov Oous.-Aristot. Eth. Nic. ii. 1. The same remark occurs in the Magna Moralia, i.6. 'Quia pertinet ad mores, quod eos illi vocant, nos

'Mankind (says Paley) act more from habit than reflection.. There are habits not only of drinking, swearing, and lying, and of some other things, which are commonly acknowledged to be habits, and called so, but of every modification of action, speech, and thought. Man is a bundle of habits. There are habits of industry, attention, vigilance, advertency; of a prompt obedience to the judgment occurring, or of yielding to the first impulse of passion; of extending our views to the future, or of resting upon the present; of apprehending, methodizing, reasoning; of indolence and dilatoriness of vanity, self-conceit, melancholy, partiality; of fretfulness, suspicion, captiousness, censoriousness; of pride, ambition, covetousness; of overreaching, intriguing, projecting; in a word, there is not a quality or function, either of body or mind, which does not feel the influence of this great law of animated nature.'(17)

Even the more intelligent animals are capable of contracting habits, (19) and are thus susceptible of domestication. Some of these habits, when once acquired, are transmissible through successive generations, and become, so long as the domestication is preserved, a part of the animal's nature. (19) In general, however, continuity of action is produced in animals, not by habit, but by instinct. The uniformity of food and habitation in animals arises, not, as in man, from a habit more or less variable founded on reason, but from a blind impulse, working invariably. The predominance of habit is a peculiarity characteristic of man; and habit corresponds, in the human economy, with instinct in

eam partem philosophiæ 'de moribus' appellare solemus: sed decet, augentem linguam Latinam, nominare moralem.'-Cic. de Fato, c. i. The word moralis never became current in classical Latinity; it is, however, used by Seneca, Ep. 89, §8, and Quintilian, vi. 2, § 8. After the revival of letters, it was much employed by the translators of Greek, and has thus passed into all the modern languages.

(17) Moral and Political Philosophy, b. i. c. 7. The nature of moral habits is well expounded and discussed in Sydney Smith's Sketches of Moral Philosophy, lectures 26 and 27.

(18) On the force of habit in animals, see Leroy, Lettres Philosophiques sur l'Intelligence des Animaux, p. 30.

(19) See Prichard's Natural History of Man (1845), p. 34, 40, 70; Carpenter's Zoology, § 109, 110; Cabanis, Rapports du Physique et du Moral de l'Homme, mém. ix. § 3, tom. ii. p. 147; ed. 1824.

the animal economy.(") At the same time, all animated nature is, to a certain extent, susceptible of the influence of habit. Not only animals can be domesticated, or trained to certain acts, but even plants can be acclimated; whereas the nature of inanimate things is immutable. No habituation can render gunpowder incombustible, or teach water to run up an inclined plane.

Habit is the state of mind which is produced by a repetition of the same act. Repetition is essential to the formation of habits; but the effects of repetition vary, according to the nature of the act repeated. Thus, sensual pleasures are diminished and weakened by repetition; they do not admit of variety, and after a time they pall upon the senses. Increased quantities and more stimulating agents are resorted to, in order to keep up the excitement. The drinker rises from wine to brandy-the opium-eater multiplies his doses; but these additional stimuli, if carried beyond a certain point, destroy the sensibility of the organ.(21)

On the other hand, the pleasures of the intellect, the imagination, the taste, and the affections, are (within moderate limits) heightened rather than impaired by repetition. These admit of an infinite variety in the mode of their manifestations; their repetition consists in similarity, not in sameness—and hence they do not, like a renewed application of the same stimulating meat or drink, weary the jaded senses, or pall upon a listless appetite.

(20) As to the correspondence of habits in man with instinct in animals, Flourens, De l'Instinct, p. 57-8.

(21) It appears to be a general law, that habit diminishes physical sensibility; whatever affects any organ of the body, affects it less by repetition.'-Sydney Smith, ib. p. 396.

L'abus du vin, comme celui des autres stimulans, peut sans doute détruire les forces du système nerveux, affaiblir l'intelligence, abrutir tout à la fois le physique et le moral de l'homme: mais pour produire de tels effets, il faut que cet abus soit porté jusqu'au dernier terme; il est même rare qu'il le produise sans le concours des esprits ardens, auxquels les grands buveurs finissent presque toujours par recourir, quand le vin n'agit plus assez vivement sur leur palais et sur leur cerveau.'-Cabanis, ib. mém. viii. § 13. Le propre de l'habitude est d'émousser le sentiment; de ramener toujours le plaisir ou la douleur à l'indifférence, qui en est le terme moyen.'-Bichat, Recherches Physiologiques sur la Vie et la Mort, art. 5, § 2.