chanics. The logic may be correct, but the
conclusions are false in practice.[115] Now this 'friction' was
precisely the favourite expedient of the Utilitarians in political
economy. To reason about facts, they say, you must analyse, and
therefore provisionally disregard the 'checks,' which must be
afterwards introduced in practical applications. Macaulay is really
bidding us take 'experience' in the lump, and refrains from the only
treatment which can lead to a scientific result. His argument, in
fact, agrees with that of his famous essay on Bacon, where we learn
that philosophy applied to moral questions is all nonsense, and that
science is simply crude common-sense. He is really saying that all
political reasoning is impossible, and that we must trust to
unreasoned observation. Macaulay, indeed, has good grounds of
criticism. He shows very forcibly the absurdity of transferring the
legal to the political sovereignty. Parliament might, as he says, make
a law that every gentleman with L2000 a year might flog a pauper with
a cat-of-nine-tails whenever he pleased. But, as the first exercise of
such a power would be the 'last day of the English aristocracy,' their
power is strictly limited in fact.[116] That gives very clearly the
difference between legal and political sovereignty. What parliament
makes law is law, but is not therefore enforceable. We have to go
behind the commands and sanctions before we understand what is the
actual power of government. It is very far from omnipotent. Macaulay,
seeing this, proceeds to throw aside Mill's argument against the
possibility of a permanent division of power. The _de facto_
limitation of the sovereign's power justifies the old theory about
'mixed forms of government.' 'Mixed governments' are not impossible,
for they are real. All governments are, in fact, 'mixed.' Louis XIV.
could not cut off the head of any one whom he happened to dislike. An
oriental despot is strictly bound by the religious prejudices of his
subjects. If 'sovereignty' means such power it is a chimera in
practice, or only realised approximately when, as in the case of negro
slavery, a class is actually ruled by force in the hands of a really
external power. And yet the attack upon 'mixed governments,' which
Bentham had expounded in the _Fragment_, has a real force which
Macaulay seems to overlook. Mill's argument against a possible
'balance' of power was, as Macaulay asserted, equally applicable to
the case