416 LOGIC OP THE MORAL SCIENCES. 



At the threshold of this inquiry we are met by an objec- 

 tion, which, if not removed, would be fatal to the attempt to 

 treat human conduct as a subject of science. Are the actions 

 of human beings, like all other natural events, subject to 

 invariable laws ? Does that constancy of causation, which is 

 the foundation of every scientific theory of successive pheno- 

 mena, really obtain among them ? This is often denied ; and 

 for the sake of systematic completeness, if not from any very 

 urgent practical necessity, the question should receive a deli- 

 berate answer in this place. We shall devote to the subject a 

 chapter apart. 



