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attempted to be forced into an analogy are not founded in the same
classes of existence. Individuals are physical beings, subject to laws
universal and invariable; but commonwealths are not physical, but
moral essences. They are artificial combinations, and, in their
proximate efficient cause, the arbitrary productions of the human
mind.

We are not yet acquainted with the laws which necessarily influence
that kind of work, made by that kind of agent. There is not, in the
physical order, a distinct cause by which any of those fabrics must
necessarily grow, flourish, and decay; nor, indeed, in my opinion,
does the moral world produce any thing more determinate on that
subject than what may serve as an amusement (liberal indeed, and
ingenious, but still only an amusement) for speculative men. I doubt
whether the history of mankind is yet complete enough, if ever it can
be so, to furnish grounds for a sure theory on the internal causes,
which necessarily affect the fortune of a state. I am far from denying
the operation of such causes, but they are infinitely uncertain, and
much more obscure, and much more difficult to trace than the foreign
causes that tend to depress, and, sometimes, overwhelm society."

The writer who has thus expressed his scepticism on this sort of
inquiry, speaks, at the same time, of the im-[end of page #vi] portance
of distinguishing between accidental and permanent causes. He doubts
whether the history of mankind is complete enough, or, if ever it can
be so, to furnish grounds for a sure theory, on the internal causes