484 LOGIC OP THE MORAL SCIENCES. 



merit and measures of legislation and administration. They 

 were too highly instructed, of too comprehensive intellect, and 

 some of them of too sober and practical a character, for such 

 an error. They would have applied and did apply their prin- 

 ciples with innumerable allowances. But it is not allowances 

 that are wanted. There is little chance of making due amends 

 in the superstructure of a theory for the want of sufficient 

 breadth in its foundations. It is unphilosophical to construct 

 a science out of a few of the agencies by which the phenomena 

 are determined, and leave the rest to the routine of practice 

 or the sagacity of conjecture. We either ought not to pretend 

 to scientific forms, or we ought to study all the determining 

 agencies equally, and endeavour, so far as it can be done, to 

 include all of them within the pale of the science ; else we 

 shall infallibly bestow a disproportionate attention upon those 

 which our theory takes into account, while we misestimate the 

 rest, and probably underrate their importance. That the de- 

 ductions should be from the whole and not from a part only of 

 the laws of nature that are concerned, would be desirable even 

 if those omitted were so insignificant in comparison with the 

 others, that they might, for most purposes and on most occa- 

 sions, be left out of the account. But this is far indeed from 

 being true in the social science. The phenomena of society 

 do not depend, in essentials, on some one agency or law of 

 human nature, with only inconsiderable modifications from 

 others. The whole of the qualities of human nature influence 

 those phenomena, and there is not one which influences them 

 in a small degree. There is not one, the removal or any great 

 alteration of which would not materially affect the whole aspect 

 of society, and change more or less the sequences of social 

 phenomena generally. 



The theory which has been the subject of these remarks is 

 in this country at least, the principal cotemporary example of 

 what I have styled the geometrical method of philosophizing 

 in the social science ; and our examination of it has, for this 

 reason, been more detailed than would otherwise have been 

 suitable to a work like the present. Having now sufficiently 



