ETHOLOGY. 449 



For every individual is surrounded by circumstances different 

 from those of every other individual ; every nation or genera- 

 tion of mankind from every other nation or generation : and 

 none of these differences are without their influence in forming 

 a different type of character. There is, indeed, also a certain 

 general resemblance; but peculiarities of circumstances are 

 continually constituting exceptions even to the propositions 

 which are true in the great majority of cases. 



Although, however, there is scarcely any mode of feeling 

 or conduct which is, in the absolute sense, common to all 

 mankind; and though the generalizations which assert that 

 any given variety of conduct or feeling will be found univer- 

 sally, (however nearly they may approximate to truth within 

 given limits of observation,) will be considered as scientific 

 propositions by no one who is at all familiar with scientific 

 investigation ; yet all modes of feeling and conduct met with 

 among mankind have causes which produce them; and in the 

 propositions which assign those causes, will be found the 

 explanation of the empirical laws, and the limiting principle 

 of our reliance on them. Human beings do not all feel and 

 act alike in the same circumstances; but it is possible to 

 determine what makes one person, in a given position, feel 

 or act in one way, another in another ; how any given mode 

 of feeling and conduct, compatible with the general laws 

 (physical and mental) of human nature, has been, or may be, 

 formed. In other words, mankind have not one universal 

 character, but there exist universal laws of the Formation of 

 Character. And since it is by these laws, combined with the 

 facts of each particular case, that the whole of the pheno- 

 mena of human action and feeling are produced, it is on 

 these that every rational attempt to construct the science of 

 human nature in the concrete, and for practical purposes, 

 must proceed. 



3. The laws, then, of the formation of character being 

 the principal object of scientific inquiry into human nature ; 

 it remains to determine the method of investigation best 

 fitted for ascertaining them. And the logical principles 



TOL. II. 29 



