PHYSICAL METHOD. 503 



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 com 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 authen 

 ticity 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 inqui 

 ries 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 com 

 pare those conclusions with the result of an individual expe 

 riment or instance. But here the difficulty is equally great. 

 For in order to verify a theory by an experiment, the circum 

 stances 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 indi 

 vidual 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 pro 

 position to which it refers, is not too late to help towards veri- 



