420 INDUCTION. 



of our not being able to produce them by art is, that in every 

 instance in which we see a human mind developing itself, or 

 acting upon other things, we see it surrounded and obscured 

 by an indefinite multitude of unascertainable circumstances, 

 rendering the use of the common experimental methods almost 

 delusive. We may conceive to what extent this is true, if we 

 consider, among other things, that whenever nature produces 

 a human mind, she produces, in close connexion with it, a 

 body ; that is, a vast complication of physical facts, in no two 

 cases perhaps exactly similar, and most of which (except the 

 mere structure, which we can examine in a sort of coarse 

 way after it has ceased to act), are radically out of the reach 

 of our means of exploration. If, instead of a human mind, 

 we suppose the subject of investigation to be a human society 

 or State, all the same difficulties recur in a greatly augmented 

 degree. 



We have thus already come within sight of a conclusion, 

 hich the progress of the inquiry will, I think, bring before 

 us with the clearest evidence : namely, that in the sciences 

 which deal with phenomena in which artificial experiments 

 are impossible (as in the case of astronomy), or in which they 

 have a very limited range (as in mental philosophy, social science, 

 and even physiology), induction from direct experience is prac- 

 tised at a disadvantage in most cases equivalent to impractica- 

 bility : from which it follows that the methods of those sciences, 

 in order to accomplish anything worthy of attainment, must be 

 to a great extent, if not principally, deductive. This is already 

 known to be the case with the first of the sciences we have 

 mentioned, astronomy; that it is not generally recognised as 

 true of th* 3 others, is probably one of the reasons why they are 

 not in a more advanced state. 



4. If what is called pure observation is at so great a 

 disadvantage, compared with artificial experimentation, in one 

 department of the direct exploration of phenomena, there is 

 another branch in which the advantage is all on the side of 

 the former. 



Inductive inquiry having for its object to ascertain what 



