446 LOGIC OF THE MORAL SCIENCES. 



Now, the observations concerning human affairs collected 

 from common experience, are precisely of this nature. Even 

 if they were universally and exactly true within the bounds of 

 experience, which they never are, still they are not the ulti 

 mate laws of human action ; they are not the principles of 

 human nature, but results of those principles under the cir 

 cumstances in which mankind have happened to be placed. 

 When the Psalmist said in his haste that &quot; all men are liars,&quot; 

 he enunciated what in some ages and countries is borne out by 

 ample experience ; but it is not a law of man s nature to lie ; 

 though it is one of the consequences of the laws of human 

 nature, that lying is nearly universal when certain external 

 circumstances exist universally, especially circumstances pro 

 ductive of habitual distrust and fear. When the character of 

 the old is asserted to be cautious, and of the young impetuous, 

 this, again, is but an empirical law ; for it is not because of 

 their youth that the young are impetuous, nor because of their 

 age that the old are cautious. It is chiefly, if not wholly, 

 because the old, during their many years of life, have generally 

 had much experience of its various evils, and having suffered 

 or seen others suffer much from incautious exposure to them, 

 have acquired associations favourable to circumspection : 

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

 as from the greater strength of the inclinations which urge 

 them to enterprise, engage themselves in it more readily. 

 Here, then, is the explanation of the empirical law ; here are 

 the conditions which ultimately determine whether the law 

 holds good or not. If an old man has not been oftener than 

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

 be equally incautious : if a youth has not stronger inclinations 

 than an old man, he probably will be as little enterprising. 

 The empirical law derives whatever truth it has, from the 

 causal laws of which it is a consequence. If we know those 

 laws, we know what are the limits to the derivative law : while, 

 if we have not yet accounted for the empirical law if it rest 

 only on observation there is no safety in applying it far be 

 yond the limits of time, place, and circumstance, in which the 

 observations were made. 



