Even

safely be made in our naval and military establishments. when that long and sanguinary war had commenced, Mr. Pitt expected that it would come to a speedy termination.(35)

It would be an unprofitable task to recount the erroneous vaticinations of minor political prophets, which abound in every page of past discussions, in the parliamentary debates, the pamphlets, and newspapers of former years. It is indeed notorious that no amount of experience, knowledge, and sagacity can preserve a man from serious error in predicting the course of political events, and the effects of political measures: though a person so endowed will doubtless in general approximate more closely to the truth, and prove a safer guide, than a person of inferior qualifications in this respect. (3) Without going the length of saying, with Voltaire, that every person who attempts to predict the future is an impostor or a madman, (37) we may yet perceive that the office of political prediction, when it relates to large bodies of men and extensive measures, must be exercised with great circumspection, and is often attended with failure, when every legitimate precaution for its success has been used.

The falsification of political prophecies may be particularly discerned with respect to the effects of new causes, in which there can be no extant experience of a similar nature, to serve as a guide. Such, for example, was the introduction of railways; in estimating the probable consequences of which the greatest practical errors were committed. Most of the political effects of the inventions of gunpowder and printing were in like manner unforeseen by the contemporary generations.

(35) See Canning's Speeches, vol. v. p. 123.

(36) It affords a violent prejudice against almost every science, that no prudent man, however sure of his principles, dares prophesy concerning any event, or foretel the remote consequences of things. A physician will not venture to pronounce concerning the condition of his patient a fortnight or a month after; and still less dares a politician foretel the situa tion of public affairs a few years hence.'-Hume's Essays, part i. essay 7. (37) La saine raison nous apprend que quiconque prédit l'avenir est un fourbe ou un insensé.'-Voltaire, Essai sur les Maurs, ch. 46.

Euthyphron, in the Platonic dialogue, informs Socrates, that whenever he says anything in the ecclesia on divine matters, in order to predict future events, they laugh at him as if he were out of his senses.-Plat. Euthyph. § 2.

The obscurity of the political future, and the difficulty of determining with accuracy the course of coming events, ought to serve as a warning against the unfairness which is often shown in criticizing political measures with the light of the past. In order to make a fair criticism, we ought to place ourselves in the position of the agent, and to consider how we should have acted with his information. For example, when a person has died of an obscure malady, a post mortem examination may disclose the hidden cause of the disease; but it would be unreasonable to blame the physician for not discovering its true nature, unless there were during life symptoms which indicated its character. Many things, quite clear in the retrospect, are very obscure in the prospect. Many precautions may have been wisely taken, though the danger against which they were intended to guard did not, in fact, occur.(3)

It may be stated, in general terms, that those political events which the historian and the newsman record are such as do not admit of any certain prediction; and that so far as they were foreseen, they were foreseen in a vague, indistinct, or uncertain manner rather as the shadows of events than as the events themselves, and at no long time before their occurrence. The newspaper editor collects the events as soon as they occur, and gives the public immediate notice of them in his detailed but perishable chronicle, intended merely for contemporary use. The historian aims at a more enduring work; he frames a connected narrative of the events, for the benefit of posterity.

As it is the province of the journalist to supply his readers with intelligence concerning those passing events which could not have been anticipated-so it is the province of the historian to narrate those events whose occurrence was uncertain, and

(38) Do not accustom yourself to judge by consequences. Bad play sometimes succeeds when good would not. When you see an acknowledged judge of the game play in a manner you do not comprehend, get him to explain his reasons, and, while on your memory, place the same cards before you; when once you can comprehend the case, you will be able to adapt it to similar situations.'-Mathews on Whist, p. 8; ed. Bohn.

could not be predetermined by any sure prediction. Hence, when we wish to disparage any historical account, or to describe it as useless, we compare it with an old almanac. Now, an almanac contains merely predictions of those astronomical and other events connected with the measurement of time, which can be predicted with certainty-and hence to say that a history is like an almanac, is to say that it contains no information about those events lying more or less beyond the limits of our powers of prediction, which it is the peculiar business of the historian to record.

§ 19 Uncertainty as to the future is common with politics to all the sciences which are concerned with human action and opinion. Thus it extends to conduct in private not less than in public life. In the government of a household, in the training of children, in the choice of a profession or employment, in the selection of friends, in the several domestic relations, in the management and settlement of property, in buying and selling, we are beset by the same difficulty of judgment as to the future. Education, likewise, may be reduced to a system; general maxims may be laid down as to the best mode of conveying literary and scientific instruction, and of implanting good moral principles in the youthful mind; but, as in politics, the practical effects of a system of education can never be rendered certain, or be made the subjects of a sure prediction. Again, the art of war can lay down certain rules with respect to the mode of disposing an army, of conducting a campaign, of attack and defence, and the like; but the event of an expedition, a siege, or a battle, is often as uncertain, and difficult of prediction, as the consequences of a law. In the department of literature and the fine arts, it is equally difficult to anticipate the results of any new production, and the reception which it will meet with from the public: the most experienced judges not unfrequently are mistaken as to the probable success of a new poem, or play, or painting.

Thus we see that the difficulty of prognosticating the future, though it extends only to certain departments of physics, is common to all the branches of human conduct, and the active

business of life.

Other indications of this all-pervading uncertainty may be found in some of our modes of dealing with the future.

For example those future events about which we take an interest, which we can foresee within certain limits of error, but which we cannot predict absolutely, may become the subjects of betting.

There may be bets on events of mere chance, such as throwing dice or drawing lots; or on events of mixed skill and chance, as whist or billiards; or on games wholly dependent on skill, as cricket or chess, on races of horses, trials of comparative swiftness of sailing vessels, and other competitions of skill, speed, and strength. Bets may also be made as to other future events, which cannot be predicted with certainty-thus the duration of a ministry, the issue of a battle or campaign, the decision of a court of justice, may be the subject of a bet-because all these events depend on circumstances which are uncertain, and as to the estimate of which differences of opinion may reasonably exist. But no one would bet about an eclipse, or the time of the sun's rising, or any future astronomical event which admits of being predicted with certainty. In such cases as those just mentioned, two persons form different opinions as to the occurrence of a future event, dependent either wholly or partially upon probabilities which human reason can estimate, and each supports his opinion by a wager-by staking a sum of money upon its turning out a true prophecy. Where many persons exercise their judgment in calculating these probabilities, the agreement of competent judges may form a sort of market value for bets upon the occurrence of future events. This is the case with betting for the more important races on the English turf. The probabilities of winning or losing for each horse are determined by the bets of the best judges, and a fixed value for each probability, fluctuating from time to time, is thus established.

The prices of all vendible commodities, of land, of the public funds, and of other securities for money, are determined by a process not altogether dissimilar. These prices, no doubt, depend

proximately upon the ratio of the demand to the supply, but this ratio is in great measure regulated by the calculations, both of buyers and sellers, with respect to the probable value of the article at a future, though not very distant time. If it is generally thought in the market that any cause is about to occur which will diminish the value of the article, the anticipation of that event will depress the price, by inducing sellers to come forward, and purchasers to hold back. If, on the other hand, it is generally thought that some cause is about to occur which will increase the value of the article, the anticipation of that event will raise the price by inducing purchasers to come forward, and sellers to hold back. Prices, therefore, are principally regulated by a prospective conjecture as to the coming state of the market, and not merely by the ratio of the actual supply to the actual demand.

Time bargains in the funds are in the nature of wagers between a holder and a purchaser of stock as to its price on a future day. If any person could predict with certainty the prices of securities or merchandize on a future day, he would be able to speculate with certainty of gain; but if that knowledge were accessible to all, he would stand in the same relative position to the rest of the world as at present.

The fluctuations in the prices of the government securities of a nation will further illustrate the above remarks. Inasmuch as the value of this class of securities is mainly determined by the solidity of the government, and its probable solvency, political events exercise a perpetual and decisive influence upon their market price. They fluctuate according to the probability of peace or war, of internal order or disturbance, of the productiveness or unproductiveness of taxation, and of a disposition in the government to preserve the public faith. Hence the public funds are popularly called the national barometer, because, by their fluctuations up and down a graduated scale of values, they indicate, at each successive moment, the sincere opinion of competent judges respecting the immediate prospects of the country. § 20

We have now examined the several branches of poli