"The sensations which form the elements of all knowledge are received

either simultaneously or successively; when several are received

simultaneously, as the smell, the taste, the colour, the form, &c. of a

fruit, their association together constitutes our idea of an _object_;

when received successively, their association makes up the idea of an

_event_. Anything, then, which favours the associations of synchronous

ideas, will tend to produce a knowledge of objects, a perception of

qualities; while anything which favours association in the successive

order, will tend to produce a knowledge of events, of the order of

occurrences, and of the connexion of cause and effect: in other words,

in the one case a perceptive mind, with a discriminate feeling of the

pleasurable and painful properties of things, a sense of the grand and

the beautiful, will be the result: in the other, a mind attentive to the

movements and phenomena, a ratiocinative and philosophic intellect. Now

it is an acknowledged principle, that all sensations experienced during

the presence of any vivid impression, become strongly associated with

it, and with each other; and does it not follow, that the synchronous

feelings of a sensitive constitution, (_i.e._ the one which has vivid

impressions,) will be more intimately blended than in a differently

formed mind? If this suggestion has any foundation in truth, it leads to

an inference not unimportant; that where nature has endowed an

individual with great original susceptibility, he will probably be

distinguished by fondness for natural history, a relish for the

beautiful and great, and moral enthusiasm; where there is but a

mediocrity of sensibility, a love of science, of abstract truth, with a

deficiency of taste and of fervour, is likely to be the result."

We see from this example, that when the general laws of mind are more

accurately known, and above all, more skilfully applied to the detailed

explanation of mental peculiarities, they will account for many more of

those peculiarities than is ordinarily supposed. Unfortunately the

reaction of the last and present generation against the philosophy of

the eighteenth century has produced a very general neglect of this great

department of analytical inquiry; of which, consequently, the recent

progress has been by no means proportional to its early promise. The

majority of those who speculate on human nature, prefer dogmatically to

assume that the mental differences which they perceive, or think they

perceive, among human beings, are ultimate facts, incapable of being

either explained or altered, rather than take the trouble of fitting

themselves, by the requisite processes of thought, for referring those

mental differences to the outward causes by which they are for the most

part produced, and on the removal of which they would cease to exist.

The German school of metaphysical speculation, which has not yet lost

its temporary predominance in European thought, has had this among many

other injurious influences: and at the opposite extreme of the

psychological scale, no writer, either of early or of recent date, is

chargeable in a higher degree with this aberration from the true

scientific spirit, than M. Comte.

It is certain that, in human beings at least, differences in education

and in outward circumstances are capable of affording an adequate

explanation of by far the greatest portion of character; and that the

remainder may be in great part accounted for by physical differences in

the sensations produced in different individuals by the same external or

internal cause. There are, however, some mental facts which do not seem

to admit of these modes of explanation. Such, to take the strongest

case, are the various instincts of animals, and the portion of human

nature which corresponds to those instincts. No mode has been suggested,

even by way of hypothesis, in which these can receive any satisfactory,

or even plausible, explanation from psychological causes alone; and

there is great reason to think that they have as positive, and even as

direct and immediate, a connexion with physical conditions of the brain

and nerves, as any of our mere sensations have. A supposition which (it

is perhaps not superfluous to add) in no way conflicts with the

indisputable fact, that these instincts may be modified to any extent,

or entirely conquered, in human beings at least, by other mental

influences, and by education.

Whether organic causes exercise a direct influence over any other

classes of mental phenomena, is hitherto as far from being ascertained,

as is the precise nature of the organic conditions even in the case of

instincts. The physiology, however, of the brain and nervous system is

in a state of such rapid advance, and is continually bringing forth such

new and interesting results, that if there be really a connexion between

mental peculiarities and any varieties cognizable by our senses in the

structure of the cerebral and nervous apparatus, the nature of that

connexion is now in a fair way of being found out. The latest

discoveries in cerebral physiology appear to have proved, that any such

connexion which may exist is of a radically different character from

that contended for by Gall and his followers, and that whatever may

hereafter be found to be the true theory of the subject, phrenology at

least is untenable.

CHAPTER V.

OF ETHOLOGY, OR THE SCIENCE OF THE FORMATION OF CHARACTER.

§ 1. The laws of mind as characterized in the preceding chapter, compose

the universal or abstract portion of the philosophy of human nature; and

all the truths of common experience, constituting a practical knowledge

of mankind, must, to the extent to which they are truths, be results or

consequences of these. Such familiar maxims, when collected _à

posteriori_ from observation of life, occupy among the truths of the

science the place of what, in our analysis of Induction, have so often

been spoken of under the title of Empirical Laws.

An Empirical Law (it will be remembered) is an uniformity, whether of

succession or of coexistence, which holds true in all instances within

our limits of observation, but is not of a nature to afford any

assurance that it would hold beyond those limits; either because the

consequent is not really the effect of the antecedent, but forms part

along with it of a chain of effects, flowing from prior causes not yet

ascertained; or because there is ground to believe that the sequence

(though a case of causation) is resolvable into simpler sequences, and,

depending therefore on a concurrence of several natural agencies, is

exposed to an unknown multitude of possibilities of counteraction. In

other words, an empirical law is a generalization, of which, not content

with finding it true, we are obliged to ask, why is it true? knowing

that its truth is not absolute, but dependent on some more general

conditions, and that it can only be relied on in so far as there is

ground of assurance that those conditions are realized.

Now, the observations concerning human affairs collected from common

experience, are precisely of this nature. Even if they were universally

and exactly true within the bounds of experience, which they never are,

still they are not the ultimate laws of human action; they are not the

principles of human nature, but results of those principles under the

circumstances in which mankind have happened to be placed. When the

Psalmist said in his haste that "all men are liars," he enunciated what

in some ages and countries is borne out by ample experience; but it is

not a law of man's nature to lie; though it is one of the consequences

of the laws of human nature, that lying is nearly universal when certain

external circumstances exist universally, especially circumstances

productive of habitual distrust and fear. When the character of the old

is asserted to be cautious, and of the young impetuous, this, again, is

but an empirical law; for it is not because of their youth that the

young are impetuous, nor because of their age that the old are cautious.

It is chiefly, if not wholly, because the old, during their many years

of life, have generally had much experience of its various evils, and

having suffered or seen others suffer much from incautious exposure to

them, have acquired associations favourable to circumspection: while the

young, as well from the absence of similar experience as from the

greater strength of the inclinations which urge them to enterprise,

engage themselves in it more readily. Here, then, is the _explanation_

of the empirical law; here are the conditions which ultimately determine

whether the law holds good or not. If an old man has not been oftener

than most young men in contact with danger and difficulty, he will be

equally incautious: if a youth has not stronger inclinations than an old

man, he probably will be as little enterprising. The empirical law

derives whatever truth it has, from the causal laws of which it is a

consequence. If we know those laws, we know what are the limits to the

derivative law: while, if we have not yet accounted for the empirical

law--if it rest only on observation--there is no safety in applying it

far beyond the limits of time, place, and circumstance, in which the

observations were made.

The really scientific truths, then, are not these empirical laws, but

the causal laws which explain them. The empirical laws of those

phenomena which depend on known causes, and of which a general theory

can therefore be constructed, have, whatever may be their value in

practice, no other function in science than that of verifying the

conclusions of theory. Still more must this be the case when most of the

empirical laws amount, even within the limits of observation, only to

approximate generalizations.

§ 2. This however is not, so much as is sometimes supposed, a

peculiarity of the sciences called moral. It is only in the simplest

branches of science that empirical laws are ever exactly true; and not

always in those. Astronomy, for example, is the simplest of all the

sciences which explain, in the concrete, the actual course of natural

events. The causes or forces, on which astronomical phenomena depend,

are fewer in number than those which determine any other of the great

phenomena of nature. Accordingly, as each effect results from the

conflict of but few causes, a great degree of regularity and uniformity

might be expected to exist among the effects; and such is really the

case: they have a fixed order, and return in cycles. But propositions

which should express, with absolute correctness, all the successive

positions of a planet until the cycle is completed, would be of almost

unmanageable complexity, and could be obtained from theory alone. The

generalizations which can be collected on the subject from direct

observation, even such as Kepler's law, are mere approximations: the

planets, owing to their perturbations by one another, do not move in

exact ellipses. Thus even in astronomy, perfect exactness in the mere

empirical laws is not to be looked for; much less, then, in more complex

subjects of inquiry.

The same example shows how little can be inferred against the

universality or even the simplicity of the ultimate laws, from the

impossibility of establishing any but approximate empirical laws of the

effects. The laws of causation according to which a class of phenomena

are produced may be very few and simple, and yet the effects themselves

may be so various and complicated that it shall be impossible to trace

any regularity whatever completely through them. For the phenomena in

question may be of an eminently modifiable character; insomuch that

innumerable circumstances are capable of influencing the effect,

although they may all do it according to a very small number of laws.

Suppose that all which passes in the mind of man is determined by a few

simple laws: still, if those laws be such that there is not one of the

facts surrounding a human being, or of the events which happen to him,

that does not influence in some mode or degree his subsequent mental

history, and if the circumstances of different human beings are

extremely different, it will be no wonder if very few propositions can

be made respecting the details of their conduct or feelings, which will

be true of all mankind.

Now, without deciding whether the ultimate laws of our mental nature are

few or many, it is at least certain that they are of the above

description. It is certain that our mental states, and our mental

capacities and susceptibilities, are modified, either for a time or

permanently, by everything which happens to us in life. Considering

therefore how much these modifying causes differ in the case of any two

individuals, it would be unreasonable to expect that the empirical laws

of the human mind, the generalizations which can be made respecting the

feelings or actions of mankind without reference to the causes that

determine them, should be anything but approximate generalizations. They

are the common wisdom of common life, and as such are invaluable;

especially as they are mostly to be applied to cases not very dissimilar

to those from which they were collected. But when maxims of this sort,

collected from Englishmen, come to be applied to Frenchmen, or when

those collected from the present day are applied to past or future

generations, they are apt to be very much at fault. Unless we have

resolved the empirical law into the laws of the causes on which it

depends, and ascertained that those causes extend to the case which we

have in view, there can be no reliance placed in our inferences. For

every individual is surrounded by circumstances different from those of

every other individual; every nation or generation of mankind from every

other nation or generation: and none of these differences are without

their influence in forming a different type of character. There is,

indeed, also a certain general resemblance; but peculiarities of

circumstances are continually constituting exceptions even to the

propositions which are true in the great majority of cases.

Although, however, there is scarcely any mode of feeling or conduct

which is, in the absolute sense, common to all mankind; and though the

generalizations which assert that any given variety of conduct or

feeling will be found universally, (however nearly they may approximate

to truth within given limits of observation,) will be considered as

scientific propositions by no one who is at all familiar with scientific

investigation; yet all modes of feeling and conduct met with among

mankind have causes which produce them; and in the propositions which

assign those causes, will be found the explanation of the empirical

laws, and the limiting principle of our reliance on them. Human beings

do not all feel and act alike in the same circumstances; but it is

possible to determine what makes one person, in a given position, feel

or act in one way, another in another; how any given mode of feeling and

conduct, compatible with the general laws (physical and mental) of human

nature, has been, or may be, formed. In other words, mankind have not

one universal character, but there exist universal laws of the Formation

of Character. And since it is by these laws, combined with the facts of

each particular case, that the whole of the phenomena of human action

and feeling are produced, it is on these that every rational attempt to

construct the science of human nature in the concrete, and for practical

purposes, must proceed.

§ 3. The laws, then, of the formation of character being the principal

object of scientific inquiry into human nature; it remains to determine

the method of investigation best fitted for ascertaining them. And the

logical principles according to which this question is to be decided,

must be those which preside over every other attempt to investigate the

laws of very complex phenomena. For it is evident that both the

character of any human being, and the aggregate of the circumstances by

which that character has been formed, are facts of a high order of

complexity. Now to such cases we have seen that the Deductive Method,

setting out from general laws, and verifying their consequences by

specific experience, is alone applicable. The grounds of this great

logical doctrine have formerly been stated: and its truth will derive

additional support from a brief examination of the specialities of the

present case.

There are only two modes in which laws of nature can be ascertained:

deductively, and experimentally: including under the denomination of

experimental inquiry, observation as well as artificial experiment. Are

the laws of the formation of character susceptible of a satisfactory

investigation by the method of experimentation? Evidently not; because,

even if we suppose unlimited power of varying the experiment, (which is

abstractedly possible, though no one but an oriental despot has that

power, or if he had, would probably be disposed to exercise it,) a still

more essential condition is wanting; the power of performing any of the

experiments with scientific accuracy.

The instances requisite for the prosecution of a directly experimental

inquiry into the formation of character, would be a number of human

beings to bring up and educate, from infancy to mature age. And to

perform any one of these experiments with scientific propriety, it would

be necessary to know and record every sensation or impression received

by the young pupil from a period long before it could speak; including

its own notions respecting the sources of all those sensations and

impressions. It is not only impossible to do this completely, but even

to do so much of it as should constitute a tolerable approximation. One

apparently trivial circumstance which eluded our vigilance, might let in

a train of impressions and associations sufficient to vitiate the

experiment as an authentic exhibition of the effects flowing from given

causes. No one who has sufficiently reflected on education is ignorant

of this truth: and whoever has not, will find it most instructively

illustrated in the writings of Rousseau and Helvetius on that great

subject.

Under this impossibility of studying the laws of the formation of

character by experiments purposely contrived to elucidate them, there

remains the resource of simple observation. But if it be impossible to

ascertain the influencing circumstances with any approach to

completeness even when we have the shaping of them ourselves, much more

impossible is it when the cases are further removed from our

observation, and altogether out of our control. Consider the difficulty

of the very first step--of ascertaining what actually is the character

of the individual, in each particular case that we examine. There is

hardly any person living, concerning some essential part of whose

character there are not differences of opinion even among his intimate

acquaintances: and a single action, or conduct continued only for a

short time, goes a very little way towards ascertaining it. We can only

make our observations in a rough way, and _en masse_; not attempting to

ascertain completely in any given instance, what character has been

formed, and still less by what causes; but only observing in what state

of previous circumstances it is found that certain marked mental

qualities or deficiencies _oftenest_ exist. These conclusions, besides

that they are mere approximate generalizations, deserve no reliance even

as such, unless the instances are sufficiently numerous to eliminate not

only chance, but every assignable circumstance in which a number of the

cases examined may happen to have resembled one another. So numerous and

various, too, are the circumstances which form individual character,

that the consequence of any particular combination is hardly ever some

definite and strongly marked character, always found where that

combination exists, and not otherwise. What is obtained, even after the

most extensive and accurate observation, is merely a comparative result;

as for example, that in a given number of Frenchmen, taken

indiscriminately, there will be found more persons of a particular

mental tendency, and fewer of the contrary tendency, than among an

equal number of Italians or English, similarly taken; or thus: of a

hundred Frenchmen and an equal number of Englishmen, fairly selected,

and arranged according to the degree in which they possess a particular

mental characteristic, each number, 1, 2, 3, &c., of the one series,

will be found to possess more of that characteristic than the

corresponding number of the other. Since, therefore, the comparison is

not one of kinds, but of ratios and degrees; and since in proportion as

the differences are slight, it requires a greater number of instances to

eliminate chance; it cannot often happen to any one to know a sufficient

number of cases with the accuracy requisite for making the sort of

comparison last mentioned; less than which, however, would not

constitute a real induction. Accordingly there is hardly one current

opinion respecting the characters of nations, classes, or descriptions

of persons, which is universally acknowledged as indisputable.[5]

And finally, if we could even obtain by way of experiment a much more

satisfactory assurance of these generalizations than is really possible,

they would still be only empirical laws. They would show, indeed, that

there was some connexion between the type of character formed, and the

circumstances existing in the case; but not what the precise connexion

was, nor to which of the peculiarities of those circumstances the effect

was really owing. They could only, therefore, be received as results of

causation, requiring to be resolved into the general laws of the causes:

until the determination of which, we could not judge within what limits

the derivative laws might serve as presumptions in cases yet unknown, or

even be depended on as permanent in the very cases from which they were

collected. The French people had, or were supposed to have, a certain

national character: but they drive out their royal family and

aristocracy, alter their institutions, pass through a series of

extraordinary events for half a century, and at the end of that time are

found to be, in many respects, greatly altered. A long list of mental

and moral differences are observed, or supposed, to exist between men

and women: but at some future, and, it may be hoped, not distant period,

equal freedom and an equally independent social position come to be

possessed by both, and their differences of character are either removed

or totally altered.

But if the differences which we think we observe between French and

English, or between men and women, can be connected with more general

laws; if they be such as might be expected to be produced by the

differences of government, former customs, and physical peculiarities in

the two nations, and by the diversities of education, occupations,

personal independence, and social privileges, and whatever original

differences there may be in bodily strength and nervous sensibility,

between the two sexes; then, indeed, the coincidence of the two kinds of

evidence justifies us in believing that we have both reasoned rightly

and observed rightly. Our observation, though not sufficient as proof,

is ample as verification. And having ascertained not only the empirical

laws, but the causes, of the peculiarities, we need be under no

difficulty in judging how far they may be expected to be permanent, or

by what circumstances they would be modified or destroyed.

§ 4. Since, then, it is impossible to obtain really accurate

propositions respecting the formation of character from observation and

experiment alone, we are driven perforce to that which, even if it had

not been the indispensable, would have been the most perfect, mode of

investigation, and which it is one of the principal aims of philosophy

to extend; namely, that which tries its experiments not on the complex

facts, but on the simple ones of which they are compounded; and after

ascertaining the laws of the causes, the composition of which gives rise

to the complex phenomena, then considers whether these will not explain

and account for the approximate generalizations which have been framed

empirically respecting the sequences of those complex phenomena. The

laws of the formation of character are, in short, derivative laws,

resulting from the general laws of mind; and are to be obtained by

deducing them from those general laws; by supposing any given set of

circumstances, and then considering what, according to the laws of mind,

will be the influence of those circumstances on the formation of

character.

A science is thus formed, to which I would propose to give the name of

Ethology, or the Science of Character; from [Greek: êthos], a word more

nearly corresponding to the term "character" as I here use it, than any

other word in the same language. The name is perhaps etymologically

applicable to the entire science of our mental and moral nature; but if,

as is usual and convenient, we employ the name Psychology for the

science of the elementary laws of mind, Ethology will serve for the

ulterior science which determines the kind of character produced, in

conformity to those general laws, by any set of circumstances, physical

and moral. According to this definition, Ethology is the science which

corresponds to the art of education; in the widest sense of the term,

including the formation of national or collective character as well as

individual. It would indeed be vain to expect (however completely the

laws of the formation of character might be ascertained) that we could

know so accurately the circumstances of any given case as to be able

positively to predict the character that would be produced in that

case. But we must remember that a degree of knowledge far short of the

power of actual prediction, is often of much practical value. There may

be great power of influencing phenomena, with a very imperfect knowledge

of the causes by which they are in any given instance determined. It is

enough that we know that certain means have a _tendency_ to produce a

given effect, and that others have a tendency to frustrate it. When the

circumstances of an individual or of a nation are in any considerable

degree under our control, we may, by our knowledge of tendencies, be

enabled to shape those circumstances in a manner much more favourable to

the ends we desire, than the shape which they would of themselves

assume. This is the limit of our power; but within this limit the power

is a most important one.

This science of Ethology may be called the Exact Science of Human

Nature; for its truths are not, like the empirical laws which depend on

them, approximate generalizations, but real laws. It is, however, (as in

all cases of complex phenomena) necessary to the exactness of the

propositions, that they should be hypothetical only, and affirm

tendencies, not facts. They must not assert that something will always,

or certainly, happen; but only that such and such will be the effect of

a given cause, so far as it operates uncounteracted. It is a scientific

proposition, that bodily strength tends to make men courageous; not that

it always makes them so: that an interest on one side of a question

tends to bias the judgment; not that it invariably does so: that

experience tends to give wisdom; not that such is always its effect.

These propositions, being assertive only of tendencies, are not the less

universally true because the tendencies may be frustrated.

§ 5. While on the one hand Psychology is altogether, or principally, a

science of observation and experiment, Ethology, as I have conceived it,

is, as I have already remarked, altogether deductive. The one ascertains

the simple laws of Mind in general, the other traces their operation in

complex combinations of circumstances. Ethology stands to Psychology in

a relation very similar to that in which the various branches of natural

philosophy stand to mechanics. The principles of Ethology are properly

the middle principles, the _axiomata media_ (as Bacon would have said)

of the science of mind: as distinguished, on the one hand from the

empirical laws resulting from simple observation, and on the other from

the highest generalizations.

And this seems a suitable place for a logical remark, which, though of

general application, is of peculiar importance in reference to the

present subject. Bacon has judiciously observed that the _axiomata

media_ of every science principally constitute its value. The lowest

generalizations, until explained by and resolved into the middle

principles of which they are the consequences, have only the imperfect

accuracy of empirical laws; while the most general laws are _too_

general, and include too few circumstances, to give sufficient

indication of what happens in individual cases, where the circumstances

are almost always immensely numerous. In the importance, therefore,

which Bacon assigns, in every science, to the middle principles, it is

impossible not to agree with him. But I conceive him to have been

radically wrong in his doctrine respecting the mode in which these

_axiomata media_ should be arrived at; though there is no one

proposition laid down in his works for which he has been more

extravagantly eulogized. He enunciates as an universal rule, that

induction should proceed from the lowest to the middle principles, and

from those to the highest, never reversing that order, and consequently

leaving no room for the discovery of new principles by way of deduction

at all. It is not to be conceived that a man of his sagacity could have

fallen into this mistake, if there had existed in his time, among the

sciences which treat of successive phenomena, one single instance of a

deductive science, such as mechanics, astronomy, optics, acoustics, &c.

now are. In those sciences it is evident that the higher and middle

principles are by no means derived from the lowest, but the reverse. In

some of them the very highest generalizations were those earliest

ascertained with any scientific exactness; as, for example (in

mechanics), the laws of motion. Those general laws had not indeed at

first the acknowledged universality which they acquired after having

been successfully employed to explain many classes of phenomena to which

they were not originally seen to be applicable; as when the laws of

motion were employed, in conjunction with other laws, to explain

deductively the celestial phenomena. Still, the fact remains, that the

propositions which were afterwards recognised as the most general truths

of the science, were, of all its accurate generalizations, those

earliest arrived at. Bacon's greatest merit cannot therefore consist, as

we are so often told that it did, in exploding the vicious method

pursued by the ancients of flying to the highest generalizations first,

and deducing the middle principles from them; since this is neither a

vicious nor an exploded, but the universally accredited method of modern

science, and that to which it owes its greatest triumphs. The error of

ancient speculation did not consist in making the largest

generalizations first, but in making them without the aid or warrant of

rigorous inductive methods, and applying them deductively without the

needful use of that important part of the Deductive Method termed

Verification.

The order in which truths of the various degrees of generality should be

ascertained, cannot, I apprehend, be prescribed by any unbending rule. I

know of no maxim which can be laid down on the subject, but to obtain

those first, in respect to which the conditions of a real induction can

be first and most completely realized. Now, wherever our means of

investigation can reach causes, without stopping at the empirical laws

of the effects, the simplest cases, being those in which fewest causes

are simultaneously concerned, will be most amenable to the inductive

process; and these are the cases which elicit laws of the greatest

comprehensiveness. In every science, therefore, which has reached the

stage at which it becomes a science of causes, it will be usual as well

as desirable first to obtain the highest generalizations, and then

deduce the more special ones from them. Nor can I discover any

foundation for the Baconian maxim, so much extolled by subsequent

writers, except this: That before we attempt to explain deductively

from more general laws any new class of phenomena, it is desirable to

have gone as far as is practicable in ascertaining the empirical laws of

those phenomena; so as to compare the results of deduction, not with one

individual instance after another, but with general propositions

expressive of the points of agreement which have been found among many

instances. For if Newton had been obliged to verify the theory of

gravitation, not by deducing from it Kepler's laws, but by deducing all

the observed planetary positions which had served Kepler to establish

those laws, the Newtonian theory would probably never have emerged from

the state of an hypothesis.[6]

The applicability of these remarks to the special case under

consideration, cannot admit of question. The science of the formation of

character is a science of causes. The subject is one to which those

among the canons of induction, by which laws of causation are

ascertained, can be rigorously applied. It is, therefore, both natural

and advisable to ascertain the simplest, which are necessarily the most

general, laws of causation first, and to deduce the middle principles

from them. In other words, Ethology, the deductive science, is a system

of corollaries from Psychology, the experimental science.

§ 6. Of these, the earlier alone has been, as yet, really conceived or

studied as a science; the other, Ethology, is still to be created. But

its creation has at length become practicable. The empirical laws,

destined to verify its deductions, have been formed in abundance by

every successive age of humanity; and the premises for the deductions

are now sufficiently complete. Excepting the degree of uncertainty which

still exists as to the extent of the natural differences of individual

minds, and the physical circumstances on which these may be dependent,

(considerations which are of secondary importance when we are

considering mankind in the average, or _en masse_,) I believe most

competent judges will agree that the general laws of the different

constituent elements of human nature are even now sufficiently

understood, to render it possible for a competent thinker to deduce from

those laws with a considerable approach to certainty, the particular

type of character which would be formed, in mankind generally, by any

assumed set of circumstances. A science of Ethology, founded on the laws

of Psychology, is therefore possible; though little has yet been done,

and that little not at all systematically, towards forming it. The

progress of this important but most imperfect science will depend on a

double process: first, that of deducing theoretically the ethological

consequences of particular circumstances of position, and comparing them

with the recognised results of common experience; and secondly, the

reverse operation; increased study of the various types of human nature

that are to be found in the world; conducted by persons not only capable

of analysing and recording the circumstances in which these types

severally prevail, but also sufficiently acquainted with psychological

laws, to be able to explain and account for the characteristics of the

type, by the peculiarities of the circumstances: the residuum alone,

when there proves to be any, being set down to the account of congenital

predispositions.

For the experimental or _à posteriori_ part of this process, the

materials are continually accumulating by the observation of mankind. So

far as thought is concerned, the great problem of Ethology is to deduce

the requisite middle principles from the general laws of Psychology.

The subject to be studied is, the origin and sources of all those

qualities in human beings which are interesting to us, either as facts

to be produced, to be avoided, or merely to be understood: and the

object is, to determine, from the general laws of mind, combined with

the general position of our species in the universe, what actual or

possible combinations of circumstances are capable of promoting or of

preventing the production of those qualities. A science which possesses

middle principles of this kind, arranged in the order, not of causes,

but of the effects which it is desirable to produce or to prevent, is

duly prepared to be the foundation of the corresponding Art. And when

Ethology shall be thus prepared, practical education will be the mere

transformation of those principles into a parallel system of precepts,

and the adaptation of these to the sum total of the individual

circumstances which exist in each particular case.

It is hardly necessary again to repeat, that, as in every other

deductive science, verification _à posteriori_ must proceed _pari passu_

with deduction _à priori_. The inference given by theory as to the type

of character which would be formed by any given circumstances, must be

tested by specific experience of those circumstances whenever

obtainable; and the conclusions of the science as a whole, must undergo

a perpetual verification and correction from the general remarks

afforded by common experience respecting human nature in our own age,

and by history respecting times gone by. The conclusions of theory

cannot be trusted, unless confirmed by observation; nor those of

observation, unless they can be affiliated to theory, by deducing them

from the laws of human nature, and from a close analysis of the

circumstances of the particular situation. It is the accordance of these

two kinds of evidence separately taken--the consilience of _à priori_

reasoning and specific experience--which forms the only sufficient

ground for the principles of any science so "immersed in matter,"

dealing with such complex and concrete phenomena, as Ethology.

CHAPTER VI.

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE SOCIAL SCIENCE.

§ 1. Next after the science of individual man, comes the science of man

in society: of the actions of collective masses of mankind, and the

various phenomena which constitute social life.

If the formation of individual character is already a complex subject of

study, this subject must be, in appearance at least, still more complex;

because the number of concurrent causes, all exercising more or less

influence on the total effect, is greater, in the proportion in which a

nation, or the species at large, exposes a larger surface to the

operation of agents, psychological and physical, than any single

individual. If it was necessary to prove, in opposition to an existing

prejudice, that the simpler of the two is capable of being a subject of

science; the prejudice is likely to be yet stronger against the

possibility of giving a scientific character to the study of Politics,

and of the phenomena of Society. It is, accordingly, but of yesterday

that the conception of a political or social science has existed,

anywhere but in the mind of here and there an insulated thinker,

generally very ill prepared for its realization: though the subject

itself has of all others engaged the most general attention, and been a

theme of interested and earnest discussions, almost from the beginning

of recorded time.

The condition indeed of politics, as a branch of knowledge, was until

very lately, and has scarcely even yet ceased to be, that which Bacon

animadverted on, as the natural state of the sciences while their

cultivation is abandoned to practitioners; not being carried on as a

branch of speculative inquiry, but only with a view to the exigencies of

daily practice, and the _fructifera experimenta_, therefore, being

aimed at, almost to the exclusion of the _lucifera_. Such was medical

investigation, before physiology and natural history began to be

cultivated as branches of general knowledge. The only questions examined

were, what diet is wholesome, or what medicine will cure some given

disease; without any previous systematic inquiry into the laws of

nutrition, and of the healthy and morbid action of the different organs,

on which laws the effect of any diet or medicine must evidently depend.

And in politics, the questions which engaged general attention were

similar:--Is such an enactment, or such a form of government, beneficial

or the reverse--either universally, or to some particular community?

without any previous inquiry into the general conditions by which the

operation of legislative measures, or the effects produced by forms of

government, are determined. Students in politics thus attempted to study

the pathology and therapeutics of the social body, before they had laid

the necessary foundation in its physiology; to cure disease, without

understanding the laws of health. And the result was such as it must

always be when persons, even of ability, attempt to deal with the

complex questions of a science before its simpler and more elementary

truths have been established.

No wonder that when the phenomena of society have so rarely been

contemplated in the point of view characteristic of science, the

philosophy of society should have made little progress; should contain

few general propositions sufficiently precise and certain, for common

inquirers to recognise in them a scientific character. The vulgar notion

accordingly is, that all pretension to lay down general truths on

politics and society is quackery; that no universality and no certainty

are attainable in such matters. What partly excuses this common notion

is, that it is really not without foundation in one particular sense. A

large proportion of those who have laid claim to the character of

philosophic politicians, have attempted, not to ascertain universal

sequences, but to frame universal precepts. They have imagined some one

form of government, or system of laws, to fit all cases; a pretension

well meriting the ridicule with which it is treated by practitioners,

and wholly unsupported by the analogy of the art to which, from the

nature of its subject, that of politics must be the most nearly allied.

No one now supposes it possible that one remedy can cure all diseases,

or even the same disease in all constitutions and habits of body.

It is not necessary even to the perfection of a science, that the

corresponding art should possess universal, or even general, rules. The

phenomena of society might not only be completely dependent on known

causes, but the mode of action of all those causes might be reducible to

laws of considerable simplicity, and yet no two cases might admit of

being treated in precisely the same manner. So great might be the

variety of circumstances on which the results in different cases depend,

that the art might not have a single general precept to give, except

that of watching the circumstances of the particular case, and adapting

our measures to the effects which, according to the principles of the

science, result from those circumstances. But although, in so

complicated a class of subjects, it is impossible to lay down practical

maxims of universal application, it does not follow that the phenomena

do not conform to universal laws.

§ 2. All phenomena of society are phenomena of human nature, generated

by the action of outward circumstances upon masses of human beings: and

if, therefore, the phenomena of human thought, feeling, and action, are

subject to fixed laws, the phenomena of society cannot but conform to

fixed laws, the consequence of the preceding. There is, indeed, no hope

that these laws, though our knowledge of them were as certain and as

complete as it is in astronomy, would enable us to predict the history

of society, like that of the celestial appearances, for thousands of

years to come. But the difference of certainty is not in the laws

themselves, it is in the data to which these laws are to be applied. In

astronomy the causes influencing the result are few, and change little,

and that little according to known laws; we can ascertain what they are

now, and thence determine what they will be at any epoch of a distant

future. The data, therefore, in astronomy, are as certain as the laws

themselves. The circumstances, on the contrary, which influence the

condition and progress of society, are innumerable, and perpetually

changing; and though they all change in obedience to causes, and

therefore to laws, the multitude of the causes is so great as to defy

our limited powers of calculation. Not to say that the impossibility of

applying precise numbers to facts of such a description, would set an

impassable limit to the possibility of calculating them beforehand, even

if the powers of the human intellect were otherwise adequate to the

task.

But, as before remarked, an amount of knowledge quite insufficient for

prediction, may be most valuable for guidance. The science of society

would have attained a very high point of perfection, if it enabled us,

in any given condition of social affairs, in the condition for instance

of Europe or any European country at the present time, to understand by

what causes it had, in any and every particular, been made what it was;

whether it was tending to any, and to what, changes; what effects each

feature of its existing state was likely to produce in the future; and

by what means any of those effects might be prevented, modified, or

accelerated, or a different class of effects superinduced. There is

nothing chimerical in the hope that general laws, sufficient to enable

us to answer these various questions for any country or time with the

individual circumstances of which we are well acquainted, do really

admit of being ascertained; and that the other branches of human

knowledge, which this undertaking presupposes, are so far advanced that

the time is ripe for its commencement. Such is the object of the Social

Science.

That the nature of what I consider the true method of the science may be

made more palpable, by first showing what that method is not; it will be

expedient to characterize briefly two radical misconceptions of the

proper mode of philosophizing on society and government, one or other of

which is, either explicitly or more often unconsciously, entertained by

almost all who have meditated or argued respecting the logic of

politics since the notion of treating it by strict rules, and on

Baconian principles, has been current among the more advanced thinkers.

These erroneous methods, if the word method can be applied to erroneous

tendencies arising from the absence of any sufficiently distinct

conception of method, may be termed the Experimental, or Chemical, mode

of investigation, and the Abstract, or Geometrical, mode. We shall begin

with the former.

CHAPTER VII.

OF THE CHEMICAL, OR EXPERIMENTAL, METHOD IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCE.

§ 1. The laws of the phenomena of society are, and can be, nothing but

the laws of the actions and passions of human beings united together in

the social state. Men, however, in a state of society, are still men;

their actions and passions are obedient to the laws of individual human

nature. Men are not, when brought together, converted into another kind

of substance, with different properties; as hydrogen and oxygen are

different from water, or as hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, and azote, are

different from nerves, muscles, and tendons. Human beings in society

have no properties but those which are derived from, and may be resolved

into, the laws of the nature of individual man. In social phenomena the

Composition of Causes is the universal law.

Now, the method of philosophizing which may be termed chemical overlooks

this fact, and proceeds as if the nature of man as an individual were

not concerned at all, or were concerned in a very inferior degree, in

the operations of human beings in society. All reasoning in political or

social affairs, grounded on principles of human nature, is objected to

by reasoners of this sort, under such names as "abstract theory." For

the direction of their opinions and conduct, they profess to demand, in

all cases without exception, specific experience.

This mode of thinking is not only general with practitioners in

politics, and with that very numerous class who (on a subject which no

one, however ignorant, thinks himself incompetent to discuss) profess to

guide themselves by common sense rather than by science; but is often

countenanced by persons with greater pretensions to instruction; persons

who, having sufficient acquaintance with books and with the current

ideas to have heard that Bacon taught mankind to follow experience, and

to ground their conclusions on facts instead of metaphysical

dogmas--think that, by treating political facts in as directly

experimental a method as chemical facts, they are showing themselves

true Baconians, and proving their adversaries to be mere syllogizers and

schoolmen. As, however, the notion of the applicability of experimental

methods to political philosophy cannot coexist with any just conception

of these methods themselves, the kind of arguments from experience which

the chemical theory brings forth as its fruits (and which form the

staple, in this country especially, of parliamentary and hustings

oratory,) are such as, at no time since Bacon, would have been admitted

to be valid in chemistry itself, or in any other branch of experimental

science. They are such as these; that the prohibition of foreign

commodities must conduce to national wealth, because England has

flourished under it, or because countries in general which have adopted

it have flourished; that our laws, or our internal administration, or

our constitution, are excellent for a similar reason: and the eternal

arguments from historical examples, from Athens or Rome, from the fires

in Smithfield or the French Revolution.

I will not waste time in contending against modes of argumentation which

no person, with the smallest practice in estimating evidence, could

possibly be betrayed into; which draw conclusions of general application

from a single unanalysed instance, or arbitrarily refer an effect to

some one among its antecedents, without any process of elimination or

comparison of instances. It is a rule both of justice and of good sense

to grapple not with the absurdest, but with, the most reasonable form of

a wrong opinion. We shall suppose our inquirer acquainted with the true

conditions of experimental investigation, and competent in point of

acquirements for realizing them, so far as they can be realized. He

shall know as much of the facts of history as mere erudition can

teach--as much as can be proved by testimony, without the assistance of

any theory; and if those mere facts, properly collated, can fulfil the

conditions of a real induction, he shall be qualified for the task.

But, that no such attempt can have the smallest chance of success, has

been abundantly shown in the tenth chapter of the Third Book.[7] We

there examined whether effects which depend on a complication of causes

can be made the subject of a true induction by observation and

experiment; and concluded, on the most convincing grounds, that they

cannot. Since, of all effects, none depend on so great a complication of

causes as social phenomena, we might leave our case to rest in safety on

that previous showing. But a logical principle as yet so little familiar

to the ordinary run of thinkers, requires to be insisted on more than

once, in order to make the due impression; and the present being the

case which of all others exemplifies it the most strongly, there will be

advantage in re-stating the grounds of the general maxim, as applied to

the specialities of the class of inquiries now under consideration.

§ 2. The first difficulty which meets us in the attempt to apply

experimental methods for ascertaining the laws of social phenomena, is

that we are without the means of making artificial experiments. Even if

we could contrive experiments at leisure, and try them without limit, we

should do so under immense disadvantage; both from the impossibility of

ascertaining and taking note of all the facts of each case, and because

(those facts being in a perpetual state of change) before sufficient

time had elapsed to ascertain the result of the experiment, some

material circumstances would always have ceased to be the same. But it

is unnecessary to consider the logical objections which would exist to

the conclusiveness of our experiments, since we palpably never have the

power of trying any. We can only watch those which nature produces, or

which are produced for other reasons. We cannot adapt our logical means

to our wants, by varying the circumstances as the exigencies of

elimination may require. If the spontaneous instances, formed by

cotemporary events and by the successions of phenomena recorded in

history, afford a sufficient variation of circumstances, an induction

from specific experience is attainable; otherwise not. The question to

be resolved is, therefore, whether the requisites for induction

respecting the causes of political effects or the properties of

political agents, are to be met with in history? including under the

term, cotemporary history. And in order to give fixity to our

conceptions, it will be advisable to suppose this question asked in

reference to some special subject of political inquiry or controversy;

such as that frequent topic of debate in the present century, the

operation of restrictive and prohibitory commercial legislation upon

national wealth. Let this, then, be the scientific question to be

investigated by specific experience.

§ 3. In order to apply to the case the most perfect of the methods of

experimental inquiry, the Method of Difference, we require to find two

instances, which tally in every particular except the one which is the

subject of inquiry. If two nations can be found which are alike in all

natural advantages and disadvantages; whose people resemble each other

in every quality, physical and moral, spontaneous and acquired; whose

habits, usages, opinions, laws and institutions are the same in all

respects, except that one of them has a more protective tariff, or in

other respects interferes more with the freedom of industry; if one of

these nations is found to be rich, and the other poor, or one richer

than the other, this will be an _experimentum crucis_: a real proof by

experience, which of the two systems is most favourable to national

riches. But the supposition that two such instances can be met with is

manifestly absurd. Nor is such a concurrence even abstractly possible.

Two nations which agreed in everything except their commercial policy,

would agree also in that. Differences of legislation are not inherent

and ultimate diversities; are not properties of Kinds. They are effects

of pre-existing causes. If the two nations differ in this portion of

their institutions, it is from some difference in their position, and

thence in their apparent interests, or in some portion or other of their

opinions, habits, and tendencies; which opens a view of further

differences without any assignable limit, capable of operating on their

industrial prosperity, as well as on every other feature of their

condition, in more ways than can be enumerated or imagined. There is

thus a demonstrated impossibility of obtaining, in the investigations of

the social science, the conditions required for the most conclusive form

of inquiry by specific experience.

In the absence of the direct, we may next try, as in other cases, the

supplementary resource, called in a former place the Indirect Method of

Difference: which, instead of two instances differing in nothing but the

presence or absence of a given circumstance, compares two _classes_ of

instances respectively agreeing in nothing but the presence of a

circumstance on the one side and its absence on the other. To choose the

most advantageous case conceivable, (a case far too advantageous to be

ever obtained,) suppose that we compare one nation which has a

restrictive policy, with two or more nations agreeing in nothing but in

permitting free trade. We need not now suppose that either of these

nations agrees with the first in all its circumstances; one may agree

with it in some of its circumstances, and another in the remainder. And

it may be argued, that if these nations remain poorer than the

restrictive nation, it cannot be for want either of the first or of the

second set of circumstances, but it must be for want of the protective

system. If (we might say) the restrictive nation had prospered from the

one set of causes, the first of the free-trade nations would have

prospered equally; if by reason of the other, the second would: but

neither has: therefore the prosperity was owing to the restrictions.

This will be allowed to be a very favourable specimen of an argument

from specific experience in politics, and if this be inconclusive, it

would not be easy to find another preferable to it.

Yet, that it is inconclusive, scarcely requires to be pointed out. Why

must the prosperous nation have prospered from one cause exclusively?

National prosperity is always the collective result of a multitude of

favourable circumstances; and of these, the restrictive nation may unite

a greater number than either of the others, though it may have all of

those circumstances in common with either one or the other of them. Its

prosperity may be partly owing to circumstances common to it with one of

those nations, and partly with the other, while they, having each of

them only half the number of favourable circumstances, have remained

inferior. So that the closest imitation which can be made, in the social

science, of a legitimate induction from direct experience, gives but a

specious semblance of conclusiveness, without any real value.

§ 4. The Method of Difference in either of its forms being thus

completely out of the question, there remains the Method of Agreement.

But we are already aware of how little value this method is, in cases

admitting Plurality of Causes: and social phenomena are those in which

the plurality prevails in the utmost possible extent.

Suppose that the observer makes the luckiest hit which could be given by

any conceivable combination of chances: that he finds two nations which

agree in no circumstance whatever, except in having a restrictive

system, and in being prosperous; or a number of nations, all prosperous,

which have no antecedent circumstances common to them all but that of

having a restrictive policy. It is unnecessary to go into the

consideration of the impossibility of ascertaining from history, or even

from cotemporary observation, that such is really the fact: that the

nations agree in no other circumstance capable of influencing the case.

Let us suppose this impossibility vanquished, and the fact ascertained

that they agree only in a restrictive system as an antecedent, and

industrial prosperity as a consequent. What degree of presumption does

this raise, that the restrictive system caused the prosperity? One so

trifling as to be equivalent to none at all. That some one antecedent is

the cause of a given effect, because all other antecedents have been

found capable of being eliminated, is a just inference, only if the

effect can have but one cause. If it admits of several, nothing is more

natural than that each of these should separately admit of being

eliminated. Now, in the case of political phenomena, the supposition of

unity of cause is not only wide of the truth, but at an immeasurable

distance from it. The causes of every social phenomenon which we are

particularly interested about, security, wealth, freedom, good

government, public virtue, general intelligence, or their opposites, are

infinitely numerous: especially the external or remote causes, which

alone are, for the most part, accessible to direct observation. No one

cause suffices of itself to produce any of these phenomena; while there

are countless causes which have some influence over them, and may

co-operate either in their production or in their prevention. From the

mere fact, therefore, of our having been able to eliminate some

circumstance, we can by no means infer that this circumstance was not

instrumental to the effect in some of the very instances from which we

have eliminated it. We can conclude that the effect is sometimes

produced without it; but not that, when present, it does not contribute

its share.

Similar objections will be found to apply to the Method of Concomitant

Variations. If the causes which act upon the state of any society

produced effects differing from one another in kind; if wealth depended

on one cause, peace on another, a third made people virtuous, a fourth

intelligent; we might, though unable to sever the causes from one

another, refer to each of them that property of the effect which waxed

as it waxed, and which waned as it waned. But every attribute of the

social body is influenced by innumerable causes; and such is the mutual

action of the coexisting elements of society, that whatever affects any

one of the more important of them, will by that alone, if it does not

affect the others directly, affect them indirectly. The effects,

therefore, of different agents not being different in quality, while the

quantity of each is the mixed result of all the agents, the variations

of the aggregate cannot bear an uniform proportion to those of any one

of its component parts.

§ 5. There remains the Method of Residues; which appears, on the first

view, less foreign to this kind of inquiry than the three other

methods, because it only requires that we should accurately note the

circumstances of some one country, or state of society. Making

allowance, thereupon, for the effect of all causes whose tendencies are

known, the residue which those causes are inadequate to explain may

plausibly be imputed to the remainder of the circumstances which are

known to have existed in the case. Something similar to this is the

method which Coleridge[8] describes himself as having followed in his

political essays in the _Morning Post_. "On every great occurrence I

endeavoured to discover in past history the event that most nearly

resembled it. I procured, whenever it was possible, the contemporary

historians, memorialists, and pamphleteers. Then fairly subtracting the

points of difference from those of likeness, as the balance favoured the

former or the latter, I conjectured that the result would be the same or

different. As, for instance, in the series of essays entitled 'A

comparison of France under Napoleon with Rome under the first Cæsars,'

and in those which followed, 'on the probable final restoration of the

Bourbons.' The same plan I pursued at the commencement of the Spanish

Revolution, and with the same success, taking the war of the United

Provinces with Philip II. as the groundwork of the comparison." In this

inquiry he no doubt employed the Method of Residues; for, in

"subtracting the points of difference from those of likeness," he

doubtless weighed, and did not content himself with numbering, them: he

doubtless took those points of agreement only, which he presumed from

their own nature to be capable of influencing the effect, and, allowing

for that influence, concluded that the remainder of the result would be

referable to the points of difference.

Whatever may be the efficacy of this method, it is, as we long ago

remarked, not a method of pure observation and experiment; it concludes,

not from a comparison of instances, but from the comparison of an

instance with the result of a previous deduction. Applied to social

phenomena, it presupposes that the causes from which part of the effect

proceeded are already known; and as we have shown that these cannot have

been known by specific experience, they must have been learnt by

deduction from principles of human nature; experience being called in

only as a supplementary resource, to determine the causes which produced

an unexplained residue. But if the principles of human nature may be had

recourse to for the establishment of some political truths, they may for

all. If it be admissible to say, England must have prospered by reason

of the prohibitory system, because after allowing for all the other

tendencies which have been operating, there is a portion of prosperity

still to be accounted for; it must be admissible to go to the same

source for the effect of the prohibitory system, and examine what

account the laws of human motives and actions will enable us to give of

_its_ tendencies. Nor, in fact, will the experimental argument amount to

anything, except in verification of a conclusion drawn from those

general laws. For we may subtract the effect of one, two, three, or four

causes, but we shall never succeed in subtracting the effect of all

causes except one: while it would be a curious instance of the dangers

of too much caution, if, to avoid depending on _à priori_ reasoning

concerning the effect of a single cause, we should oblige ourselves to

depend on as many separate _à priori_ reasonings as there are causes

operating concurrently with that particular cause in some given

instance.

We have now sufficiently characterized the gross misconception of the

mode of investigation proper to political phenomena, which I have termed

the Chemical Method. So lengthened a discussion would not have been

necessary, if the claim to decide authoritatively on political doctrines

were confined to persons who had competently studied any one of the

higher departments of physical science. But since the generality of

those who reason on political subjects, satisfactorily to themselves and

to a more or less numerous body of admirers, know nothing whatever of

the methods of physical investigation beyond a few precepts which they

continue to parrot after Bacon, being entirely unaware that Bacon's

conception of scientific inquiry has done its work, and that science

has now advanced into a higher stage; there are probably many to whom

such remarks as the foregoing may still be useful. In an age in which

chemistry itself, when attempting to deal with the more complex chemical

sequences, those of the animal or even the vegetable organism, has found

it necessary to become, and has succeeded in becoming, a Deductive

Science--it is not to be apprehended that any person of scientific

habits, who has kept pace with the general progress of the knowledge of

nature, can be in danger of applying the methods of elementary chemistry

to explore the sequences of the most complex order of phenomena in

existence.

CHAPTER VIII.

OF THE GEOMETRICAL, OR ABSTRACT METHOD.

§ 1. The misconception discussed in the preceding chapter is, as we

said, chiefly committed by persons not much accustomed to scientific

investigation: practitioners in politics, who rather employ the

commonplaces of philosophy to justify their practice, than seek to guide

their practice by philosophic principles: or imperfectly educated

persons, who, in ignorance of the careful selection and elaborate

comparison of instances required for the formation of a sound theory,

attempt to found one upon a few coincidences which they have casually

noticed.

The erroneous method of which we are now to treat, is, on the contrary,

peculiar to thinking and studious minds. It never could have suggested

itself but to persons of some familiarity with the nature of scientific

research; who,--being aware of the impossibility of establishing, by

casual observation or direct experimentation, a true theory of sequences

so complex as are those of the social phenomena,--have recourse to the

simpler laws which are immediately operative in those phenomena, and

which are no other than the laws of the nature of the human beings

therein concerned. These thinkers perceive (what the partisans of the

chemical or experimental theory do not) that the science of society must

necessarily be deductive. But, from an insufficient consideration of the

specific nature of the subject matter,--and often because (their own

scientific education having stopped short in too early a stage) geometry

stands in their minds as the type of all deductive science, it is to

geometry rather than to astronomy and natural philosophy, that they

unconsciously assimilate the deductive science of society.

Among the differences between geometry (a science of coexistent facts,

altogether independent of the laws of the succession of phenomena), and

those physical Sciences of Causation which have been rendered deductive,

the following is one of the most conspicuous: That geometry affords no

room for what so constantly occurs in mechanics and its applications,

the case of conflicting forces; of causes which counteract or modify one

another. In mechanics we continually find two or more moving forces

producing, not motion, but rest; or motion in a different direction from

that which would have been produced by either of the generating forces.

It is true that the effect of the joint forces is the same when they act

simultaneously, as if they had acted one after another, or by turns; and

it is in this that the difference between mechanical and chemical laws

consists. But still the effects, whether produced by successive or by

simultaneous action, do, wholly or in part, cancel one another: what the

one force does, the other, partly or altogether, undoes. There is no

similar state of things in geometry. The result which follows from one

geometrical principle has nothing that conflicts with the result which

follows from another. What is proved true from one geometrical theorem,

what would be true if no other geometrical principles existed, cannot be

altered and made no longer true by reason of some other geometrical

principle. What is once proved true is true in all cases, whatever

supposition may be made in regard to any other matter.

Now a conception, similar to this last, would appear to have been formed

of the social science, in the minds of the earlier of those who have

attempted to cultivate it by a deductive method. Mechanics would be a

science very similar to geometry, if every motion resulted from one

force alone, and not from a conflict of forces. In the geometrical

theory of society, it seems to be supposed that this is really the case

with the social phenomena; that each of them results always from only

one force, one single property of human nature.

At the point which we have now reached, it cannot be necessary to say

anything either in proof or in illustration of the assertion that such

is not the true character of the social phenomena. There is not, among

these most complex and (for that reason) most modifiable of all

phenomena, any one over which innumerable forces do not exercise

influence; which does not depend on a conjunction of very many causes.

We have not, therefore, to prove the notion in question to be an error,

but to prove that the error has been committed; that so mistaken a

conception of the mode in which the phenomena of society are produced,

has actually been ascertained.

§ 2. One numerous division of the reasoners who have treated social

facts according to geometrical methods, not admitting any modification

of one law by another, must for the present be left out of

consideration; because in them this error is complicated with, and is

the effect of, another fundamental misconception, of which we have

already taken some notice, and which will be further treated of before

we conclude. I speak of those who deduce political conclusions not from

laws of nature, not from sequences of phenomena, real or imaginary, but

from unbending practical maxims. Such, for example, are all who found

their theory of politics on what is called abstract right, that is to

say, on universal precepts; a pretension of which we have already

noticed the chimerical nature. Such, in like manner, are those who make

the assumption of a social contract, or any other kind of original

obligation, and apply it to particular cases by mere interpretation. But

in this the fundamental error is the attempt to treat an art like a

science, and to have a deductive art; the irrationality of which will be

shown in a future chapter. It will be proper to take our exemplification

of the geometrical theory from those thinkers who have avoided this

additional error, and who entertain, so far, a juster idea of the nature

of political inquiry.

We may cite, in the first instance, those who assume as the principle of

their political philosophy that government is founded on fear; that the

dread of each other is the one motive by which human beings were

originally brought into a state of society, and are still held in it.

Some of the earlier scientific inquirers into politics, in particular

Hobbes, assumed this proposition, not by implication, but avowedly, as

the foundation of their doctrine, and attempted to build a complete

philosophy of politics thereupon. It is true that Hobbes did not find

this one maxim sufficient to carry him through the whole of his subject,

but was obliged to eke it out by the double sophism of an original

contract. I call this a double sophism; first, as passing off a fiction

for a fact, and, secondly, assuming a practical principle, or precept,

as the basis of a theory; which is a _petitio principii_, since (as we

noticed in treating of that Fallacy) every rule of conduct, even though

it be so binding a one as the observance of a promise, must rest its own

foundations on the theory of the subject, and the theory, therefore,

cannot rest upon it.

§ 3. Passing over less important instances, I shall come at once to the

most remarkable example afforded by our own times of the geometrical

method in politics; emanating from persons who were well aware of the

distinction between science and art; who knew that rules of conduct must

follow, not precede, the ascertainment of laws of nature, and that the

latter, not the former, is the legitimate field for the application of

the deductive method. I allude to the interest-philosophy of the Bentham

school.

The profound and original thinkers who are commonly known under this

description, founded their general theory of government on one

comprehensive premise, namely, that men's actions are always determined

by their interests. There is an ambiguity in this last expression; for,

as the same philosophers, especially Bentham, gave the name of an

interest to anything which a person likes, the proposition may be

understood to mean only this, that men's actions are always determined

by their wishes. In this sense, however, it would not bear out any of

the consequences which these writers drew from it; and the word,

therefore, in their political reasonings, must be understood to mean

(which is also the explanation they themselves, on such occasions, gave

of it) what is commonly termed private, or worldly, interest.

Taking the doctrine, then, in this sense, an objection presents itself

_in limine_ which might be deemed a fatal one, namely, that so sweeping

a proposition is far from being universally true. Human beings are not

governed in all their actions by their worldly interests. This, however,

is by no means so conclusive an objection as it at first appears;

because in politics we are for the most part concerned with the conduct

not of individual persons, but either of a series of persons (as a

succession of kings) or a body or mass of persons, as a nation, an

aristocracy, or a representative assembly. And whatever is true of a

large majority of mankind, may without much error be taken for true of

any succession of persons, considered as a whole, or of any collection

of persons in which the act of the majority becomes the act of the whole

body. Although, therefore, the maxim is sometimes expressed in a manner

unnecessarily paradoxical, the consequences drawn from it will hold

equally good if the assertion be limited as follows--Any succession of

persons, or the majority of any body of persons, will be governed in the

bulk of their conduct by their personal interests. We are bound to allow

to this school of thinkers the benefit of this more rational statement

of their fundamental maxim, which is also in strict conformity to the

explanations which, when considered to be called for, have been given by

themselves.

The theory goes on to infer, quite correctly, that if the actions of

mankind are determined in the main by their selfish interests, the only

rulers who will govern according to the interest of the governed, are

those whose selfish interests are in accordance with it. And to this is

added a third proposition, namely, that no rulers have their selfish

interest identical with that of the governed, unless it be rendered so

by accountability, that is, by dependence on the will of the governed.

In other words (and as the result of the whole), that the desire of

retaining or the fear of losing their power, and whatever is thereon

consequent, is the sole motive which can be relied on for producing on

the part of rulers a course of conduct in accordance with the general

interest.

We have thus a fundamental theorem of political science, consisting of

three syllogisms, and depending chiefly on two general premises, in each

of which a certain effect is considered as determined only by one cause,

not by a concurrence of causes. In the one, it is assumed that the

actions of average rulers are determined solely by self-interest; in the

other, that the sense of identity of interest with the governed, is

produced and producible by no other cause than responsibility.

Neither of these propositions is by any means true; the last is

extremely wide of the truth.

It is not true that the actions even of average rulers are wholly, or

anything approaching to wholly, determined by their personal interest,

or even by their own opinion of their personal interest. I do not speak

of the influence of a sense of duty, or feelings of philanthropy,

motives never to be mainly relied on, though (except in countries or

during periods of great moral debasement) they influence almost all

rulers in some degree, and some rulers in a very great degree. But I

insist only on what is true of all rulers, viz. that the character and

course of their actions is largely influenced (independently of personal

calculation) by the habitual sentiments and feelings, the general modes

of thinking and acting, which prevail throughout the community of which

they are members; as well as by the feelings, habits, and modes of

thought which characterize the particular class in that community to

which they themselves belong. And no one will understand or be able to

decypher their system of conduct, who does not take all these things

into account. They are also much influenced by the maxims and traditions

which have descended to them from other rulers, their predecessors;

which maxims and traditions have been known to retain an ascendancy

during long periods, even in opposition to the private interests of the

rulers for the time being. I put aside the influence of other less

general causes. Although, therefore, the private interest of the rulers

or of the ruling class is a very powerful force, constantly in action,

and exercising the most important influence upon their conduct; there is

also, in what they do, a large portion which that private interest by no

means affords a sufficient explanation of: and even the particulars

which constitute the goodness or badness of their government, are in

some, and no small degree, influenced by those among the circumstances

acting upon them, which cannot, with any propriety, be included in the

term self-interest.

Turning now to the other proposition, that responsibility to the

governed is the only cause capable of producing in the rulers a sense of

identity of interest with the community; this is still less admissible

as an universal truth, than even the former. I am not speaking of

perfect identity of interest, which is an impracticable chimera; which,

most assuredly, responsibility to the people does not give. I speak of

identity in essentials; and the essentials are different at different

places and times. There are a large number of cases in which those

things which it is most for the general interest that the rulers should

do, are also those which they are prompted to do by their strongest

personal interest, the consolidation of their power. The suppression,

for instance, of anarchy and resistance to law,--the complete

establishment of the authority of the central government, in a state of

society like that of Europe in the middle ages,--is one of the strongest

interests of the people, and also of the rulers simply because they are

the rulers: and responsibility on their part could not strengthen,

though in many conceivable ways it might weaken, the motives prompting

them to pursue this object. During the greater part of the reign of

Queen Elizabeth, and of many other monarchs who might be named, the

sense of identity of interest between the sovereign and the majority of

the people was probably stronger than it usually is in responsible

governments: everything that the people had most at heart, the monarch

had at heart too. Had Peter the Great, or the rugged savages whom he

began to civilize, the truest inclination towards the things which were

for the real interest of those savages?

I am not here attempting to establish a theory of government, and am not

called upon to determine the proportional weight which ought to be given

to the circumstances which this school of geometrical politicians left

out of their system, and those which they took into it. I am only

concerned to show that their method was unscientific; not to measure the

amount of error which may have affected their practical conclusions.

It is but justice to them, however, to remark, that their mistake was

not so much one of substance as of form; and consisted in presenting in

a systematic shape, and as the scientific treatment of a great

philosophical question, what should have passed for that which it really

was, the mere polemics of the day. Although the actions of rulers are by

no means wholly determined by their selfish interests, it is chiefly as

a security against those selfish interests that constitutional checks

are required; and for that purpose such checks, in England, and the

other nations of modern Europe, can in no manner be dispensed with. It

is likewise true, that in these same nations, and in the present age,

responsibility to the governed is the only means practically available

to create a feeling of identity of interest, in the cases, and on the

points, where that feeling does not sufficiently exist. To all this, and

to the arguments which may be founded on it in favour of measures for

the correction of our representative system, I have nothing to object;

but I confess my regret, that the small though highly important portion

of the philosophy of government, which was wanted for the immediate

purpose of serving the cause of parliamentary reform, should have been

held forth by thinkers of such eminence as a complete theory.

It is not to be imagined possible, nor is it true in point of fact, that

these philosophers regarded the few premises of their theory as

including all that is required for explaining social phenomena, or for

determining the choice of forms of government and measures of

legislation and administration. They were too highly instructed, of too

comprehensive intellect, and some of them of too sober and practical a

character, for such an error. They would have applied and did apply

their principles with innumerable allowances. But it is not allowances

that are wanted. There is little chance of making due amends in the

superstructure of a theory for the want of sufficient breadth in its

foundations. It is unphilosophical to construct a science out of a few

of the agencies by which the phenomena are determined, and leave the

rest to the routine of practice or the sagacity of conjecture. We either

ought not to pretend to scientific forms, or we ought to study all the

determining agencies equally, and endeavour, so far as it can be done,

to include all of them within the pale of the science; else we shall

infallibly bestow a disproportionate attention upon those which our

theory takes into account, while we misestimate the rest, and probably

underrate their importance. That the deductions should be from the whole

and not from a part only of the laws of nature that are concerned, would

be desirable even if those omitted were so insignificant in comparison

with the others, that they might, for most purposes and on most

occasions, be left out of the account. But this is far indeed from being

true in the social science. The phenomena of society do not depend, in

essentials, on some one agency or law of human nature, with only

inconsiderable modifications from others. The whole of the qualities of

human nature influence those phenomena, and there is not one which

influences them in a small degree. There is not one, the removal or any

great alteration of which would not materially affect the whole aspect

of society, and change more or less the sequences of social phenomena

generally.

The theory which has been the subject of these remarks is in this

country at least, the principal cotemporary example of what I have

styled the geometrical method of philosophizing in the social science;

and our examination of it has, for this reason, been more detailed than

would otherwise have been suitable to a work like the present. Having

now sufficiently illustrated the two erroneous methods, we shall pass

without further preliminary to the true method; that which proceeds

(conformably to the practice of the more complex physical sciences)

deductively indeed, but by deduction from many, not from one or a very

few, original premises; considering each effect as (what it really is)

an aggregate result of many causes, operating sometimes through the

same, sometimes through different mental agencies, or laws of human

nature.

CHAPTER IX.

OF THE PHYSICAL, OR CONCRETE DEDUCTIVE METHOD.

§ 1. After what has been said to illustrate the nature of the inquiry

into social phenomena, the general character of the method proper to

that inquiry is sufficiently evident, and needs only to be

recapitulated, not proved. However complex the phenomena, all their

sequences and coexistences result from the laws of the separate

elements. The effect produced, in social phenomena, by any complex set

of circumstances, amounts precisely to the sum of the effects of the

circumstances taken singly: and the complexity does not arise from the

number of the laws themselves, which is not remarkably great; but from

the extraordinary number and variety of the data or elements--of the

agents which, in obedience to that small number of laws, co-operate

towards the effect. The Social Science, therefore (which, by a

convenient barbarism, has been termed Sociology,) is a deductive

science; not, indeed, after the model of geometry, but after that of the

more complex physical sciences. It infers the law of each effect from

the laws of causation on which that effect depends; not, however, from

the law merely of one cause, as in the geometrical method; but by

considering all the causes which conjunctly influence the effect, and

compounding their laws with one another. Its method, in short, is the

Concrete Deductive Method; that of which astronomy furnishes the most

perfect, natural philosophy a somewhat less perfect example, and the

employment of which, with the adaptations and precautions required by

the subject, is beginning to regenerate physiology.

Nor does it admit of doubt, that similar adaptations and precautions are

indispensable in sociology. In applying, to that most complex of all

studies, what is demonstrably the sole method capable of throwing the

light of science even upon phenomena of a far inferior degree of

complication, we ought to be aware that the same superior complexity

which renders the instrument of Deduction more necessary, renders it

also more precarious; and we must be prepared to meet, by appropriate

contrivances, this increase of difficulty.

The actions and feelings of human beings in the social state, are, no

doubt, entirely governed by psychological and ethological laws: whatever

influence any cause exercises upon the social phenomena, it exercises

through those laws. Supposing therefore the laws of human actions and

feelings to be sufficiently known, there is no extraordinary difficulty

in determining from those laws, the nature of the social effects which

any given cause tends to produce. But when the question is that of

compounding several tendencies together, and computing the aggregate

result of many coexistent causes; and especially when, by attempting to

predict what will actually occur in a given case, we incur the

obligation of estimating and compounding the influences of all the

causes which happen to exist in that case; we attempt a task, to proceed

far in which, surpasses the compass of the human faculties.

If all the resources of science are not sufficient to enable us to

calculate _à priori_, with complete precision, the mutual action of

three bodies gravitating towards one another; it may be judged with what

prospect of success we should endeavour to calculate the result of the

conflicting tendencies which are acting in a thousand different

directions and promoting a thousand different changes at a given instant

in a given society: although we might and ought to be able, from the

laws of human nature, to distinguish correctly enough the tendencies

themselves, so far as they depend on causes accessible to our

observation; and to determine the direction which each of them, if

acting alone, would impress upon society, as well as, in a general way

at least, to pronounce that some of these tendencies are more powerful

than others.

But, without dissembling the necessary imperfections of the _à priori_

method when applied to such a subject, neither ought we, on the other

hand, to exaggerate them. The same objections, which apply to the Method

of Deduction in this its most difficult employment, apply to it, as we

formerly showed,[9] in its easiest; and would even there have been

insuperable, if there had not existed, as was then fully explained, an

appropriate remedy. This remedy consists in the process which, under the

name of Verification, we have characterized as the third essential

constituent part of the Deductive Method; that of collating the

conclusions of the ratiocination either with the concrete phenomena

themselves, or, when such are obtainable, with their empirical laws. The

ground of confidence in any concrete deductive science is not the _à

priori_ reasoning itself, but the accordance between its results and

those of observation _à posteriori_. Either of these processes, apart

from the other, diminishes in value as the subject increases in

complication, and this in so rapid a ratio as soon to become entirely

worthless; but the reliance to be placed in the concurrence of the two

sorts of evidence, not only does not diminish in anything like the same

proportion, but is not necessarily much diminished at all. Nothing more

results than a disturbance in the order of precedency of the two

processes, sometimes amounting to its actual inversion: insomuch that

instead of deducing our conclusions by reasoning, and verifying them by

observation, we in some cases begin by obtaining them conjecturally from

specific experience, and afterwards connect them with the principles of

human nature by _à priori_ reasonings, which reasonings are thus a real

Verification.

The only thinker who, with a competent knowledge of scientific methods

in general, has attempted to characterize the Method of Sociology, M.

Comte, considers this inverse order as inseparably inherent in the

nature of sociological speculation. He looks upon the social science as

essentially consisting of generalizations from history, verified, not

originally suggested, by deduction from the laws of human nature. Though

there is a truth contained in this opinion, of which I shall presently

endeavour to show the importance, I cannot but think that this truth is

enunciated in too unlimited a manner, and that there is considerable

scope in sociological inquiry for the direct, as well as for the

inverse, Deductive Method.

It will, in fact, be shown in the next chapter, that there is a kind of

sociological inquiries to which, from their prodigious complication, the

method of direct deduction is altogether inapplicable, while by a happy

compensation it is precisely in these cases that we are able to obtain

the best empirical laws: to these inquiries, therefore, the Inverse

Method is exclusively adapted. But there are also, as will presently

appear, other cases in which it is impossible to obtain from direct

observation anything worthy the name of an empirical law; and it

fortunately happens that these are the very cases in which the Direct

Method is least affected by the objection which undoubtedly must always

affect it in a certain degree.

We shall begin, then, by looking at the Social Science as a science of

direct Deduction, and considering what can be accomplished in it, and

under what limitations, by that mode of investigation. We shall, then,

in a separate chapter, examine and endeavour to characterize the inverse

process.

§ 2. It is evident, in the first place, that Sociology, considered as a

system of deductions _à priori_, cannot be a science of positive

predictions, but only of tendencies. We may be able to conclude, from

the laws of human nature applied to the circumstances of a given state

of society, that a particular cause will operate in a certain manner

unless counteracted; but we can never be assured to what extent or

amount it will so operate, or affirm with certainty that it will not be

counteracted; because we can seldom know, even approximately, all the

agencies which may coexist with it, and still less calculate the

collective result of so many combined elements. The remark, however,

must here be once more repeated, that knowledge insufficient for

prediction may be most valuable for guidance. It is not necessary for

the wise conduct of the affairs of society, no more than of any one's

private concerns, that we should be able to foresee infallibly the

results of what we do. We must seek our objects by means which may

perhaps be defeated, and take precautions against dangers which possibly

may never be realized. The aim of practical politics is to surround any

given society with the greatest possible number of circumstances of

which the tendencies are beneficial, and to remove or counteract, as far

as practicable, those of which the tendencies are injurious. A knowledge

of the tendencies only, though without the power of accurately

predicting their conjunct result, gives us to a certain extent this

power.

It would, however, be an error to suppose that even with respect to

tendencies, we could arrive in this manner at any great number of

propositions which will be true in all societies without exception. Such

a supposition would be inconsistent with the eminently modifiable nature

of the social phenomena, and the multitude and variety of the

circumstances by which they are modified; circumstances never the same,

or even nearly the same, in two different societies, or in two different

periods of the same society. This would not be so serious an obstacle

if, though the causes acting upon society in general are numerous, those

which influence any one feature of society were limited in number; for

we might then insulate any particular social phenomenon, and investigate

its laws without disturbance from the rest. But the truth is the very

opposite of this. Whatever affects, in an appreciable degree, any one

element of the social state, affects through it all the other elements.

The mode of production of all social phenomena is one great case of

Intermixture of Laws. We can never either understand in theory or

command in practice the condition of a society in any one respect,

without taking into consideration its condition in all other respects.

There is no social phenomenon which is not more or less influenced by

every other part of the condition of the same society, and therefore by

every cause which is influencing any other of the contemporaneous social

phenomena. There is, in short, what physiologists term a _consensus_,

similar to that existing among the various organs and functions of the

physical frame of man and the more perfect animals; and constituting one

of the many analogies which have rendered universal such expressions as

the "body politic" and "body natural." It follows from this _consensus_,

that unless two societies could be alike in all the circumstances which

surround and influence them, (which would imply their being alike in

their previous history,) no portion whatever of the phenomena will,

unless by accident, precisely correspond; no one cause will produce

exactly the same effects in both. Every cause, as its effect spreads

through society, comes somewhere in contact with different sets of

agencies, and thus has its effects on some of the social phenomena

differently modified; and these differences, by their reaction, produce

a difference even in those of the effects which would otherwise have

been the same. We can never, therefore, affirm with certainty that a

cause which has a particular tendency in one people or in one age will

have exactly the same tendency in another, without referring back to our

premises, and performing over again for the second age or nation, that

analysis of the whole of its influencing circumstances which we had

already performed for the first. The deductive science of society will

not lay down a theorem, asserting in an universal manner the effect of

any cause; but will rather teach us how to frame the proper theorem for

the circumstances of any given case. It will not give the laws of

society in general, but the means of determining the phenomena of any

given society from the particular elements or data of that society.

All the general propositions which can be framed by the deductive

science, are therefore, in the strictest sense of the word,

hypothetical. They are grounded on some supposititious set of

circumstances, and declare how some given cause would operate in those

circumstances, supposing that no others were combined with them. If the

set of circumstances supposed have been copied from those of any

existing society, the conclusions will be true of that society,

provided, and in as far as, the effect of those circumstances shall not

be modified by others which have not been taken into the account. If we

desire a nearer approach to concrete truth, we can only aim at it by

taking, or endeavouring to take, a greater number of individualizing

circumstances into the computation.

Considering, however, in how accelerating a ratio the uncertainty of our

conclusions increases, as we attempt to take the effect of a greater

number of concurrent causes into our calculations; the hypothetical

combinations of circumstances on which we construct the general theorems

of the science, cannot be made very complex, without so

rapidly-accumulating a liability to error as must soon deprive our

conclusions of all value. This mode of inquiry, considered as a means of

obtaining general propositions, must, therefore, on pain of frivolity,

be limited to those classes of social facts which, though influenced

like the rest by all sociological agents, are under the _immediate_

influence, principally at least, of a few only.

§ 3. Notwithstanding the universal _consensus_ of the social phenomena,

whereby nothing which takes place in any part of the operations of

society is without its share of influence on every other part; and

notwithstanding the paramount ascendancy which the general state of

civilization and social progress in any given society must hence

exercise over all the partial and subordinate phenomena; it is not the

less true that different species of social facts are in the main

dependent, immediately and in the first resort, on different kinds of

causes; and therefore not only may with advantage, but must, be studied

apart: just as in the natural body we study separately the physiology

and pathology of each of the principal organs and tissues, though every

one is acted upon by the state of all the others: and though the

peculiar constitution and general state of health of the organism

co-operates with, and often preponderates over, the local causes, in

determining the state of any particular organ.

On these considerations is grounded the existence of distinct and

separate, though not independent, branches or departments of

sociological speculation.

There is, for example, one large class of social phenomena, in which

the immediately determining causes are principally those which act

through the desire of wealth; and in which the psychological law mainly

concerned is the familiar one, that a greater gain is preferred to a

smaller. I mean, of course, that portion of the phenomena of society

which emanate from the industrial, or productive, operations of mankind;

and from those of their acts through which the distribution of the

products of those industrial operations takes place, in so far as not

effected by force, or modified by voluntary gift. By reasoning from that

one law of human nature, and from the principal outward circumstances

(whether universal or confined to particular states of society) which

operate upon the human mind through that law, we may be enabled to

explain and predict this portion of the phenomena of society, so far as

they depend on that class of circumstances only; overlooking the

influence of any other of the circumstances of society; and therefore

neither tracing back the circumstances which we do take into account, to

their possible origin in some other facts in the social state, nor

making allowance for the manner in which any of those other

circumstances may interfere with, and counteract or modify, the effect

of the former. A science may thus be constructed, which has received the

name of Political Economy.

The motive which suggests the separation of this portion of the social

phenomena from the rest, and the creation of a distinct science relating

to them is,--that they do _mainly_ depend, at least in the first resort,

on one class of circumstances only; and that even when other

circumstances interfere, the ascertainment of the effect due to the one

class of circumstances alone, is a sufficiently intricate and difficult

business to make it expedient to perform it once for all, and then allow

for the effect of the modifying circumstances; especially as certain

fixed combinations of the former are apt to recur often, in conjunction

with ever-varying circumstances of the latter class.

Political Economy, as I have said on another occasion, concerns itself

only with "such of the phenomena of the social state as take place in

consequence of the pursuit of wealth. It makes entire abstraction of

every other human passion or motive; except those which may be regarded

as perpetually antagonizing principles to the desire of wealth, namely,

aversion to labour, and desire of the present enjoyment of costly

indulgences. These it takes, to a certain extent, into its calculations,

because these do not merely, like our other desires, occasionally

conflict with the pursuit of wealth, but accompany it always as a drag

or impediment, and are therefore inseparably mixed up in the

consideration of it. Political Economy considers mankind as occupied

solely in acquiring and consuming wealth; and aims at showing what is

the course of action into which mankind, living in a state of society,

would be impelled, if that motive, except in the degree in which it is

checked by the two perpetual counter-motives above adverted to, were

absolute ruler of all their actions. Under the influence of this desire,

it shows mankind accumulating wealth, and employing that wealth in the

production of other wealth; sanctioning by mutual agreement the

institution of property; establishing laws to prevent individuals from

encroaching upon the property of others by force or fraud; adopting

various contrivances for increasing the productiveness of their labour;

settling the division of the produce by agreement, under the influence

of competition (competition itself being governed by certain laws, which

laws are therefore the ultimate regulators of the division of the

produce); and employing certain expedients (as money, credit, &c.) to

facilitate the distribution. All these operations, though many of them

are really the result of a plurality of motives, are considered by

political economy as flowing solely from the desire of wealth. The

science then proceeds to investigate the laws which govern these several

operations, under the supposition that man is a being who is determined,

by the necessity of his nature, to prefer a greater portion of wealth to

a smaller, in all cases, without any other exception than that

constituted by the two counter-motives already specified. Not that any

political economist was ever so absurd as to suppose that mankind are

really thus constituted, but because this is the mode in which science

must necessarily proceed. When an effect depends on a concurrence of

causes, these causes must be studied one at a time, and their laws

separately investigated, if we wish, through the causes, to obtain the

power of either predicting or controlling the effect; since the law of

the effect is compounded of the laws of all the causes which determine

it. The law of the centripetal and that of the projectile force must

have been known, before the motions of the earth and planets could be

explained, or many of them predicted. The same is the case with the

conduct of man in society. In order to judge how he will act under the

variety of desires and aversions which are concurrently operating upon

him, we must know how he would act under the exclusive influence of each

one in particular. There is, perhaps, no action of a man's life in which

he is neither under the immediate nor under the remote influence of any

impulse but the mere desire of wealth. With respect to those parts of

human conduct of which wealth is not even the principal object, to these

political economy does not pretend that its conclusions are applicable.

But there are also certain departments of human affairs, in which the

acquisition of wealth is the main and acknowledged end. It is only of

these that political economy takes notice. The manner in which it

necessarily proceeds is that of treating the main and acknowledged end

as if it were the sole end; which, of all hypotheses equally simple, is

the nearest to the truth. The political economist inquires, what are the

actions which would be produced by this desire, if within the

departments in question it were unimpeded by any other. In this way a

nearer approximation is obtained than would otherwise be practicable to

the real order of human affairs in those departments. This approximation

has then to be corrected by making proper allowance for the effects of

any impulses of a different description, which can be shown to interfere

with the result in any particular case. Only in a few of the most

striking cases (such as the important one of the principle of

population) are these corrections interpolated into the expositions of

political economy itself; the strictness of purely scientific

arrangement being thereby somewhat departed from, for the sake of

practical utility. So far as it is known or may be presumed, that the

conduct of mankind in the pursuit of wealth is under the collateral

influence of any other of the properties of our nature, than the desire

of obtaining the greatest quantity of wealth with the least labour and

self-denial, the conclusions of political economy will so far fail of

being applicable to the explanation or prediction of real events, until

they are modified by a correct allowance for the degree of influence

exercised by the other cause."[10]

Extensive and important practical guidance may be derived, in any given

state of society, from general propositions such as those above

indicated; even though the modifying influence of the miscellaneous

causes which the theory does not take into account, as well as the

effect of the general social changes in progress, be provisionally

overlooked. And though it has been a very common error of political

economists to draw conclusions from the elements of one state of

society, and apply them to other states in which many of the elements

are not the same; it is even then not difficult, by tracing back the

demonstrations, and introducing the new premises in their proper places,

to make the same general course of argument which served for the one

case, serve for the others too.

For example, it has been greatly the custom of English political

economists to discuss the laws of the distribution of the produce of

industry, on a supposition which is scarcely realized anywhere out of

England and Scotland, namely, that the produce is "shared among three

classes, altogether distinct from one another, labourers, capitalists,

and landlords; and that all these are free agents, permitted in law and

in fact to set upon their labour, their capital, and their land,

whatever price they are able to get for it. The conclusions of the

science, being all adapted to a society thus constituted, require to be

revised whenever they are applied to any other. They are inapplicable

where the only capitalists are the landlords, and the labourers are

their property, as in slave countries. They are inapplicable where the

almost universal landlord is the state as in India. They are

inapplicable where the agricultural labourer is generally the owner both

of the land itself and of the capital, as frequently in France, or of

the capital only, as in Ireland." But though it may often be very justly

objected to the existing race of political economists "that they attempt

to construct a permanent fabric out of transitory materials; that they

take for granted the immutability of arrangements of society, many of

which are in their nature fluctuating or progressive, and enunciate with

as little qualification as if they were universal and absolute truths,

propositions which are perhaps applicable to no state of society except

the particular one in which the writer happened to live;" this does not

take away the value of the propositions, considered with reference to

the state of society from which they were drawn. And even as applicable

to other states of society, "it must not be supposed that the science is

so incomplete and unsatisfactory as this might seem to prove. Though

many of its conclusions are only locally true, its method of

investigation is applicable universally; and as whoever has solved a

certain number of algebraic equations, can without difficulty solve all

others of the same kind, so whoever knows the political economy of

England, or even of Yorkshire, knows that of all nations, actual or

possible, provided he have good sense enough not to expect the same

conclusion to issue from varying premises." Whoever is thoroughly master

of the laws which, under free competition, determine the rent, profits,

and wages, received by landlords, capitalists, and labourers, in a state

of society in which the three classes are completely separate, will have

no difficulty in determining the very different laws which regulate the

distribution of the produce among the classes interested in it, in any

of the states of cultivation and landed property set forth in the

foregoing extract.[11]

§ 4. I would not here undertake to decide what other hypothetical or

abstract sciences similar to Political Economy, may admit of being

carved out of the general body of the social science; what other

portions of the social phenomena are in a sufficiently close and

complete dependence, in the first resort, on a peculiar class of causes,

to make it convenient to create a preliminary science of those causes;

postponing the consideration of the causes which act through them, or in

concurrence with them, to a later period of the inquiry. There is

however among these separate departments one which cannot be passed over

in silence, being of a more comprehensive and commanding character than

any of the other branches into which the social science may admit of

being divided. Like them, it is directly conversant with the causes of

only one class of social facts, but a class which exercises, immediately

or remotely, a paramount influence over the rest. I allude to what may

be termed Political Ethology, or the theory of the causes which

determine the type of character belonging to a people or to an age. Of

all the subordinate branches of the social science, this is the most

completely in its infancy. The causes of national character are scarcely

at all understood, and the effect of institutions or social arrangements

upon the character of the people is generally that portion of their

effects which is least attended to, and least comprehended. Nor is this

wonderful, when we consider the infant state of the Science of Ethology

itself, from whence the laws must be drawn, of which the truths of

political ethology can be but results and exemplifications.

Yet to whoever well considers the matter, it must appear that the laws

of national (or collective) character are by far the most important

class of sociological laws. In the first place, the character which is

formed by any state of social circumstances is in itself the most

interesting phenomenon which that state of society can possibly present.

Secondly, it is also a fact which enters largely into the production of

all the other phenomena. And above all, the character, that is, the

opinions, feelings, and habits, of the people, though greatly the

results of the state of society which precedes them, are also greatly

the causes of the state of society which follows them; and are the power

by which all those of the circumstances of society which are

artificial, laws and customs for instance, are altogether moulded:

customs evidently, laws no less really, either by the direct influence

of public sentiment upon the ruling powers, or by the effect which the

state of national opinion and feeling has in determining the form of

government and shaping the character of the governors.

As might be expected, the most imperfect part of those branches of

social inquiry which have been cultivated as separate sciences, is the

theory of the manner in which their conclusions are affected by

ethological considerations. The omission is no defect in them as

abstract or hypothetical sciences, but it vitiates them in their

practical application as branches of a comprehensive social science. In

political economy for instance, empirical laws of human nature are

tacitly assumed by English thinkers, which are calculated only for Great

Britain and the United States. Among other things, an intensity of

competition is constantly supposed, which, as a general mercantile fact,

exists in no country in the world except those two. An English political

economist, like his countrymen in general, has seldom learned that it is

possible that men, in conducting the business of selling their goods

over a counter, should care more about their ease or their vanity than

about their pecuniary gain. Yet those who know the habits of the

Continent of Europe are aware how apparently small a motive often

outweighs the desire of money-getting, even in the operations which have

money-getting for their direct object. The more highly the science of

ethology is cultivated, and the better the diversities of individual and

national character are understood, the smaller, probably, will the

number of propositions become, which it will be considered safe to build

on as universal principles of human nature.

These considerations show that the process of dividing off the social

science into compartments, in order that each may be studied separately,

and its conclusions afterwards corrected for practice by the

modifications supplied by the others, must be subject to at least one

important limitation. Those portions alone of the social phenomena can

with advantage be made the subjects, even provisionally, of distinct

branches of science, into which the diversities of character between

different nations or different times enter as influencing causes only in

a secondary degree. Those phenomena, on the contrary, with which the

influences of the ethological state of the people are mixed up at every

step (so that the connexion of effects and causes cannot be even rudely

marked out without taking those influences into consideration) could not

with any advantage, nor without great disadvantage, be treated

independently of political ethology, nor, therefore, of all the

circumstances by which the qualities of a people are influenced. For

this reason (as well as for others which will hereafter appear) there

can be no separate Science of Government; that being the fact which, of

all others, is most mixed up, both as cause and effect, with the

qualities of the particular people or of the particular age. All

questions respecting the tendencies of forms of government must stand

part of the general science of society, not of any separate branch of

it.

This general Science of Society, as distinguished from the separate

departments of the science (each of which asserts its conclusions only

conditionally, subject to the paramount control of the laws of the

general science) now remains to be characterized. And as will be shown

presently, nothing of a really scientific character is here possible,

except by the inverse deductive method. But before we quit the subject

of those sociological speculations which proceed by way of direct

deduction, we must examine in what relation they stand to that

indispensable element in all deductive sciences, Verification by

Specific Experience--comparison between the conclusions of reasoning and

the results of observation.

§ 5. We have seen that, in most deductive sciences, and among the rest

in Ethology itself, which is the immediate foundation of the Social

Science, a preliminary work of preparation is performed on the observed

facts, to fit them for being rapidly and accurately collated (sometimes

even for being collated at all) with the conclusions of theory. This

preparatory treatment consists in finding general propositions which

express concisely what is common to large classes of observed facts:

and these are called the empirical laws of the phenomena. We have,

therefore, to inquire, whether any similar preparatory process can be

performed on the facts of the social science; whether there are any

empirical laws in history or statistics.

In statistics, it is evident that empirical laws may sometimes be

traced; and the tracing them forms an important part of that system of

indirect observation on which we must often rely for the data of the

Deductive Science. The process of the science consists in inferring

effects from their causes; but we have often no means of observing the

causes, except through the medium of their effects. In such cases the

deductive science is unable to predict the effects, for want of the

necessary data; it can determine what causes are capable of producing

any given effect, but not with what frequency and in what quantities

those causes exist. An instance in point is afforded by a newspaper now

lying before me. A statement was furnished by one of the official

assignees in bankruptcy, showing among the various bankruptcies which it

had been his duty to investigate, in how many cases the losses had been

caused by misconduct of different kinds, and in how many by unavoidable

misfortunes. The result was, that the number of failures caused by

misconduct greatly preponderated over those arising from all other

causes whatever. Nothing but specific experience could have given

sufficient ground for a conclusion to this purport. To collect,

therefore, such empirical laws (which are never more than approximate

generalizations) from direct observation, is an important part of the

process of sociological inquiry.