The experimental process is not here to be regarded as a distinct road

to the truth, but as a means (happening accidentally to be the only, or

the best, available) for obtaining the necessary data for the deductive

science. When the immediate causes of social facts are not open to

direct observation, the empirical law of the effects gives us the

empirical law (which in that case is all that we can obtain) of the

causes likewise. But those immediate causes depend on remote causes; and

the empirical law, obtained by this indirect mode of observation, can

only be relied on as applicable to unobserved cases, so long as there is

reason to think that no change has taken place in any of the remote

causes on which the immediate causes depend. In making use, therefore,

of even the best statistical generalizations for the purpose of

inferring (though it be only conjecturally) that the same empirical laws

will hold in any new case, it is necessary that we be well acquainted

with the remoter causes, in order that we may avoid applying the

empirical law to cases which differ in any of the circumstances on which

the truth of the law ultimately depends. And thus, even where

conclusions derived from specific observation are available for

practical inferences in new cases, it is necessary that the deductive

science should stand sentinel over the whole process; that it should be

constantly referred to, and its sanction obtained to every inference.

The same thing holds true of all generalizations which can be grounded

on history. Not only there are such generalizations, but it will

presently be shown that the general science of society, which

inquires into the laws of succession and coexistence of the

great facts constituting the state of society and civilization

at any time, can proceed in no other manner than by making such

generalizations--afterwards to be confirmed by connecting them with the

psychological and ethological laws on which they must really depend.

§ 6. But (reserving this question for its proper place) in those more

special inquiries which form the subject of the separate branches of the

social science, this twofold logical process and reciprocal verification

is not possible: specific experience affords nothing amounting to

empirical laws. This is particularly the case where the object is to

determine the effect of any one social cause among a great number acting

simultaneously; the effect, for example, of corn laws, or of a

prohibitive commercial system generally. Though it may be perfectly

certain, from theory, what _kind_ of effects corn laws must produce, and

in what general direction their influence must tell upon industrial

prosperity; their effect is yet of necessity so much disguised by the

similar or contrary effects of other influencing agents, that specific

experience can at most only show that on the average of some great

number of instances, the cases where there were corn laws exhibited the

effect in a greater degree than those where there were not. Now the

number of instances necessary to exhaust the whole round of combinations

of the various influential circumstances, and thus afford a fair

average, never can be obtained. Not only we can never learn with

sufficient authenticity the facts of so many instances, but the world

itself does not afford them in sufficient numbers, within the limits of

the given state of society and civilization which such inquiries always

presuppose. Having thus no previous empirical generalizations with which

to collate the conclusions of theory, the only mode of direct

verification which remains is to compare those conclusions with the

result of an individual experiment or instance. But here the difficulty

is equally great. For in order to verify a theory by an experiment, the

circumstances of the experiment must be exactly the same with those

contemplated in the theory. But in social phenomena the circumstances of

no two cases are exactly alike. A trial of corn laws in another country

or in a former generation, would go a very little way towards verifying

a conclusion drawn respecting their effect in this generation and in

this country. It thus happens, in most cases, that the only individual

instance really fitted to verify the predictions of theory is the very

instance for which the predictions were made; and the verification comes

too late to be of any avail for practical guidance.

Although, however, direct verification is impossible, there is an

indirect verification, which is scarcely of less value, and which is

always practicable. The conclusion drawn as to the individual case, can

only be directly verified in that case; but it is verified indirectly,

by the verification of other conclusions, drawn in other individual

cases from the same laws. The experience which comes too late to verify

the particular proposition to which it refers, is not too late to help

towards verifying the general sufficiency of the theory. The test of

the degree in which the science affords safe ground for predicting (and

consequently for practically dealing with) what has not yet happened, is

the degree in which it would have enabled us to predict what has

actually occurred. Before our theory of the influence of a particular

cause, in a given state of circumstances, can be entirely trusted, we

must be able to explain and account for the existing state of all that

portion of the social phenomena which that cause has a tendency to

influence. If, for instance, we would apply our speculations in

political economy to the prediction or guidance of the phenomena of any

country, we must be able to explain all the mercantile or industrial

facts of a general character, appertaining to the present state of that

country: to point out causes sufficient to account for all of them, and

prove, or show good ground for supposing, that these causes have really

existed. If we cannot do this, it is a proof either that the facts which

ought to be taken into account are not yet completely known to us, or

that although we know the facts, we are not masters of a sufficiently

perfect theory to enable us to assign their consequences. In either case

we are not, in the present state of our knowledge, fully competent to

draw conclusions, speculative or practical, for that country. In like

manner if we would attempt to judge of the effect which any political

institution would have, supposing that it could be introduced into any

given country; we must be able to show that the existing state of the

practical government of that country, and of whatever else depends

thereon, together with the particular character and tendencies of the

people, and their state in respect to the various elements of social

well-being, are such as the institutions they have lived under, in

conjunction with the other circumstances of their nature or of their

position, were calculated to produce.

To prove (in short) that our science, and our knowledge of the

particular case, render us competent to predict the future, we must show

that they would have enabled us to predict the present and the past. If

there be anything which we could not have predicted, this constitutes a

residual phenomenon, requiring further study for the purpose of

explanation; and we must either search among the circumstances of the

particular case until we find one which, on the principles of our

existing theory, accounts for the unexplained phenomenon, or we must

turn back, and seek the explanation by an extension and improvement of

the theory itself.

CHAPTER X.

OF THE INVERSE DEDUCTIVE, OR HISTORICAL METHOD.

§ 1. There are two kinds of sociological inquiry. In the first kind, the

question proposed is, what effect will follow from a given cause, a

certain general condition of social circumstances being presupposed. As,

for example, what would be the effect of imposing or of repealing corn

laws, of abolishing monarchy or introducing universal suffrage, in the

present condition of society and civilization in any European country,

or under any other given supposition with regard to the circumstances of

society in general: without reference to the changes which might take

place, or which may already be in progress, in those circumstances. But

there is also a second inquiry, namely, what are the laws which

determine those general circumstances themselves. In this last the

question is, not what will be the effect of a given cause in a certain

state of society, but what are the causes which produce, and the

phenomena which characterize, States of Society generally. In the

solution of this question consists the general Science of Society; by

which the conclusions of the other and more special kind of inquiry must

be limited and controlled.

§ 2. In order to conceive correctly the scope of this general science,

and distinguish it from the subordinate departments of sociological

speculation, it is necessary to fix the ideas attached to the phrase, "a

State of Society." What is called a state of society, is the

simultaneous state of all the greater social facts or phenomena. Such

are, the degree of knowledge, and of intellectual and moral culture,

existing in the community, and in every class of it; the state of

industry, of wealth and its distribution; the habitual occupations of

the community; their division into classes, and the relations of those

classes to one another; the common beliefs which they entertain on all

the subjects most important to mankind, and the degree of assurance with

which those beliefs are held; their tastes, and the character and degree

of their æsthetic development; their form of government, and the more

important of their laws and customs. The condition of all these things,

and of many more which will readily suggest themselves, constitute the

state of society or the state of civilization at any given time.

When states of society, and the causes which produce them, are spoken of

as a subject of science, it is implied that there exists a natural

correlation among these different elements; that not every variety of

combination of these general social facts is possible, but only certain

combinations; that, in short, there exist Uniformities of Coexistence

between the states of the various social phenomena. And such is the

truth; as is indeed a necessary consequence of the influence exercised

by every one of those phenomena over every other. It is a fact implied

in the _consensus_ of the various parts of the social body.

States of society are like different constitutions or different ages in

the physical frame; they are conditions not of one or a few organs or

functions, but of the whole organism. Accordingly, the information which

we possess respecting past ages, and respecting the various states of

society now existing in different regions of the earth, does, when duly

analysed, exhibit uniformities. It is found that when one of the

features of society is in a particular state, a state of many other

features, more or less precisely determinate, always or usually coexists

with it.

But the uniformities of coexistence obtaining among phenomena which are

effects of causes, must (as we have so often observed) be corollaries

from the laws of causation by which these phenomena are really

determined. The mutual correlation between the different elements of

each state of society, is therefore a derivative law, resulting from the

laws which regulate the succession between one state of society and

another: for the proximate cause of every state of society is the state

of society immediately preceding it. The fundamental problem, therefore,

of the social science, is to find the laws according to which any state

of society produces the state which succeeds it and takes its place.

This opens the great and vexed question of the progressiveness of man

and society; an idea involved in every just conception of social

phenomena as the subject of a science.

§ 3. It is one of the characters, not absolutely peculiar to the

sciences of human nature and society, but belonging to them in a

peculiar degree, to be conversant with a subject-matter whose properties

are changeable. I do not mean changeable from day to day, but from age

to age; so that not only the qualities of individuals vary, but those of

the majority are not the same in one age as in another.

The principal cause of this peculiarity is the extensive and constant

reaction of the effects upon their causes. The circumstances in which

mankind are placed, operating according to their own laws and to the

laws of human nature, form the characters of the human beings; but the

human beings, in their turn, mould and shape the circumstances, for

themselves and for those who come after them. From this reciprocal

action there must necessarily result either a cycle or a progress. In

astronomy also, every fact is at once effect and cause; the successive

positions of the various heavenly bodies produce changes both in the

direction and in the intensity of the forces by which those positions

are determined. But in the case of the solar system, these mutual

actions bring round again, after a certain number of changes, the former

state of circumstances; which of course leads to the perpetual

recurrence of the same series in an unvarying order. Those bodies, in

short, revolve in orbits: but there are (or, conformably to the laws of

astronomy, there might be) others which, instead of an orbit, describe a

trajectory--a course not returning into itself. One or other of these

must be the type to which human affairs must conform.

One of the thinkers who earliest conceived the succession of historical

events as subject to fixed laws, and endeavoured to discover these laws

by an analytical survey of history, Vico, the celebrated author of the

_Scienza Nuova_, adopted the former of these opinions. He conceived the

phenomena of human society as revolving in an orbit; as going through

periodically the same series of changes. Though there were not wanting

circumstances tending to give some plausibility to this view, it would

not bear a close scrutiny: and those who have succeeded Vico in this

kind of speculations have universally adopted the idea of a trajectory

or progress, in lieu of an orbit or cycle.

The words Progress and Progressiveness are not here to be understood as

synonymous with improvement and tendency to improvement. It is

conceivable that the laws of human nature might determine, and even

necessitate, a certain series of changes in man and society, which might

not in every case, or which might not on the whole, be improvements. It

is my belief indeed that the general tendency is, and will continue to

be, saving occasional and temporary exceptions, one of improvement; a

tendency towards a better and happier state. This, however, is not a

question of the method of the social science, but a theorem of the

science itself. For our purpose it is sufficient, that there is a

progressive change both in the character of the human race, and in their

outward circumstances so far as moulded by themselves: that in each

successive age the principal phenomena of society are different from

what they were in the age preceding, and still more different from any

previous age: the periods which most distinctly mark these successive

changes being intervals of one generation, during which a new set of

human beings have been educated, have grown up from childhood, and taken

possession of society.

The progressiveness of the human race is the foundation on which a

method of philosophizing in the social science has been of late years

erected, far superior to either of the two modes which had previously

been prevalent, the chemical or experimental, and the geometrical modes.

This method, which is now generally adopted by the most advanced

thinkers on the Continent, consists in attempting, by a study and

analysis of the general facts of history, to discover (what these

philosophers term) the law of progress: which law, once ascertained,

must according to them enable us to predict future events, just as after

a few terms of an infinite series in algebra we are able to detect the

principle of regularity in their formation, and to predict the rest of

the series to any number of terms we please. The principal aim of

historical speculation in France, of late years, has been to ascertain

this law. But while I gladly acknowledge the great services which have

been rendered to historical knowledge by this school, I cannot but deem

them to be mostly chargeable with a fundamental misconception of the

true method of social philosophy. The misconception consists in

supposing that the order of succession which we may be able to trace

among the different states of society and civilization which history

presents to us, even if that order were more rigidly uniform than it has

yet been proved to be, could ever amount to a law of nature. It can only

be an empirical law. The succession of states of the human mind and of

human society cannot have an independent law of its own; it must depend

on the psychological and ethological laws which govern the action of

circumstances on men and of men on circumstances. It is conceivable that

those laws might be such, and the general circumstances of the human

race such, as to determine the successive transformations of man and

society to one given and unvarying order. But even if the case were so,

it cannot be the ultimate aim of science to discover an empirical law.

Until that law could be connected with the psychological and ethological

laws on which it must depend, and, by the consilience of deduction _à

priori_ with historical evidence, could be converted from an empirical

law into a scientific one, it could not be relied on for the prediction

of future events, beyond, at most, strictly adjacent cases. M. Comte

alone, among the new historical school, has seen the necessity of thus

connecting all our generalizations from history with the laws of human

nature.

§ 4. But, while it is an imperative rule never to introduce any

generalization from history into the social science unless sufficient

grounds can be pointed out for it in human nature, I do not think any

one will contend that it would have been possible, setting out from the

principles of human nature and from the general circumstances of the

position of our species, to determine _à priori_ the order in which

human development must take place, and to predict, consequently, the

general facts of history up to the present time. After the first few

terms of the series, the influence exercised over each generation by the

generations which preceded it, becomes (as is well observed by the

writer last referred to) more and more preponderant over all other

influences; until at length what we now are and do, is in a very small

degree the result of the universal circumstances of the human race, or

even of our own circumstances acting through the original qualities of

our species, but mainly of the qualities produced in us by the whole

previous history of humanity. So long a series of actions and reactions

between Circumstances and Man, each successive term being composed of an

ever greater number and variety of parts, could not possibly be computed

by human faculties from the elementary laws which produce it. The mere

length of the series would be a sufficient obstacle, since a slight

error in any one of the terms would augment in rapid progression at

every subsequent step.

If, therefore, the series of the effects themselves did not, when

examined as a whole, manifest any regularity, we should in vain attempt

to construct a general science of society. We must in that case have

contented ourselves with that subordinate order of sociological

speculation formerly noticed, namely, with endeavouring to ascertain

what would be the effect of the introduction of any new cause, in a

state of society supposed to be fixed; a knowledge sufficient for the

more common exigencies of daily political practice, but liable to fail

in all cases in which the progressive movement of society is one of the

influencing elements; and therefore more precarious in proportion as the

case is more important. But since both the natural varieties of mankind,

and the original diversities of local circumstances, are much less

considerable than the points of agreement, there will naturally be a

certain degree of uniformity in the progressive development of the

species and of its works. And this uniformity tends to become greater,

not less, as society advances; since the evolution of each people, which

is at first determined exclusively by the nature and circumstances of

that people, is gradually brought under the influence (which becomes

stronger as civilization advances) of the other nations of the earth,

and of the circumstances by which they have been influenced. History

accordingly does, when judiciously examined, afford Empirical Laws of

Society. And the problem of general sociology is to ascertain these, and

connect them with the laws of human nature, by deductions showing that

such were the derivative laws naturally to be expected as the

consequences of those ultimate ones.

It is, indeed, hardly ever possible, even after history has suggested

the derivative law, to demonstrate _à priori_ that such was the only

order of succession or of coexistence in which the effects could,

consistently with the laws of human nature, have been produced. We can

at most make out that there were strong _à priori_ reasons for expecting

it, and that no other order of succession or coexistence would have been

so likely to result from the nature of man and the general circumstances

of his position. Often we cannot do even this; we cannot even show that

what did take place was probable _à priori_, but only that it was

possible. This, however,--which, in the Inverse Deductive Method that we

are now characterizing, is a real process of verification,--is as

indispensable, as verification by specific experience has been shown to

be, where the conclusion is originally obtained by the direct way of

deduction. The empirical laws must be the result of but a few instances,

since few nations have ever attained at all, and still fewer by their

own independent development, a high stage of social progress. If,

therefore, even one or two of these few instances be insufficiently

known, or imperfectly analysed into their elements, and therefore not

adequately compared with other instances, nothing is more probable than

that a wrong empirical law will emerge instead of the right one.

Accordingly, the most erroneous generalizations are continually made

from the course of history: not only in this country, where history

cannot yet be said to be at all cultivated as a science, but in other

countries, where it is so cultivated, and by persons well versed in it.

The only check or corrective is, constant verification by psychological

and ethological laws. We may add to this, that no one but a person

competently skilled in those laws is capable of preparing the materials

for historical generalization, by analysing the facts of history, or

even by observing the social phenomena of his own time. No other will be

aware of the comparative importance of different facts, nor consequently

know what facts to look for, or to observe; still less will he be

capable of estimating the evidence of facts which, as is the case with

most, cannot be ascertained by direct observation or learnt from

testimony, but must be inferred from marks.

§ 5. The Empirical Laws of Society are of two kinds; some are

uniformities of coexistence, some of succession. According as the

science is occupied in ascertaining and verifying the former sort of

uniformities or the latter, M. Comte gives it the title of Social

Statics, or of Social Dynamics; conformably to the distinction in

mechanics between the conditions of equilibrium and those of movement;

or in biology, between the laws of organization and those of life. The

first branch of the science ascertains the conditions of stability in

the social union: the second, the laws of progress. Social Dynamics is

the theory of Society considered in a state of progressive movement;

while Social Statics is the theory of the _consensus_ already spoken of

as existing among the different parts of the social organism; in other

words, the theory of the mutual actions and reactions of contemporaneous

social phenomena; "making[12] provisionally, as far as possible,

abstraction, for scientific purposes, of the fundamental movement which

is at all times gradually modifying the whole of them.

"In this first point of view, the provisions of sociology will enable us

to infer one from another (subject to ulterior verification by direct

observation) the various characteristic marks of each distinct mode of

social existence; in a manner essentially analogous to what is now

habitually practised in the anatomy of the physical body. This

preliminary aspect, therefore, of political science, of necessity

supposes that (contrary to the existing habits of philosophers) each of

the numerous elements of the social state, ceasing to be looked at

independently and absolutely, shall be always and exclusively considered

relatively to all the other elements, with the whole of which it is

united by mutual interdependence. It would be superfluous to insist here

upon the great and constant utility of this branch of sociological

speculation. It is, in the first place, the indispensable basis of the

theory of social progress. It may, moreover, be employed, immediately,

and of itself, to supply the place, provisionally at least, of direct

observation, which in many cases is not always practicable for some of

the elements of society, the real condition of which may however be

sufficiently judged of by means of the relations which connect them with

others previously known. The history of the sciences may give us some

notion of the habitual importance of this auxiliary resource, by

reminding us, for example, how the vulgar errors of mere erudition

concerning the pretended acquirements of the ancient Egyptians in the

higher astronomy, were irrevocably dissipated (even before sentence had

been passed on them by a sounder erudition) from the single

consideration of the inevitable connexion between the general state of

astronomy and that of abstract geometry, then evidently in its infancy.

It would be easy to cite a multitude of analogous cases, the character

of which could admit of no dispute. In order to avoid exaggeration,

however, it should be remarked, that these necessary relations among the

different aspects of society cannot, from their very nature, be so

simple and precise that the results observed could only have arisen from

some one mode of mutual co-ordination. Such a notion, already too

narrow in the science of life, would be completely at variance with the

still more complex nature of sociological speculations. But the exact

estimation of these limits of variation, both in the healthy and in the

morbid state, constitutes, at least as much as in the anatomy of the

natural body, an indispensable complement to every theory of

Sociological Statics; without which the indirect exploration above

spoken of would often lead into error.

"This is not the place for methodically demonstrating the existence of a

necessary relation among all the possible aspects of the same social

organism; a point on which, in principle at least, there is now little

difference of opinion among sound thinkers. From whichever of the social

elements we choose to set out, we may easily recognise that it has

always a connexion, more or less immediate, with all the other elements,

even with those which at first sight appear the most independent of it.

The dynamical consideration of the progressive development of civilized

humanity, affords, no doubt, a still more efficacious means of effecting

this interesting verification of the _consensus_ of the social

phenomena, by displaying the manner in which every change in any one

part, operates immediately, or very speedily, upon all the rest. But

this indication may be preceded, or at all events followed, by a

confirmation of a purely statical kind; for, in politics as in

mechanics, the communication of motion from one object to another proves

a connexion between them. Without descending to the minute

interdependence of the different branches of any one science or art, is

it not evident that among the different sciences, as well as among most

of the arts, there exists such a connexion, that if the state of any one

well marked division of them is sufficiently known to us, we can with

real scientific assurance infer, from their necessary correlation, the

contemporaneous state of every one of the others? By a further extension

of this consideration, we may conceive the necessary relation which

exists between the condition of the sciences in general and that of the

arts in general, except that the mutual dependence is less intense in

proportion as it is more indirect. The same is the case when, instead

of considering the aggregate of the social phenomena in some one people,

we examine it simultaneously in different contemporaneous nations;

between which the perpetual reciprocity of influence, especially in

modern times, cannot be contested, though the _consensus_ must in this

case be ordinarily of a less decided character, and must decrease

gradually with the affinity of the cases and the multiplicity of the

points of contact, so as at last, in some cases, to disappear almost

entirely; as for example between Western Europe and Eastern Asia, of

which the various general states of society appear to have been hitherto

almost independent of one another."

These remarks are followed by illustrations of one of the most

important, and until lately, most neglected, of the general principles

which, in this division of the social science, may be considered as

established; namely, the necessary correlation between the form of

government existing in any society and the contemporaneous state of

civilization: a natural law, which stamps the endless discussions and

innumerable theories respecting forms of government in the abstract, as

fruitless and worthless, for any other purpose than as a preparatory

treatment of materials to be afterwards used for the construction of a

better philosophy.

As already remarked, one of the main results of the science of social

statics would be to ascertain the requisites of stable political union.

There are some circumstances which, being found in all societies without

exception, and in the greatest degree where the social union is most

complete, may be considered (when psychological and ethological laws

confirm the indication) as conditions of the existence of the complex

phenomenon called a State. For example, no numerous society has ever

been held together without laws, or usages equivalent to them; without

tribunals, and an organized force of some sort to execute their

decisions. There have always been public authorities whom, with more or

less strictness and in cases more or less accurately defined, the rest

of the community obeyed, or according to general opinion were bound to

obey. By following out this course of inquiry we shall find a number of

requisites, which have been present in every society that has maintained

a collective existence, and on the cessation of which it has either

merged in some other society, or reconstructed itself on some new basis,

in which the conditions were conformed to. Although these results,

obtained by comparing different forms and states of society, amount in

themselves only to empirical laws; some of them, when once suggested,

are found to follow with so much probability from general laws of human

nature, that the consilience of the two processes raises the evidence to

proof, and the generalizations to the rank of scientific truths.

This seems to be affirmable (for instance) of the conclusions arrived at

in the following passage; extracted, with some alterations, from a

criticism on the negative philosophy of the eighteenth century,[13] and

which I quote, though (as in some former instances) from myself, because

I have no better way of illustrating the conception I have formed of the

kind of theorems of which sociological statics would consist.

"The very first element of the social union, obedience to a government

of some sort, has not been found so easy a thing to establish in the

world. Among a timid and spiritless race like the inhabitants of the

vast plains of tropical countries, passive obedience may be of natural

growth; though even there we doubt whether it has ever been found among

any people with whom fatalism, or in other words, submission to the

pressure of circumstances as a divine decree, did not prevail as a

religious doctrine. But the difficulty of inducing a brave and warlike

race to submit their individual _arbitrium_ to any common umpire, has

always been felt to be so great, that nothing short of supernatural

power has been deemed adequate to overcome it; and such tribes have

always assigned to the first institution of civil society a divine

origin. So differently did those judge who knew savage men by actual

experience, from those who had no acquaintance with them except in the

civilized state. In modern Europe itself, after the fall of the Roman

empire, to subdue the feudal anarchy and bring the whole people of any

European nation into subjection to government (though Christianity in

the most concentrated form of its influence was co-operating in the

work) required thrice as many centuries as have elapsed since that time.

"Now if these philosophers had known human nature under any other type

than that of their own age, and of the particular classes of society

among whom they lived, it would have occurred to them, that wherever

this habitual submission to law and government has been firmly and

durably established, and yet the vigour and manliness of character which

resisted its establishment have been in any degree preserved, certain

requisites have existed, certain conditions have been fulfilled, of

which the following may be regarded as the principal.

"First: there has existed, for all who were accounted citizens,--for all

who were not slaves, kept down by brute force,--a system of _education_,

beginning with infancy and continued through life, of which whatever

else it might include, one main and incessant ingredient was

_restraining discipline_. To train the human being in the habit, and

thence the power, of subordinating his personal impulses and aims, to

what were considered the ends of society; of adhering, against all

temptation, to the course of conduct which those ends prescribed; of

controlling in himself all feelings which were liable to militate

against those ends, and encouraging all such as tended towards them;

this was the purpose, to which every outward motive that the authority

directing the system could command, and every inward power or principle

which its knowledge of human nature enabled it to evoke, were

endeavoured to be rendered instrumental. The entire civil and military

policy of the ancient commonwealths was such a system of training; in

modern nations its place has been attempted to be supplied, principally,

by religious teaching. And whenever and in proportion as the strictness

of the restraining discipline was relaxed, the natural tendency of

mankind to anarchy re-asserted itself; the state became disorganized

from within; mutual conflict for selfish ends, neutralized the energies

which were required to keep up the contest against natural causes of

evil; and the nation, after a longer or briefer interval of progressive

decline, became either the slave of a despotism, or the prey of a

foreign invader.

"The second condition of permanent political society has been found to

be, the existence, in some form or other, of the feeling of allegiance

or loyalty. This feeling may vary in its objects, and is not confined to

any particular form of government; but whether in a democracy or in a

monarchy, its essence is always the same; viz. that there be in the

constitution of the state _something_ which is settled, something

permanent, and not to be called in question; something which, by general

agreement, has a right to be where it is, and to be secure against

disturbance, whatever else may change. This feeling may attach itself,

as among the Jews (and in most of the commonwealths of antiquity), to a

common God or gods, the protectors and guardians of their state. Or it

may attach itself to certain persons, who are deemed to be, whether by

divine appointment, by long prescription, or by the general recognition

of their superior capacity and worthiness, the rightful guides and

guardians of the rest. Or it may connect itself with laws; with ancient

liberties or ordinances. Or, finally, (and this is the only shape in

which the feeling is likely to exist hereafter,) it may attach itself to

the principles of individual freedom and political and social equality,

as realized in institutions which as yet exist nowhere, or exist only in

a rudimentary state. But in all political societies which have had a

durable existence, there has been some fixed point: something which

people agreed in holding sacred; which, wherever freedom of discussion

was a recognised principle, it was of course lawful to contest in

theory, but which no one could either fear or hope to see shaken in

practice; which, in short (except perhaps during some temporary crisis)

was in the common estimation placed beyond discussion. And the necessity

of this may easily be made evident. A state never is, nor until mankind

are vastly improved, can hope to be, for any long time exempt from

internal dissension; for there neither is nor has ever been any state of

society in which collisions did not occur between the immediate

interests and passions of powerful sections of the people. What, then,

enables nations to weather these storms, and pass through turbulent

times without any permanent weakening of the securities for peaceable

existence? Precisely this--that however important the interests about

which men fell out, the conflict did not affect the fundamental

principle of the system of social union which happened to exist; nor

threaten large portions of the community with the subversion of that on

which they had built their calculations, and with which their hopes and

aims had become identified. But when the questioning of these

fundamental principles is (not the occasional disease, or salutary

medicine, but) the habitual condition of the body politic; and when all

the violent animosities are called forth, which spring naturally from

such a situation, the state is virtually in a position of civil war; and

can never long remain free from it in act and fact.

"The third essential condition of stability in political society, is a

strong and active principle of cohesion among the members of the same

community or state. We need scarcely say that we do not mean

nationality, in the vulgar sense of the term; a senseless antipathy to

foreigners; indifference to the general welfare of the human race, or an

unjust preference of the supposed interests of our own country; a

cherishing of bad peculiarities because they are national, or a refusal

to adopt what has been found good by other countries. We mean a

principle of sympathy, not of hostility; of union, not of separation. We

mean a feeling of common interest among those who live under the same

government, and are contained within the same natural or historical

boundaries. We mean, that one part of the community do not consider

themselves as foreigners with regard to another part; that they set a

value on their connexion--feel that they are one people, that their lot

is cast together, that evil to any of their fellow-countrymen is evil to

themselves, and do not desire selfishly to free themselves from their

share of any common inconvenience by severing the connexion. How strong

this feeling was in those ancient commonwealths which attained any

durable greatness, every one knows. How happily Rome, in spite of all

her tyranny, succeeded in establishing the feeling of a common country

among the provinces of her vast and divided empire, will appear when any

one who has given due attention to the subject shall take the trouble to

point it out. In modern times the countries which have had that feeling

in the strongest degree have been the most powerful countries; England,

France, and, in proportion to their territory and resources, Holland and

Switzerland; while England in her connexion with Ireland, is one of the

most signal examples of the consequences of its absence. Every Italian

knows why Italy is under a foreign yoke; every German knows what

maintains despotism in the Austrian empire; the evils of Spain flow as

much from the absence of nationality among the Spaniards themselves, as

from the presence of it in their relations with foreigners: while the

completest illustration of all is afforded by the republics of South

America, where the parts of one and the same state adhere so slightly

together, that no sooner does any province think itself aggrieved by the

general government than it proclaims itself a separate nation."

§ 6. While the derivative laws of social statics are ascertained by

analysing different states of society, and comparing them with one

another, without regard to the order of their succession; the

consideration of the successive order is, on the contrary, predominant

in the study of social dynamics, of which the aim is to observe and

explain the sequences of social conditions. This branch of the social

science would be as complete as it can be made, if every one of the

leading general circumstances of each generation were traced to its

causes in the generation immediately preceding. But the _consensus_ is

so complete, (especially in modern history,) that in the filiation of

one generation and another, it is the whole which produces the whole,

rather than any part a part. Little progress, therefore, can be made in

establishing the filiation, directly from laws of human nature, without

having first ascertained the immediate or derivative laws according to

which social states generate one another as society advances; the

_axiomata media_ of General Sociology.

The empirical laws which are most readily obtained by generalization

from history do not amount to this. They are not the "middle principles"

themselves, but only evidence towards the establishment of such

principles. They consist of certain general tendencies which may be

perceived in society; a progressive increase of some social elements and

diminution of others, or a gradual change in the general character of

certain elements. It is easily seen, for instance, that as society

advances, mental tend more and more to prevail over bodily qualities,

and masses over individuals: that the occupation of all that portion of

mankind who are not under external restraint is at first chiefly

military, but society becomes progressively more and more engrossed with

productive pursuits, and the military spirit gradually gives way to the

industrial; to which many similar truths might be added. And with

generalizations of this description, ordinary inquirers, even of the

historical school now predominant on the Continent, are satisfied. But

these and all such results are still at too great a distance from the

elementary laws of human nature on which they depend,--too many links

intervene, and the concurrence of causes at each link is far too

complicated,--to enable these propositions to be presented as direct

corollaries from those elementary principles. They have, therefore, in

the minds of most inquirers, remained in the state of empirical laws,

applicable only within the bounds of actual observation; without any

means of determining their real limits, and of judging whether the

changes which have hitherto been in progress are destined to continue

indefinitely, or to terminate, or even to be reversed.

§ 7. In order to obtain better empirical laws, we must not rest

satisfied with noting the progressive changes which manifest themselves

in the separate elements of society, and in which nothing is indicated

but the relation of fragments of the effect to corresponding fragments

of the cause. It is necessary to combine the statical view of social

phenomena with the dynamical, considering not only the progressive

changes of the different elements, but the contemporaneous condition of

each; and thus obtain empirically the law of correspondence not only

between the simultaneous states, but between the simultaneous changes,

of those elements. This law of correspondence it is, which, duly

verified _à priori_, would become the real scientific derivative law of

the development of humanity and human affairs.

In the difficult process of observation and comparison which is here

required, it would evidently be a great assistance if it should happen

to be the fact, that some one element in the complex existence of social

man is pre-eminent over all others as the prime agent of the social

movement. For we could then take the progress of that one element as the

central chain, to each successive link of which, the corresponding links

of all the other progressions being appended, the succession of the

facts would by this alone be presented in a kind of spontaneous order,

far more nearly approaching to the real order of their filiation than

could be obtained by any other merely empirical process.

Now, the evidence of history and that of human nature combine, by a

striking instance of consilience, to show that there really is one

social element which is thus predominant, and almost paramount, among

the agents of the social progression. This is, the state of the

speculative faculties of mankind; including the nature of the beliefs

which by any means they have arrived at, concerning themselves and the

world by which they are surrounded.

It would be a great error, and one very little likely to be committed,

to assert that speculation, intellectual activity, the pursuit of truth,

is among the more powerful propensities of human nature, or holds a

predominating place in the lives of any, save decidedly exceptional,

individuals. But, notwithstanding the relative weakness of this

principle among other sociological agents, its influence is the main

determining cause of the social progress; all the other dispositions of

our nature which contribute to that progress, being dependent on it for

the means of accomplishing their share of the work. Thus (to take the

most obvious case first,) the impelling force to most of the

improvements effected in the arts of life, is the desire of increased

material comfort; but as we can only act upon external objects in

proportion to our knowledge of them, the state of knowledge at any time

is the limit of the industrial improvements possible at that time; and

the progress of industry must follow, and depend on, the progress of

knowledge. The same thing may be shown to be true, though it is not

quite so obvious, of the progress of the fine arts. Further, as the

strongest propensities of uncultivated or half-cultivated human nature

(being the purely selfish ones, and those of a sympathetic character

which partake most of the nature of selfishness) evidently tend in

themselves to disunite mankind, not to unite them,--to make them rivals,

not confederates; social existence is only possible by a disciplining of

those more powerful propensities, which consists in subordinating them

to a common system of opinions. The degree of this subordination is the

measure of the completeness of the social union, and the nature of the

common opinions determines its kind. But in order that mankind should

conform their actions to any set of opinions, these opinions must exist,

must be believed by them. And thus, the state of the speculative

faculties, the character of the propositions assented to by the

intellect, essentially determines the moral and political state of the

community, as we have already seen that it determines the physical.

These conclusions, deduced from the laws of human nature, are in entire

accordance with the general facts of history. Every considerable change

historically known to us in the condition of any portion of mankind,

when not brought about by external force, has been preceded by a change,

of proportional extent, in the state of their knowledge, or in their

prevalent beliefs. As between any given state of speculation, and the

correlative state of everything else, it was almost always the former

which first showed itself; though the effects, no doubt, reacted

potently upon the cause. Every considerable advance in material

civilization has been preceded by an advance in knowledge: and when any

great social change has come to pass, either in the way of gradual

development or of sudden conflict, it has had for its precursor a great

change in the opinions and modes of thinking of society. Polytheism,

Judaism, Christianity, Protestantism, the critical philosophy of modern

Europe, and its positive science--each of these has been a primary agent

in making society what it was at each successive period, while society

was but secondarily instrumental in making _them_, each of them (so far

as causes can be assigned for its existence) being mainly an emanation

not from the practical life of the period, but from the previous state

of belief and thought. The weakness of the speculative propensity in

mankind generally, has not, therefore, prevented the progress of

speculation from governing that of society at large; it has only, and

too often, prevented progress altogether, where the intellectual

progression has come to an early stand for want of sufficiently

favourable circumstances.

From this accumulated evidence, we are justified in concluding, that the

order of human progression in all respects will mainly depend on the

order of progression in the intellectual convictions of mankind, that

is, on the law of the successive transformations of human opinions. The

question remains, whether this law can be determined; at first from

history as an empirical law, then converted into a scientific theorem by

deducing it _à priori_ from the principles of human nature. As the

progress of knowledge and the changes in the opinions of mankind are

very slow, and manifest themselves in a well-defined manner only at long

intervals; it cannot be expected that the general order of sequence

should be discoverable from the examination of less than a very

considerable part of the duration of the social progress. It is

necessary to take into consideration the whole of past time, from the

first recorded condition of the human race, to the memorable phenomena

of the last and present generations.

§ 8. The investigation which I have thus endeavoured to characterize,

has been systematically attempted, up to the present time, by M. Comte

alone. His work is hitherto the only known example of the study of

social phenomena according to this conception of the Historical Method.

Without discussing here the worth of his conclusions, and especially of

his predictions and recommendations with respect to the Future of

society, which appear to me greatly inferior in value to his

appreciation of the Past, I shall confine myself to mentioning one

important generalization, which M. Comte regards as the fundamental law

of the progress of human knowledge. Speculation he conceives to have, on

every subject of human inquiry, three successive stages; in the first of

which it tends to explain the phenomena by supernatural agencies, in the

second by metaphysical abstractions, and in the third or final state

confines itself to ascertaining their laws of succession and similitude.

This generalization appears to me to have that high degree of scientific

evidence, which is derived from the concurrence of the indications of

history with the probabilities derived from the constitution of the

human mind. Nor could it be easily conceived, from the mere enunciation

of such a proposition, what a flood of light it lets in upon the whole

course of history; when its consequences are traced, by connecting with

each of the three states of human intellect which it distinguishes, and

with each successive modification of those three states, the correlative

condition of other social phenomena.[14]

But whatever decision competent judges may pronounce on the results

arrived at by any individual inquirer, the method now characterized is

that by which the derivative laws of social order and of social progress

must be sought. By its aid we may hereafter succeed not only in looking

far forward into the future history of the human race, but in

determining what artificial means may be used, and to what extent, to

accelerate the natural progress in so far as it is beneficial; to

compensate for whatever may be its inherent inconveniences or

disadvantages; and to guard against the dangers or accidents to which

our species is exposed from the necessary incidents of its progression.

Such practical instructions, founded on the highest branch of

speculative sociology, will form the noblest and most beneficial portion

of the Political Art.

That of this science and art even the foundations are but beginning to

be laid, is sufficiently evident. But the superior minds are fairly

turning themselves towards that object. It has become the aim of really

scientific thinkers to connect by theories the facts of universal

history: it is acknowledged to be one of the requisites of a general

system of social doctrine, that it should explain, so far as the data

exist, the main facts of history; and a Philosophy of History is

generally admitted to be at once the verification, and the initial form,

of the Philosophy of the Progress of Society.

If the endeavours now making in all the more cultivated nations, and

beginning to be made even in England (usually the last to enter into the

general movement of the European mind) for the construction of a

Philosophy of History, shall be directed and controlled by those views

of the nature of sociological evidence which I have (very briefly and

imperfectly) attempted to characterize; they cannot fail to give birth

to a sociological system widely removed from the vague and conjectural

character of all former attempts, and worthy to take its place, at last,

among the sciences. When this time shall come, no important branch of

human affairs will be any longer abandoned to empiricism and

unscientific surmise: the circle of human knowledge will be complete,

and it can only thereafter receive further enlargement by perpetual

expansion from within.

CHAPTER XI.

ADDITIONAL ELUCIDATIONS OF THE SCIENCE OF HISTORY.

§ 1. The doctrine which the preceding chapters were intended to enforce

and elucidate--that the collective series of social phenomena, in other

words the course of history, is subject to general laws, which

philosophy may possibly detect--has been familiar for generations to the

scientific thinkers of the Continent, and has for the last quarter of a

century passed out of their peculiar domain, into that of newspapers and

ordinary political discussion. In our own country, however, at the time

of the first publication of this Treatise, it was almost a novelty, and

the prevailing habits of thought on historical subjects were the very

reverse of a preparation for it. Since then a great change has taken

place, and has been eminently promoted by the important work of Mr.

Buckle; who, with characteristic energy, flung down this great

principle, together with many striking exemplifications of it, into the

arena of popular discussion, to be fought over by a sort of combatants,

in the presence of a sort of spectators, who would never even have been

aware that there existed such a principle if they had been left to learn

its existence from the speculations of pure science. And hence has

arisen a considerable amount of controversy, tending not only to make

the principle rapidly familiar to the majority of cultivated minds, but

also to clear it from the confusions and misunderstandings by which it

was but natural that it should for a time be clouded, and which impair

the worth of the doctrine to those who accept it, and are the

stumbling-block of many who do not.

Among the impediments to the general acknowledgment, by thoughtful

minds, of the subjection of historical facts to scientific laws, the

most fundamental continues to be that which is grounded on the doctrine

of Free Will, or in other words, on the denial that the law of

invariable Causation holds true of human volitions: for if it does not,

the course of history, being the result of human volitions, cannot be a

subject of scientific laws, since the volitions on which it depends can

neither be foreseen, nor reduced to any canon of regularity even after

they have occurred. I have discussed this question, as far as seemed

suitable to the occasion, in a former chapter: and I only think it

necessary to repeat, that the doctrine of the Causation of human

actions, improperly called the doctrine of Necessity, affirms no

mysterious _nexus_, or overruling fatality: it asserts only that men's

actions are the joint result of the general laws and circumstances of

human nature, and of their own particular characters; those characters

again being the consequence of the natural and artificial circumstances

that constituted their education, among which circumstances must be

reckoned their own conscious efforts. Any one who is willing to take (if

the expression may be permitted) the trouble of thinking himself into

the doctrine as thus stated, will find it, I believe, not only a

faithful interpretation of the universal experience of human conduct,

but a correct representation of the mode in which he himself, in every

particular case, spontaneously interprets his own experience of that

conduct.

But if this principle is true of individual man, it must be true of

collective man. If it is the law of human life, the law must be realized

in history. The experience of human affairs when looked at _en masse_,

must be in accordance with it if true, or repugnant to it if false. The

support which this _à posteriori_ verification affords to the law, is

the part of the case which has been most clearly and triumphantly

brought out by Mr. Buckle.

The facts of statistics, since they have been made a subject of careful

recordation and study, have yielded conclusions, some of which have been

very startling to persons not accustomed to regard moral actions as

subject to uniform laws. The very events which in their own nature

appear most capricious and uncertain, and which in any individual case

no attainable degree of knowledge would enable us to foresee, occur,

when considerable numbers are taken into the account, with a degree of

regularity approaching to mathematical. What act is there which all

would consider as more completely dependent on individual character, and

on the exercise of individual free will, than that of slaying a fellow

creature? Yet in any large country, the number of murders, in proportion

to the population, varies (it has been found) very little from one year

to another, and in its variations never deviates widely from a certain

average. What is still more remarkable, there is a similar approach to

constancy in the proportion of these murders annually committed with

every particular kind of instrument. There is a like approximation to

identity, as between one year and another, in the comparative number of

legitimate and of illegitimate births. The same thing is found true of

suicides, accidents, and all other social phenomena of which the

registration is sufficiently perfect; one of the most curiously

illustrative examples being the fact, ascertained by the registers of

the London and Paris post-offices, that the number of letters posted

which the writers have forgotten to direct, is nearly the same, in

proportion to the whole number of letters posted, in one year as in

another. "Year after year," says Mr. Buckle, "the same proportion of

letter-writers forget this simple act; so that for each successive

period we can actually foretell the number of persons whose memory will

fail them in regard to this trifling, and as it might appear, accidental

occurrence."[15]

This singular degree of regularity _en masse_, combined with the extreme

of irregularity in the cases composing the mass, is a felicitous

verification _à posteriori_ of the law of causation in its application

to human conduct. Assuming the truth of that law, every human action,

every murder for instance, is the concurrent result of two sets of

causes. On the one part, the general circumstances of the country and

its inhabitants; the moral, educational, economical, and other

influences operating on the whole people, and constituting what we term

the state of civilization. On the other part, the great variety of

influences special to the individual: his temperament, and other

peculiarities of organization, his parentage, habitual associates,

temptations, and so forth. If we now take the whole of the instances

which occur within a sufficiently large field to exhaust all the

combinations of these special influences, or in other words, to

eliminate chance; and if all these instances have occurred within such

narrow limits of time, that no material change can have taken place in

the general influences constituting the state of civilization of the

country; we may be certain, that if human actions are governed by

invariable laws, the aggregate result will be something like a constant

quantity. The number of murders committed within that space and time,

being the effect partly of general causes which have not varied, and

partly of partial causes the whole round of whose variations has been

included, will be, practically speaking, invariable.

Literally and mathematically invariable it is not, and could not be

expected to be: because the period of a year is too short to include

_all_ the possible combinations of partial causes, while it is, at the

same time, sufficiently long to make it probable that in some years at

least, of every series, there will have been introduced new influences

of a more or less general character; such as a more vigorous or a more

relaxed police; some temporary excitement from political or religious

causes; or some incident generally notorious, of a nature to act

morbidly on the imagination. That in spite of these unavoidable

imperfections in the data, there should be so very trifling a margin of

variation in the annual results, is a brilliant confirmation of the

general theory.

§ 2. The same considerations which thus strikingly corroborate the

evidence of the doctrine, that historical facts are the invariable

effects of causes, tend equally to clear that doctrine from various

misapprehensions, the existence of which has been put in evidence by the

recent discussions. Some persons, for instance, seemingly imagine the

doctrine to imply, not merely that the total number of murders committed

in a given space and time, is entirely the effect of the general

circumstances of society, but that every particular murder is so too:

that the individual murderer is, so to speak, a mere instrument in the

hands of general causes; that he himself has no option, or if he has,

and chose to exercise it, some one else would be necessitated to take

his place: that if any one of the actual murderers had abstained from

the crime, some person who would otherwise have remained innocent, would

have committed an extra murder to make up the average. Such a corollary

would certainly convict any theory which necessarily led to it of

absurdity. It is obvious, however, that each particular murder depends,

not on the general state of society only, but on that combined with

causes special to the case, which are generally much more powerful: and

if these special causes, which have greater influence than the general

ones in causing every particular murder, have no influence on the number

of murders in a given period, it is because the field of observation is

so extensive as to include all possible combinations of the special

causes--all varieties of individual character and individual temptation

compatible with the general state of society. The collective experiment,

as it may be termed, exactly separates the effect of the general from

that of the special causes, and shows the net result of the former: but

it declares nothing at all respecting the amount of influence of the

special causes, be it greater or smaller, since the scale of the

experiment extends to the number of cases within which the effects of

the special causes balance one another, and disappear in that of the

general causes.

I will not pretend that all the defenders of the theory have always kept

their language free from this same confusion, and have shown no tendency

to exalt the influence of general causes at the expense of special. I am

of opinion, on the contrary, that they have done so in a very great

degree, and by so doing have encumbered their theory with difficulties,

and laid it open to objections, which do not necessarily affect it.

Some, for example (among whom is Mr. Buckle himself), have inferred, or

allowed it to be supposed that they inferred, from the regularity in

the recurrence of events which depend on moral qualities, that the

moral qualities of mankind are little capable of being improved, or are

of little importance in the general progress of society, compared with

intellectual or economic causes. But to draw this inference is to forget

that the statistical tables, from which the invariable averages are

deduced, were compiled from facts occurring within narrow geographical

limits and in a small number of successive years; that is, from a field

the whole of which was under the operation of the same general causes,

and during too short a time to allow of much change therein. All moral

causes but those common to the country generally, have been eliminated

by the great number of instances taken; and those which are common to

the whole country have not varied considerably, in the short space of

time comprised in the observations. If we admit the supposition that

they have varied; if we compare one age with another, or one country

with another, or even one part of a country with another, differing in

position and character as to the moral elements, the crimes committed

within a year give no longer the same, but a widely different numerical

aggregate. And this cannot but be the case: for inasmuch as every single

crime committed by an individual mainly depends on his moral qualities,

the crimes committed by the entire population of the country must depend

in an equal degree on their collective moral qualities. To render this

element inoperative upon the large scale, it would be necessary to

suppose that the general moral average of mankind does not vary from

country to country or from age to age; which is not true, and even if it

were true, could not possibly be proved by any existing statistics. I do

not on this account the less agree in the opinion of Mr. Buckle, that

the intellectual element in mankind, including in that expression the

nature of their beliefs, the amount of their knowledge, and the

development of their intelligence, is the predominant circumstance in

determining their progress. But I am of this opinion, not because I

regard their moral or economical condition either as less powerful or

less variable agencies, but because these are in a great degree the

consequences of the intellectual condition, and are, in all cases,

limited by it; as was observed in the preceding chapter. The

intellectual changes are the most conspicuous agents in history, not

from their superior force, considered in themselves, but because

practically they work with the united power belonging to all three.[16]

§ 3. There is another distinction often neglected in the discussion of

this subject, which it is extremely important to observe. The theory of

the subjection of social progress to invariable laws, is often held in

conjunction with the doctrine, that social progress cannot be materially

influenced by the exertions of individual persons, or by the acts of

governments. But though these opinions are often held by the same

persons, they are two very different opinions, and the confusion between

them is the eternally recurring error of confounding Causation with

Fatalism. Because whatever happens will be the effect of causes, human

volitions among the rest, it does not follow that volitions, even those

of peculiar individuals, are not of great efficacy as causes. If any one

in a storm at sea, because about the same number of persons in every

year perish by shipwreck, should conclude that it was useless for him to

attempt to save his own life, we should call him a Fatalist; and should

remind him that the efforts of shipwrecked persons to save their lives

are so far from being immaterial, that the average amount of those

efforts is one of the causes on which the ascertained annual number of

deaths by shipwreck depend. However universal the laws of social

development may be, they cannot be more universal or more rigorous than

those of the physical agencies of nature; yet human will can convert

these into instruments of its designs, and the extent to which it does

so makes the chief difference between savages and the most highly

civilized people. Human and social facts, from their more complicated

nature, are not less, but more, modifiable, than mechanical and chemical

facts; human agency, therefore, has still greater power over them. And

accordingly, those who maintain that the evolution of society depends

exclusively, or almost exclusively, on general causes, always include

among these the collective knowledge and intellectual development of the

race. But if of the race, why not also of some powerful monarch or

thinker, or of the ruling portion of some political society, acting

through its government? Though the varieties of character among ordinary

individuals neutralize one another on any large scale, exceptional

individuals in important positions do not in any given age neutralize

one another; there was not another Themistocles, or Luther, or Julius

Cæsar, of equal powers and contrary dispositions, who exactly balanced

the given Themistocles, Luther, and Cæsar, and prevented them from

having any permanent effect. Moreover, for aught that appears, the

volitions of exceptional persons, or the opinions and purposes of the

individuals who at some particular time compose a government, may be

indispensable links in the chain of causation by which even the general

causes produce their effects; and I believe this to be the only tenable

form of the theory.

Lord Macaulay, in a celebrated passage of one of his early essays (let

me add that it was one which he did not himself choose to reprint),

gives expression to the doctrine of the absolute inoperativeness of

great men, more unqualified, I should think, than has been given to it

by any writer of equal abilities. He compares them to persons who

merely stand on a loftier height, and thence receive the sun's rays a

little earlier, than the rest of the human race. "The sun illuminates

the hills while it is still below the horizon, and truth is discovered

by the highest minds a little before it becomes manifest to the

multitude. This is the extent of their superiority. They are the first

to catch and reflect a light which, without their assistance, must in a

short time be visible to those who lie far beneath them."[17] If this

metaphor is to be carried out, it follows that if there had been no

Newton, the world would not only have had the Newtonian system, but

would have had it equally soon; as the sun would have risen just as

early to spectators in the plain if there had been no mountain at hand

to catch still earlier rays. And so it would be, if truths, like the

sun, rose by their own proper motion, without human effort; but not

otherwise. I believe that if Newton had not lived, the world must have

waited for the Newtonian philosophy until there had been another Newton,

or his equivalent. No ordinary man, and no succession of ordinary men,

could have achieved it. I will not go the length of saying that what

Newton did in a single life, might not have been done in successive

steps by some of those who followed him, each singly inferior to him in

genius. But even the least of those steps required a man of great

intellectual superiority. Eminent men do not merely see the coming light

from the hill-top, they mount on the hill-top and evoke it; and if no

one had ever ascended thither, the light, in many cases, might never

have risen upon the plain at all. Philosophy and religion are abundantly

amenable to general causes; yet few will doubt, that had there been no

Socrates, no Plato, and no Aristotle, there would have been no

philosophy for the next two thousand years, nor in all probability then;

and that if there had been no Christ, and no St. Paul, there would have

been no Christianity.

The point in which, above all, the influence of remarkable individuals

is decisive, is in determining the celerity of the movement. In most

states of society it is the existence of great men which decides even

whether there shall be any progress. It is conceivable that Greece, or

that Christian Europe, might have been progressive in certain periods of

their history through general causes only: but if there had been no

Mahomet, would Arabia have produced Avicenna or Averroes, or Caliphs of

Bagdad or of Cordova? In determining, however, in what manner and order

the progress of mankind shall take place if it take place at all, much

less depends on the character of individuals. There is a sort of

necessity established in this respect by the general laws of human

nature; by the constitution of the human mind. Certain truths cannot be

discovered, or inventions made, unless certain others have been made

first; certain social improvements, from the nature of the case, can

only follow, and not precede, others. The order of human progress,

therefore, may to a certain extent have definite laws assigned to it:

while as to its celerity, or even as to its taking place at all, no

generalization, extending to the human species generally, can possibly

be made; but only some very precarious approximate generalizations,

confined to the small portion of mankind in whom there has been anything

like consecutive progress within the historical period, and deduced from

their special position, or collected from their particular history. Even

looking to the _manner_ of progress, the order of succession of social

states, there is need of great flexibility in our generalizations. The

limits of variation in the possible development of social, as of animal

life, are a subject of which little is yet understood, and are one of

the great problems in social science. It is, at all events, a fact, that

different portions of mankind, under the influence of different

circumstances, have developed themselves in a more or less different

manner and into different forms; and among these determining

circumstances, the individual character of their great speculative

thinkers or practical organizers may well have been one. Who can tell

how profoundly the whole subsequent history of China may have been

influenced by the individuality of Confucius? and of Sparta (and hence

of Greece and the world) by that of Lycurgus?

Concerning the nature and extent of what a great man under favourable

circumstances can do for mankind, as well as of what a government can do

for a nation, many different opinions are possible; and every shade of

opinion on these points is consistent with the fullest recognition that

there are invariable laws of historical phenomena. Of course the degree

of influence which has to be assigned to these more special agencies,

makes a great difference in the precision which can be given to the

general laws, and in the confidence with which predictions can be

grounded on them. Whatever depends on the peculiarities of individuals,

combined with the accident of the positions they hold, is necessarily

incapable of being foreseen. Undoubtedly these casual combinations might

be eliminated like any others, by taking a sufficiently large cycle: the

peculiarities of a great historical character make their influence felt

in history sometimes for several thousand years, but it is highly

probable that they may make no difference at all at the end of fifty

millions. Since, however, we cannot obtain an average of the vast length

of time necessary to exhaust all the possible combinations of great men

and circumstances, as much of the law of evolution of human affairs as

depends upon this average, is and remains inaccessible to us: and within

the next thousand years, which are of considerably more importance to us

than the whole remainder of the fifty millions, the favourable and

unfavourable combinations which will occur will be to us purely

accidental. We cannot foresee the advent of great men. Those who

introduce new speculative thoughts or great practical conceptions into

the world, cannot have their epoch fixed beforehand. What science can

do, is this. It can trace through past history the general causes which

had brought mankind into that preliminary state, which when the right

sort of great man appeared, rendered them accessible to his influence.

If this state continues, experience renders it tolerably certain that in

a longer or shorter period the great man will be produced; provided that

the general circumstances of the country and people are (which very

often they are not) compatible with his existence; of which point also,

science can in some measure judge. It is in this manner that the results

of progress, except as to the celerity of their production, can be, to

a certain extent, reduced to regularity and law. And the belief that

they can be so, is equally consistent with assigning very great, or very

little efficacy, to the influence of exceptional men, or of the acts of

governments. And the same may be said of all other accidents and

disturbing causes.

§ 4. It would nevertheless be a great error to assign only a trifling

importance to the agency of eminent individuals, or of governments. It

must not be concluded that the influence of either is small, because

they cannot bestow what the general circumstances of society, and the

course of its previous history, have not prepared it to receive. Neither

thinkers nor governments effect all that they intend, but in

compensation they often produce important results which they did not in

the least foresee. Great men, and great actions, are seldom wasted: they

send forth a thousand unseen influences, more effective than those which

are seen; and though nine out of every ten things done, with a good

purpose, by those who are in advance of their age, produce no material

effect, the tenth thing produces effects twenty times as great as any

one would have dreamed of predicting from it. Even the men who for want

of sufficiently favourable circumstances left no impress at all upon

their own age, have often been of the greatest value to posterity. Who

could appear to have lived more entirely in vain, than some of the early

heretics? They were burnt or massacred, their writings extirpated, their

memory anathematized, and their very names and existence left for seven

or eight centuries in the obscurity of musty manuscripts--their history

to be gathered, perhaps, only from the sentences by which they were

condemned. Yet the memory of these men--men who resisted certain

pretensions or certain dogmas of the Church in the very age in which the

unanimous assent of Christendom was afterwards claimed as having been

given to them, and asserted as the ground of their authority--broke the

chain of tradition, established a series of precedents for resistance,

inspired later Reformers with the courage, and armed them with the

weapons, which they needed when mankind were better prepared to follow

their impulse. To this example from men, let us add another from

governments. The comparatively enlightened rule of which Spain had the

benefit during a considerable part of the eighteenth century, did not

correct the fundamental defects of the Spanish people; and in

consequence, though it did great temporary good, so much of that good

perished with it, that it may plausibly be affirmed to have had no

permanent effect. The case has been cited as a proof how little

governments can do, in opposition to the causes which have determined

the general character of the nation. It does show how much there is

which they cannot do; but not that they can do nothing. Compare what

Spain was at the beginning of that half century of liberal government,

with what she had become at its close. That period fairly let in the

light of European thought upon the more educated classes; and it never

afterwards ceased to go on spreading. Previous to that time the change

was in an inverse direction; culture, light, intellectual and even

material activity, were becoming extinguished. Was it nothing to arrest

this downward and convert it into an upward course? How much that

Charles the Third and Aranda could not do, has been the ultimate

consequence of what they did! To that half century Spain owes that she

has got rid of the Inquisition, that she has got rid of the monks, that

she now has parliaments and (save in exceptional intervals) a free

press, and the feelings of freedom and citizenship, and is acquiring

railroads and all the other constituents of material and economical

progress. In the Spain which preceded that era there was not a single

element at work, which could have led to these results in any length of

time, if the country had continued to be governed as it was by the last

princes of the Austrian dynasty, or if the Bourbon rulers had been from

the first what, both in Spain and in Naples, they afterwards became.

And if a government can do much, even when it seems to have done little,

in causing positive improvement, still greater are the issues dependent

on it in the way of warding off evils, both internal and external, which

else would stop improvement altogether. A good or a bad counsellor, in a

single city at a particular crisis, has affected the whole subsequent

fate of the world. It is as certain as any contingent judgment

respecting historical events can be, that if there had been no

Themistocles there would have been no victory of Salamis; and had there

not, where would have been all our civilization? How different again

would have been the issue if Epaminondas, or Timoleon, or even

Iphicrates, instead of Chares and Lysicles, had commanded at Chæroneia.

As is well said in the second of two Essays on the Study of History,[18]

in my judgment the soundest and most philosophical productions which the

recent controversies on this subject have called forth; historical

science authorizes not absolute, but only conditional predictions.

General causes count for much, but individuals also "produce great

changes in history, and colour its whole complexion long after their

death.... No one can doubt that the Roman republic would have subsided

into a military despotism if Julius Cæsar had never lived;" (thus much

was rendered practically certain by general causes): "but is it at all

clear that in that case Gaul would ever have formed a province of the

empire? Might not Varus have lost his three legions on the banks of the

Rhone? and might not that river have become the frontier instead of the

Rhine? This might well have happened if Cæsar and Crassus had changed

provinces; and it is surely impossible to say that in such an event the

venue (as lawyers say) of European civilization might not have been

changed. The Norman Conquest in the same way was as much the act of a

single man, as the writing of a newspaper article; and knowing as we do

the history of that man and his family, we can retrospectively predict

with all but infallible certainty, that no other person" (no other in

that age, I presume, is meant), "could have accomplished the enterprise.

If it had not been accomplished, is there any ground to suppose that

either our history or our national character would have been what they

are?"

As is most truly remarked by the same writer, the whole stream of

Grecian history, as cleared up by Mr. Grote, is one series of examples

how often events on which the whole destiny of subsequent civilization

turned, were dependent on the personal character for good or evil of

some one individual. It must be said, however, that Greece furnishes the

most extreme example of this nature to be found in history, and is a

very exaggerated specimen of the general tendency. It has happened only

that once, and will probably never happen again, that the fortunes of

mankind depended upon keeping a certain order of things in existence in

a single town, or a country scarcely larger than Yorkshire; capable of

being ruined or saved by a hundred causes, of very slight magnitude in

comparison with the general tendencies of human affairs. Neither

ordinary accidents, nor the characters of individuals, can ever again be

so vitally important as they then were. The longer our species lasts,

and the more civilized it becomes, the more, as Comte remarks, does the

influence of past generations over the present, and of mankind _en

masse_ over every individual in it, predominate over other forces: and

though the course of affairs never ceases to be susceptible of

alteration both by accidents and by personal qualities, the increasing

preponderance of the collective agency of the species over all minor

causes, is constantly bringing the general evolution of the race into

something which deviates less from a certain and preappointed track.

Historical science, therefore, is always becoming more possible: not

solely because it is better studied, but because, in every generation,

it becomes better adapted for study.

CHAPTER XII.

OF THE LOGIC OF PRACTICE, OR ART; INCLUDING MORALITY AND POLICY.

§ 1. In the preceding chapters we have endeavoured to characterize the

present state of those among the branches of knowledge called Moral,

which are sciences in the only proper sense of the term, that is,

inquiries into the course of nature. It is customary, however, to

include under the term moral knowledge, and even (though improperly)

under that of moral science, an inquiry the results of which do not

express themselves in the indicative, but in the imperative mood, or in

periphrases equivalent to it; what is called the knowledge of duties;

practical ethics, or morality.

Now, the imperative mood is the characteristic of art, as distinguished

from science. Whatever speaks in rules, or precepts, not in assertions

respecting matters of fact, is art: and ethics, or morality, is properly

a portion of the art corresponding to the sciences of human nature and

society.[19]

The Method, therefore, of Ethics, can be no other than that of Art, or

Practice, in general: and the portion yet uncompleted, of the task which

we proposed to ourselves in the concluding Book, is to characterize the

general Method of Art, as distinguished from Science.

§ 2. In all branches of practical business, there are cases in which

individuals are bound to conform their practice to a pre-established

rule, while there are others in which it is part of their task to find

or construct the rule by which they are to govern their conduct. The

first, for example, is the case of a judge, under a definite written

code. The judge is not called upon to determine what course would be

intrinsically the most advisable in the particular case in hand, but

only within what rule of law it falls; what the legislator has ordained

to be done in the kind of case, and must therefore be presumed to have

intended in the individual case. The method must here be wholly and

exclusively one of ratiocination, or syllogism; and the process is

obviously, what in our analysis of the syllogism we showed that all

ratiocination is, namely the interpretation of a formula.

In order that our illustration of the opposite case may be taken from

the same class of subjects as the former, we will suppose, in contrast

with the situation of the judge, the position of a legislator. As the

judge has laws for his guidance, so the legislator has rules, and maxims

of policy; but it would be a manifest error to suppose that the

legislator is bound by these maxims in the same manner as the judge is

bound by the laws, and that all he has to do is to argue down from them

to the particular case, as the judge does from the laws. The legislator

is bound to take into consideration the reasons or grounds of the maxim;

the judge has nothing to do with those of the law, except so far as a

consideration of them may throw light upon the intention of the

law-maker, where his words have left it doubtful. To the judge, the

rule, once positively ascertained, is final; but the legislator, or

other practitioner, who goes by rules rather than by their reasons, like

the old-fashioned German tacticians who were vanquished by Napoleon, or

the physician who preferred that his patients should die by rule rather

than recover contrary to it, is rightly judged to be a mere pedant, and

the slave of his formulas.

Now, the reasons of a maxim of policy, or of any other rule of art, can

be no other than the theorems of the corresponding science.

The relation in which rules of art stand to doctrines of science may be

thus characterized. The art proposes to itself an end to be attained,

defines the end, and hands it over to the science. The science receives

it, considers it as a phenomenon or effect to be studied, and having

investigated its causes and conditions, sends it back to art with a

theorem of the combination of circumstances by which it could be

produced. Art then examines these combinations of circumstances, and

according as any of them are or are not in human power, pronounces the

end attainable or not. The only one of the premises, therefore, which

Art supplies, is the original major premise, which asserts that the

attainment of the given end is desirable. Science then lends to Art the

proposition (obtained by a series of inductions or of deductions) that

the performance of certain actions will attain the end. From these

premises Art concludes that the performance of these actions is

desirable, and finding it also practicable, converts the theorem into a

rule or precept.

§ 3. It deserves particular notice, that the theorem or speculative

truth is not ripe for being turned into a precept, until the whole, and

not a part merely, of the operation which belongs to science, has been

performed. Suppose that we have completed the scientific process only up

to a certain point; have discovered that a particular cause will produce

the desired effect, but have not ascertained all the negative conditions

which are necessary, that is, all the circumstances which, if present,

would prevent its production. If, in this imperfect state of the

scientific theory, we attempt to frame a rule of art, we perform that

operation prematurely. Whenever any counteracting cause, overlooked by

the theorem, takes place, the rule will be at fault: we shall employ the

means and the end will not follow. No arguing from or about the rule

itself will then help us through the difficulty: there is nothing for it

but to turn back and finish the scientific process which should have

preceded the formation of the rule. We must re-open the investigation,

to inquire into the remainder of the conditions on which the effect

depends; and only after we have ascertained the whole of these, are we

prepared to transform the completed law of the effect into a precept, in

which those circumstances or combinations of circumstances which the

science exhibits as conditions, are prescribed as means.

It is true that, for the sake of convenience, rules must be formed from

something less than this ideally perfect theory; in the first place,

because the theory can seldom be made ideally perfect; and next,

because, if all the counteracting contingencies, whether of frequent or

of rare occurrence, were included, the rules would be too cumbrous to be

apprehended and remembered by ordinary capacities, on the common

occasions of life. The rules of art do not attempt to comprise more

conditions than require to be attended to in ordinary cases; and are

therefore always imperfect. In the manual arts, where the requisite

conditions are not numerous, and where those which the rules do not

specify are generally either plain to common observation or speedily

learnt from practice, rules may often be safely acted on by persons who

know nothing more than the rule. But in the complicated affairs of life,

and still more in those of states and societies, rules cannot be relied

on, without constantly referring back to the scientific laws on which

they are founded. To know what are the practical contingencies which

require a modification of the rule, or which are altogether exceptions

to it, is to know what combinations of circumstances would interfere

with, or entirely counteract, the consequences of those laws: and this

can only be learnt by a reference to the theoretic grounds of the rule.

By a wise practitioner, therefore, rules of conduct will only be

considered as provisional. Being made for the most numerous cases, or

for those of most ordinary occurrence, they point out the manner in

which it will be least perilous to act, where time or means do not exist

for analysing the actual circumstances of the case, or where we cannot

trust our judgment in estimating them. But they do not at all supersede

the propriety of going through (when circumstances permit) the

scientific process requisite for framing a rule from the data of the

particular case before us. At the same time, the common rule may very

properly serve as an admonition that a certain mode of action has been

found by ourselves and others to be well adapted to the cases of most

common occurrence; so that if it be unsuitable to the case in hand, the

reason of its being so will be likely to arise from some unusual

circumstance.

§ 4. The error is therefore apparent, of those who would deduce the line

of conduct proper to particular cases, from supposed universal practical

maxims; overlooking the necessity of constantly referring back to the

principles of the speculative science, in order to be sure of attaining

even the specific end which the rules have in view. How much greater

still, then, must the error be, of setting up such unbending principles,

not merely as universal rules for attaining a given end, but as rules of

conduct generally; without regard to the possibility, not only that some

modifying cause may prevent the attainment of the given end by the means

which the rule prescribes, but that success itself may conflict with

some other end, which may possibly chance to be more desirable.

This is the habitual error of many of the political speculators whom I

have characterized as the geometrical school; especially in France,

where ratiocination from rules of practice forms the staple commodity of

journalism and political oratory; a misapprehension of the functions of

Deduction which has brought much discredit, in the estimation of other

countries, upon the spirit of generalization so honourably

characteristic of the French mind. The common-places of politics, in

France, are large and sweeping practical maxims, from which, as ultimate

premises, men reason downwards to particular applications, and this they

call being logical and consistent. For instance, they are perpetually

arguing that such and such a measure ought to be adopted, because it is

a consequence of the principle on which the form of government is

founded; of the principle of legitimacy, or the principle of the

sovereignty of the people. To which it may be answered, that if these be

really practical principles, they must rest on speculative grounds; the

sovereignty of the people (for example) must be a right foundation for

government, because a government thus constituted tends to produce

certain beneficial effects. Inasmuch, however, as no government produces

all possible beneficial effects, but all are attended with more or fewer

inconveniences; and since these cannot usually be combated by means

drawn from the very causes which produce them; it would be often a much

stronger recommendation of some practical arrangement, that it does not

follow from what is called the general principle of the government, than

that it does. Under a government of legitimacy, the presumption is far

rather in favour of institutions of popular origin; and in a democracy,

in favour of arrangements tending to check the impetus of popular will.

The line of argumentation so commonly mistaken in France for political

philosophy, tends to the practical conclusion that we should exert our

utmost efforts to aggravate, instead of alleviating, whatever are the

characteristic imperfections of the system of institutions which we

prefer, or under which we happen to live.

§ 5. The grounds, then, of every rule of art, are to be found in the

theorems of science. An art, or a body of art, consists of the rules,

together with as much of the speculative propositions as comprises the

justification of those rules. The complete art of any matter, includes a

selection of such a portion from the science, as is necessary to show on

what conditions the effects, which the art aims at producing, depend.

And Art in general, consists of the truths of Science, arranged in the

most convenient order for practice, instead of the order which is the

most convenient for thought. Science groups and arranges its truths, so

as to enable us to take in at one view as much as possible of the

general order of the universe. Art, though it must assume the same

general laws, follows them only into such of their detailed consequences

as have led to the formation of rules of conduct; and brings together

from parts of the field of science most remote from one another, the

truths relating to the production of the different and heterogeneous

conditions necessary to each effect which the exigencies of practical

life require to be produced.

Science, therefore, following one cause to its various effects, while

art traces one effect to its multiplied and diversified causes and

conditions; there is need of a set of intermediate scientific truths,

derived from the higher generalities of science, and destined to serve

as the generalia or first principles of the various arts. The scientific

operation of framing these intermediate principles, M. Comte

characterizes as one of those results of philosophy which are reserved

for futurity. The only complete example which he points out as actually

realized, and which can be held up as a type to be imitated in more

important matters, is the general theory of the art of Descriptive

Geometry, as conceived by M. Monge. It is not, however, difficult to

understand what the nature of these intermediate principles must

generally be. After framing the most comprehensive possible conception

of the end to be aimed at, that is, of the effect to be produced, and

determining in the same comprehensive manner the set of conditions on

which that effect depends; there remains to be taken, a general survey

of the resources which can be commanded for realizing this set of

conditions; and when the result of this survey has been embodied in the

fewest and most extensive propositions possible, those propositions will

express the general relation between the available means and the end,

and will constitute the general scientific theory of the art; from which

its practical methods will follow as corollaries.

§ 6. But though the reasonings which connect the end or purpose of every

art with its means, belong to the domain of Science, the definition of

the end itself belongs exclusively to Art, and forms its peculiar

province. Every art has one first principle, or general major premise,

not borrowed from science; that which enunciates the object aimed at,

and affirms it to be a desirable object. The builder's art assumes that

it is desirable to have buildings; architecture (as one of the fine

arts), that it is desirable to have them beautiful or imposing. The

hygienic and medical arts assume, the one that the preservation of

health, the other that the cure of disease, are fitting and desirable

ends. These are not propositions of science. Propositions of science

assert a matter of fact: an existence, a coexistence, a succession, or a

resemblance. The propositions now spoken of do not assert that anything

is, but enjoin or recommend that something should be. They are a class

by themselves. A proposition of which the predicate is expressed, by the

words _ought_ or _should be_, is generically different from one which is

expressed by _is_, or _will be_. It is true that, in the largest sense

of the words, even these propositions assert something as a matter of

fact. The fact affirmed in them is, that the conduct recommended excites

in the speaker's mind the feeling of approbation. This, however, does

not go to the bottom of the matter; for the speaker's approbation is no

sufficient reason why other people should approve; nor ought it to be a

conclusive reason even with himself. For the purposes of practice, every

one must be required to justify his approbation: and for this there is

need of general premises, determining what are the proper objects of

approbation, and what the proper order of precedence among those

objects.

These general premises, together with the principal conclusions which

may be deduced from them, form (or rather might form) a body of

doctrine, which is properly the Art of Life, in its three departments,

Morality, Prudence or Policy, and Æsthetics; the Right, the Expedient,

and the Beautiful or Noble, in human conduct and works. To this art,

(which, in the main, is unfortunately still to be created,) all other

arts are subordinate; since its principles are those which must

determine whether the special aim of any particular art is worthy and

desirable, and what is its place in the scale of desirable things. Every

art is thus a joint result of laws of nature disclosed by science, and

of the general principles of what has been called Teleology, or the

Doctrine of Ends;[20] which, borrowing the language of the German

metaphysicians, may also be termed, not improperly, the Principles of

Practical Reason.

A scientific observer or reasoner, merely as such, is not an adviser

for practice. His part is only to show that certain consequences follow

from certain causes, and that to obtain certain ends, certain means are

the most effectual. Whether the ends themselves are such as ought to be

pursued, and if so, in what cases and to how great a length, it is no

part of his business as a cultivator of science to decide, and science

alone will never qualify him for the decision. In purely physical

science, there is not much temptation to assume this ulterior office;

but those who treat of human nature and society invariably claim it;

they always undertake to say, not merely what is, but what ought to be.

To entitle them to do this, a complete doctrine of Teleology is

indispensable. A scientific theory, however perfect, of the subject

matter, considered merely as part of the order of nature, can in no

degree serve as a substitute. In this respect the various subordinate

arts afford a misleading analogy. In them there is seldom any visible

necessity for justifying the end, since in general its desirableness is

denied by nobody, and it is only when the question of precedence is to

be decided between that end and some other, that the general principles

of Teleology have to be called in: but a writer on Morals and Politics

requires those principles at every step. The most elaborate and

well-digested exposition of the laws of succession and coexistence among

mental or social phenomena, and of their relation to one another as

causes and effects, will be of no avail towards the art of Life or of

Society, if the ends to be aimed at by that art are left to the vague

suggestions of the _intellectus sibi permissus_, or are taken for

granted without analysis or questioning.

§ 7. There is, then, a Philosophia Prima peculiar to Art, as there is

one which belongs to Science. There are not only first principles of

Knowledge, but first principles of Conduct. There must be some standard

by which to determine the goodness or badness, absolute and comparative,

of ends, or objects of desire. And whatever that standard is, there can

be but one: for if there were several ultimate principles of conduct,

the same conduct might be approved by one of those principles and

condemned by another; and there would be needed some more general

principle, as umpire between them.

Accordingly, writers on moral philosophy have mostly felt the necessity

not only of referring all rules of conduct, and all judgments of praise

and blame, to principles, but of referring them to some one principle;

some rule, or standard, with which all other rules of conduct were

required to be consistent, and from which by ultimate consequence they

could all be deduced. Those who have dispensed with the assumption of

such an universal standard, have only been enabled to do so by supposing

that a moral sense, or instinct, inherent in our constitution, informs

us, both what principles of conduct we are bound to observe, and also in

what order these should be subordinated to one another.

The theory of the foundations of morality is a subject which it would be

out of place, in a work like this, to discuss at large, and which could

not to any useful purpose be treated incidentally. I shall content

myself therefore with saying, that the doctrine of intuitive moral

principles, even if true, would provide only for that portion of the

field of conduct which is properly called moral. For the remainder of

the practice of life some general principle, or standard, must still be

sought; and if that principle be rightly chosen, it will be found, I

apprehend, to serve quite as well for the ultimate principle of

Morality, as for that of Prudence, Policy, or Taste.

Without attempting in this place to justify my opinion, or even to

define the kind of justification which it admits of, I merely declare my

conviction, that the general principle to which all rules of practice

ought to conform, and the test by which they should be tried, is that of

conduciveness to the happiness of mankind, or rather, of all sentient

beings: in other words, that the promotion of happiness is the ultimate

principle of Teleology.[21]

I do not mean to assert that the promotion of happiness should be

itself the end of all actions, or even of all rules of action. It is the

justification, and ought to be the controller, of all ends, but is not

itself the sole end. There are many virtuous actions, and even virtuous

modes of action (though the cases are, I think, less frequent than is

often supposed) by which happiness in the particular instance is

sacrificed, more pain being produced than pleasure. But conduct of which

this can be truly asserted, admits of justification only because it can

be shown that on the whole more happiness will exist in the world, if

feelings are cultivated which will make people, in certain cases,

regardless of happiness. I fully admit that this is true: that the

cultivation of an ideal nobleness of will and conduct, should be to

individual human beings an end, to which the specific pursuit either of

their own happiness or of that of others (except so far as included in

that idea) should, in any case of conflict, give way. But I hold that

the very question, what constitutes this elevation of character, is

itself to be decided by a reference to happiness as the standard. The

character itself should be, to the individual, a paramount end, simply

because the existence of this ideal nobleness of character, or of a near

approach to it, in any abundance, would go further than all things else

towards making human life happy; both in the comparatively humble sense,

of pleasure and freedom from pain, and in the higher meaning, of

rendering life, not what it now is almost universally, puerile and

insignificant--but such as human beings with highly developed faculties

can care to have.

§ 8. With these remarks we must close this summary view of the

application of the general logic of scientific inquiry to the moral and

social departments of science. Notwithstanding the extreme generality of

the principles of method which I have laid down, (a generality which, I

trust, is not, in this instance, synonymous with vagueness) I have

indulged the hope that to some of those on whom the task will devolve of

bringing those most important of all sciences into a more satisfactory

state, these observations may be useful; both in removing erroneous, and

in clearing up the true, conceptions of the means by which, on subjects

of so high a degree of complication, truth can be attained. Should this

hope be realized, what is probably destined to be the great intellectual

achievement of the next two or three generations of European thinkers

will have been in some degree forwarded.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Some arguments and explanations, supplementary to those in the text,

will be found in _An Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy_,

chap. xxvi.

[2] Supra, p. 137.

[3] When this chapter was written, Mr. Bain had not yet published even

the first part ("The Senses and the Intellect") of his profound Treatise

on the Mind. In this, the laws of association have been more

comprehensively stated and more largely exemplified than by any previous

writer; and the work, having been completed by the publication of "The

Emotions and the Will," may now be referred to as incomparably the most

complete analytical exposition of the mental phenomena, on the basis of

a legitimate Induction, which has yet been produced.

Many striking applications of the laws of association to the explanation

of complex mental phenomena, are also to be found in Mr. Herbert

Spencer's "Principles of Psychology."

[4] In the case of the moral sentiments the place of direct experiment

is to a considerable extent supplied by historical experience, and we

are able to trace with a tolerable approach to certainty the particular

associations by which those sentiments are engendered. This has been

attempted, so far as respects the sentiment of justice, in a little work

by the present author, entitled _Utilitarianism_.

[5] The most favourable cases for making such approximate

generalizations are what may be termed collective instances; where we

are fortunately enabled to see the whole class respecting which we are

inquiring, in action at once; and, from the qualities displayed by the

collective body, are able to judge what must be the qualities of the

majority of the individuals composing it. Thus the character of a nation

is shown in its acts as a nation; not so much in the acts of its

government, for those are much influenced by other causes; but in the

current popular maxims, and other marks of the general direction of

public opinion; in the character of the persons or writings that are

held in permanent esteem or admiration; in laws and institutions, so far

as they are the work of the nation itself, or are acknowledged and

supported by it; and so forth. But even here there is a large margin of

doubt and uncertainty. These things are liable to be influenced by many

circumstances: they are partly determined by the distinctive qualities

of that nation or body of persons, but partly also by external causes

which would influence any other body of persons in the same manner. In

order, therefore, to make the experiment really complete, we ought to be

able to try it without variation upon other nations: to try how

Englishmen would act or feel if placed in the same circumstances in

which we have supposed Frenchmen to be placed; to apply, in short, the

Method of Difference as well as that of Agreement. Now these experiments

we cannot try, nor even approximate to.

[6] "To which," says Dr. Whewell, "we may add, that it is certain from

the history of the subject, that in that case the hypothesis would never

have been framed at all."

Dr. Whewell (_Philosophy of Discovery_, pp. 277-282) defends Bacon's

rule against the preceding strictures. But his defence consists only in

asserting and exemplifying a proposition which I had myself stated, viz.

that though the largest generalizations may be the earliest made, they

are not at first seen in their entire generality, but acquire it by

degrees, as they are found to explain one class after another of

phenomena. The laws of motion, for example, were not known to extend to

the celestial regions, until the motions of the celestial bodies had

been deduced from them. This however does not in any way affect the

fact, that the middle principles of astronomy, the central force for

example, and the law of the inverse square, could not have been

discovered, if the laws of motion, which are so much more universal, had

not been known first. On Bacon's system of step-by-step generalization,

it would be impossible in any science to ascend higher than the

empirical laws; a remark which Dr. Whewell's own Inductive Tables,

referred to by him in support of his argument, amply bear out.

[7] Vol. i. p. 494 to the end of the chapter.

[8] _Biographia Literaria_, i. 214.

[9] Supra, vol. i. p. 500.

[10] _Essays on some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy_, pp.

137-140.

[11] The quotations in this paragraph are from a paper written by the

author, and published in a periodical in 1834.

[12] _Cours de Philosophie Positive_, iv. 325-9.

[13] Since reprinted entire in _Dissertations and Discussions_, as the

concluding paper of the first volume.

[14] This great generalization is often unfavourably criticised (as by

Dr. Whewell for instance) under a misapprehension of its real import.

The doctrine, that the theological explanation of phenomena belongs only

to the infancy of our knowledge of them, ought not to be construed as if

it was equivalent to the assertion, that mankind, as their knowledge

advances, will necessarily cease to believe in any kind of theology.

This was M. Comte's opinion; but it is by no means implied in his

fundamental theorem. All that is implied is, that in an advanced state

of human knowledge, no other Ruler of the World will be acknowledged

than one who rules by universal laws, and does not at all, or does not

unless in very peculiar cases, produce events by special interpositions.

Originally all natural events were ascribed to such interpositions. At

present every educated person rejects this explanation in regard to all

classes of phenomena of which the laws have been fully ascertained;

though some have not yet reached the point of referring all phenomena to

the idea of Law, but believe that rain and sunshine, famine and

pestilence, victory and defeat, death and life, are issues which the

Creator does not leave to the operation of his general laws, but

reserves to be decided by express acts of volition. M. Comte's theory is

the negation of this doctrine.

Dr. Whewell equally misunderstands M. Comte's doctrine respecting the

second, or metaphysical stage of speculation. M. Comte did not mean that

"discussions concerning ideas" are limited to an early stage of inquiry,

and cease when science enters into the positive stage. (_Philosophy of

Discovery_, pp. 226 et seq.) In all M. Comte's speculations as much

stress is laid on the process of clearing up our conceptions, as on the

ascertainment of facts. When M. Comte speaks of the metaphysical stage

of speculation, he means the stage in which men speak of "Nature" and

other abstractions as if they were active forces, producing effects;

when Nature is said to do this, or forbid that; when Nature's horror of

a vacuum, Nature's non-admission of a break, Nature's _vis medicatrix_,

were offered as explanations of phenomena; when the qualities of things

were mistaken for real entities dwelling in the things; when the

phenomena of living bodies were thought to be accounted for by being

referred to a "vital force;" when, in short, the abstract names of

phenomena were mistaken for the causes of their existence. In this sense

of the word it cannot be reasonably denied that the metaphysical

explanation of phenomena, equally with the theological, gives way before

the advance of real science.

That the final, or positive stage, as conceived by M. Comte, has been

equally misunderstood, and that, notwithstanding some expressions open

to just criticism, M. Comte never dreamed of denying the legitimacy of

inquiry into all causes which are accessible to human investigation, I

have pointed out in a former place.

[15] Buckle's _History of Civilization_, i. 30.

[16] I have been assured by an intimate friend of Mr. Buckle that he

would not have withheld his assent from these remarks, and that he never

intended to affirm or imply that mankind are not progressive in their

moral as well as in their intellectual qualities. "In dealing with his

problem, he availed himself of the artifice resorted to by the Political

Economist, who leaves out of consideration the generous and benevolent

sentiments, and founds his science on the proposition that mankind are

actuated by acquisitive propensities alone," not because such is the

fact, but because it is necessary to begin by treating the principal

influence as if it was the sole one, and make the due corrections

afterwards. "He desired to make abstraction of the intellect as the

determining and dynamical element of the progression, eliminating the

more dependent set of conditions, and treating the more active one as if

it were an entirely independent variable."

The same friend of Mr. Buckle states that when he used expressions which

seemed to exaggerate the influence of general at the expense of special

causes, and especially at the expense of the influence of individual

minds, Mr. Buckle really intended no more than to affirm emphatically

that the greatest men cannot effect great changes in human affairs

unless the general mind has been in some considerable degree prepared

for them by the general circumstances of the age; a truth which, of

course, no one thinks of denying. And there certainly are passages in

Mr. Buckle's writings which speak of the influence exercised by great

individual intellects in as strong terms as could be desired.

[17] Essay on Dryden, in Miscellaneous Writings, i. 186.

[18] In the _Cornhill Magazine_ for June and July 1861.

[19] It is almost superfluous to observe, that there is another meaning

of the word Art, in which it may be said to denote the poetical

department or aspect of things in general, in contradistinction to the

scientific. In the text, the word is used in its older, and I hope, not

yet obsolete sense.

[20] The word Teleology is also, but inconveniently and improperly,

employed by some writers as a name for the attempt to explain the

phenomena of the universe from final causes.

[21] For an express discussion and vindication of this principle, see

the little volume entitled "Utilitarianism."

THE END.

Transcriber's Notes.

Spelling irregularities where there was no obviously preferred version

were left as is. Variants include: "cotemporary" and "contemporary;"

"commonplaces" and "common-places;" "dependents" and "dependants;"

"dreamed" and "dreamt;" derivatives of "enclose" and "inclose;" "e. g."

and "e.g."; "i. e." and "i.e."; "misestimate" and "mis-estimate;"

"recal" and "recall" (and derivatives); derivatives of "paraphrase" and

"periphrase;" "subclass" and "sub-class" (and derivatives).

Changed "Phemomena" to "Phenomena" on page xv: "Successions of Social

Phenomena."

Changed page reference for section 4 of Chapter XI on page xv of the

Table of Contents from "539" to "540."

Changed "oberved" to "observed" on page 17: "the observed facts."

A closing double quotation mark is missing on page 17. It was added

after the sentence that ends with "object of the inquiry."

Changed "neverthless" to "nevertheless" on page 104: "phenomena would

nevertheless."

For the mathematical formulas appearing on pages 152 and 153:

parentheses were added to make the linear form of the formula correct;

and the radical sign was replaced by "[root of]." The equal sign was

preserved in "arc (sin = x)," although it makes more sense without it.

Page 240 contains the word "'Squire." It intentionally begins with an

apostrophe, not an unmatched single quotation mark, and was left as

originally printed.

Changed "eupiditatibus" to "cupiditatibus" on page 401: "de

cupiditatibus finiendis." And shortly thereafter, changed "eupiditas" to

"cupiditas:" "An potest cupiditas finiri." And then a bit further on,

changed "hæe" to "hæc:" "hæc desideria naturæ."