PHYSICAL METHOD. 491 



various organs and functions of the physical a frame of man and 

 the more perfect animals ; and constituting one of the many 

 analogies which have rendered universal such expressions as 

 the " body politic" and " body natural." It follows from this 

 consensus, that unless two societies could be alike in all the 

 circumstances which surround and influence them, (which 

 would imply their being alike in their previous history,) no 

 portion whatever of the phenomena will, unless by accident, 

 precisely correspond ; no one cause will produce exactly the 

 same effects in both. Every cause, as its effect spreads 

 through society, comes somewhere in contact with different 

 sets of agencies, and thus has its effects on some of the social 

 phenomena differently modified ; and these differences, by their 

 reaction, produce a difference even in those of the effects 

 which would otherwise have been the same. We can never, 

 therefore, affirm with certainty that a cause which has a par- 

 ticular tendency in one people or in one age will have exactly 

 the same tendency in another, without referring back to our 

 premises, and performing over again for the second age or 

 nation, that analysis of the whole of its influencing circum- 

 stances which we had already performed for the first. The 

 deductive science of society will not lay down a theorem, 

 asserting in an universal manner the effect of any cause ; but 

 will rather teach us how to frame the proper theorem for the 

 circumstances of any given case. It will not give the laws of 

 society in general, but the means of determining the pheno- 

 mena of any given society from the particular elements or 

 data of that society. 



All the general propositions which can be framed by the 

 deductive science, are therefore, in the strictest sense of the 

 word, hypothetical. They are grounded on some supposititious 

 set of circumstances, and declare how some given cause 

 would operate in those circumstances, supposing that no 

 others were combined with them. If the set of circumstances 

 supposed have been copied from those of any existing society, 

 the conclusions will be true of that society, provided, and in 

 as far as, the effect of those circumstances shall not be modi- 

 fied by others which have not been taken into the account 



