LAWS OF MIND. 439 



gusting ideas ; and the method employed is, thus far, that of 

 Agreement. But this is not enough. Supposing this proved, 

 we must try further by the Method of Difference, whether this 

 particular kind of hateful or disgusting ideas, when it becomes 

 associated with an action previously indifferent, will render 

 that action a subject of moral disapproval. If this question 

 can be answered in the affirmative, it is shown to be a law of 

 the human mind, that an association of that particular descrip- 

 tion is the generating cause of moral reprobation. That all 

 this is the case has been rendered extremely probable, but the 

 experiments have not been tried with the degree of precision 

 necessary for a complete and absolutely conclusive induc- 

 tion.* 



It is further to be remembered, that even if all which this 

 theory of mental phenomena contends for could be proved, 

 we should not be the more enabled to resolve the laws of the 

 more complex feelings into those of the simpler ones. The 

 generation of one class of mental phenomena from another, 

 whenever it can be made out, is a highly interesting fact in 

 psychological chemistry; but it no more supersedes the 

 necessity of an experimental study of the generated pheno- 

 menon, than a knowledge of the properties of oxygen and 

 sulphur enables us to deduce those of sulphuric acid without 

 specific observation and experiment. Whatever, therefore, may 

 be the final issue of the attempt to account for the origin of 

 our judgments, our desires, or our volitions, from simpler 

 mental phenomena, it is not the less imperative to ascertain 

 the sequences of the complex phenomena themselves, by special 

 study in conformity to the canons of Induction. Thus, in 

 respect to Belief, psychologists will always have to inquire, 

 what beliefs we have by direct consciousness, and according 

 to what laws one belief produces another ; what are the laws, 



* In the case of the moral sentiments the place of direct experiment is to a 

 considerable extent supplied by historical experience, and we are able to trace 

 with a tolerable approach to certainty the particular associations by which 

 those sentiments are engendered. This has been attempted, so far as respects 

 the sentiment of justice, in a little work by the present author, entitled 

 Utilitarianism. 



