OF LAWS IN GENERAL, AND THE ORDER 

 OF THEIR DISCOVERY. 



\Tiiefollouing chapter was contained in the first edition of First 

 Principles. / omitted it from the re-organised second edition, he- 

 cause it did not form an essential part of the new structure. As it is 

 referred to in the foregoing pages, and as its general argument .is ger 

 mane to the contents of those pages, I have thought well to append it 

 here. Moreover, though I hope eventually to incorporate it in that 

 division of the Principles of Sociology which treats of Intellectual 

 Progress, yet as it must he long before it can thus re-appear in its 

 permanent place, and as, should I not get so far in the execution of 

 my undertaking, it may never thus re-appear at all, it seems proper 

 to make it more accessible than it is at present. The first and last 

 sections, which served to link it into the argument of the worlc to 

 which it originally belonged, are omitted. The rest has Iteen, carefully 

 revised, and in some parts considerably altered.] 



The recognition of Law being the recognition of uni 

 formity of relations among phenomena, it follows that the 

 order in which different groups of phenomena are reduced to 

 law, must depend on the frequency with which the uniform 

 relations they severally display are distinctly experienced. 

 At any given stage of progress, those uniformities will be 

 best known with which men s minds have been oftenest and 

 most strongly impressed. In proportion partly to the 

 number of times a relation has been presented to con 

 sciousness (not merely to the senses), and in proportion 



