Fortunately such a change seems at least to be beginning.

Every year larger and more exact collections of detailed political facts are being accumulated; and collections of detailed facts, if they are to be used at all in political reasoning, must be used quantitatively.

The intellectual work of preparing legislation, whether carried on by permanent officials or Royal Commissions or Cabinet Ministers takes every year a more quantitative and a less qualitative form.
Compare for instance the methods of the present Commission on the Poor Law with those of the celebrated and extraordinarily able Commission which drew up the new Poor Law in 1833-34.

The argument of the earlier Commissioners' Report runs on lines which it would be easy to put in _a priori_ syllogistic form.

All men seek pleasure and avoid pain.