ETHOLOGY. 451 



tion is ignorant of this truth : and whoever has not, will find 

 it most instructively illustrated in the writings of Rousseau 

 and Helvetius on that great subject. 



Under this impossibility of studying the laws of the for- 

 mation of character by experiments ' purposely contrived to 

 elucidate them, there remains the resource of simple observa- 

 tion. But if it be impossible to ascertain the influencing 

 circumstances with any approach to completeness even when 

 we have the shaping of them ourselves, much more impossible 

 is it when the cases are further removed from our observation, 

 and altogether out of our control. Consider the difficulty of 

 the very first step of ascertaining what actually is the cha- 

 racter of the individual, in each particular case that we 

 examine. There is hardly any person living, concerning some 

 essential part of whose character there are not differences of 

 opinion even among his intimate acquaintances : and a single 

 action, or conduct continued only for a short time, goes a very 

 little way towards ascertaining it. We can only make our 

 observations in a rough way, and en masse ; not attempting to 

 ascertain completely in any given instance, what character has 

 been formed, and still less by what causes ; but only observing 

 in what state of previous circumstances it is found that certain 

 marked mental qualities or deficiencies oftenest exist. These 

 conclusions, besides that they are mere approximate generaliza- 

 tions, deserve no reliance even as such, unless the instances 

 are sufficiently numerous to eliminate not only chance, but 

 every assignable circumstance in which a number of the cases 

 examined may happen to have resembled one another. So 

 numerous and various, too, are the circumstances which form 

 individual character, that the consequence of any particular 

 combination is hardly ever some definite and strongly marked 

 character, always found where that combination exists, and 

 not otherwise. What is obtained, even after the most exten- 

 sive and accurate observation, is merely a comparative result; 

 as for example, that in a given number of Frenchmen, taken 

 indiscriminately, there will be found more persons of a par- 

 ticular mental tendency, and fewer of the contrary tendency, 



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