502 LOGIC OF THE MORAL SCIENCES. 



of observation, can only be relied on as applicable to unob- 

 served cases, so long as tbere is reason to think tbat no change 

 has taken place in any of the remote causes on which the 

 immediate causes depend. In making use, therefore, of even 

 the best statistical generalizations for the purpose of inferring 

 (though it be only conjecturally) that the same empirical laws 

 will hold in any new case, it is necessary that we be well 

 acquainted with the remoter causes, in order that we may avoid 

 applying the empirical law to cases which differ in any of the 

 circumstances on which the truth of the law ultimately de- 

 pends. And thus, even where conclusions derived from specific 

 observation are available for practical inferences in new cases, 

 it is necessary that the deductive science should stand sentinel 

 over the whole process ; that it should be constantly referred 

 to, and its sanction obtained to every inference. 



The same thing holds true of all generalizations which 

 can be grounded on history. Not only there are such genera- 

 lizations, but it will presently be shown that the general science 

 of society, which inquires into the laws of succession and co- 

 existence of the great facts constituting the state of society 

 and civilization at any time, can proceed in no other manner 

 than by making such generalizations afterwards to be con- 

 firmed by connecting them with the psychological and etholo- 

 gical laws on which they must really depend. 



6. But (reserving this question for its proper place) 

 in those more special inquiries which form the subject of the 

 separate branches of the social science, this twofold logical 

 process and reciprocal verification is not possible : specific 

 experience affords nothing amounting to empirical laws. 

 This is particularly the case where the object is to determine 

 the effect of any one social cause among a great number 

 acting simultaneously ; the effect, for example, of corn laws, 

 or of a prohibitive commercial system generally. Though it 

 may be perfectly certain, from theory, what kind of effects 

 corn laws must produce, and in what general direction their 

 influence must tell upon industrial prosperity ; their effect is 



