CHAPTER VI. 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE SOCIAL SCIENCE. 

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1. NEXT after the science of individual man, comes the 

 science of man in society : of the actions of collective masses 

 of mankind, and the various phenomena which constitute social 

 life. 



If the formation of individual character is already a com 

 plex subject of study, this subject must be, in appearance at 

 least, still more complex ; because the number of concurrent 

 causes, all exercising more or less influence on the total 

 effect, is greater, in the proportion in which a nation, or the 

 species at large, exposes a larger surface to the operation of 

 agents^psynhjiloglcarand physical, than any single individual. 

 Tf it was necessary to prove, in opposition to an existing pre 

 judice, that the simpler of the two is capable of being a sub 

 ject of science; the prejudice is likely to be yet stronger 

 against the possibility of giving a scientific character to the 

 study of Politics, and of the phenomena of Society. It is, 

 accordingly, but of yesterday that the conception of a political 

 or social science has existed, anywhere but in the mind of 

 here and there an insulated thinker, generally very ill prepared 

 for its realization : though the subject itself has of all others 

 engaged the most general attention, and been a theme of in 

 terested and earnest discussions, almost from the beginning of 

 recorded time. 



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

 was until very lately, and has scarcely even yet ceased to be. 



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that which Bacon arnmaoverted on, as the natural state of the 

 sciences while their cultivation is abandoned to practitioners ; 

 not being carried on as a branch of speculative inquiry, 

 but only with a view to the exigencies of daily practice, 



