The Natural Principle of the Political Order.

Whatever metaphysical theory may be formed regarding the Freedom of the Will, it holds equally true that the manifestations of the Will in human actions, are determined like all other external events, by universal natural laws. Now History is occupied with the narration of these manifestations as facts, however deeply their causes may lie concealed. Hence in view of this natural principle of regulation, it may be hoped that when the play of the freedom of the human Will is examined on the great scale of universal history, a regular march will be discovered in its movements; and that, in this way, what appears to be tangled and unregulated in the case of individuals, will be recognised in the history of the whole species as a continually advancing, though slow, development of its original capacities and endowments. Thus marriages, births and deaths appear to be incapable of being reduced to any rule by which their numbers might be calculated beforehand, on account of the great influence which the free will of man exercises upon them; and yet the annual Statistics of great countries prove that these events take place according to constant natural laws. In this respect they may be compared with the very inconstant changes of the weather which cannot be determined beforehand in detail, but which yet, on the whole, do not fail to maintain the growth of plants, the flow of rivers, and other natural processes, in a uniform uninterrupted course. Individual men, and even whole nations, little think, while they are pursuing their own purposes—each in his own way and often one in direct opposition to another—that they are advancing unconsciously under the guidance of a Purpose of Nature which is unknown to them, and that they are toiling for the realisation of an End which, even if it were known to them, might be regarded as of little importance.

Men, viewed as a whole, are not guided in their efforts merely by instinct, like the lower animals; nor do they proceed in their actions, like the citizens of a purely rational world, according to a preconcerted plan. And so it appears as if no regular systematic History of mankind would be possible, as in the case, for instance, of bees and beavers. Nor can one help feeling a certain repugnance in looking at the conduct of men as it is exhibited on the great stage of the World. With glimpses of wisdom appearing in individuals here and there, it seems, on examining it externally as if the whole web of human history were woven out of folly and childish vanity and the frenzy of destruction, so that at the end one hardly knows what idea to form of our race, albeit so proud of its prerogatives. In such circumstances, there is no resource for the Philosopher but, while recognising the fact that a rational conscious purpose cannot be supposed to determine mankind in the play of their actions as a whole, to try whether he cannot discover a universal purpose of Nature in this paradoxical movement of human things, and whether in view of this purpose, a history of creatures who proceed without a plan of their own, may nevertheless be possible according to a determinate plan of Nature.—We will accordingly see whether we can succeed in finding a clue to such a History; and in the event of doing so, we shall then leave it to nature to bring forth the man who will be fit to compose it. Thus did she bring forth a Kepler who, in an unexpected way, reduced the eccentric paths of the planets to definite Laws; and then she brought forth a Newton, who explained those Laws by a universal natural Cause.