CHAPTER X. 



OP THE INVERSE DEDUCTIVE, OR HISTORICAL METHOD. 



1. THERE are two kinds of sociological inquiry. In 

 the first kind, the question proposed is, what effect will follow 

 from a given cause, a certain general condition of social cir- 

 cumstances being presupposed. As, for example, what would 

 be the effect of imposing or of repealing corn laws, of 

 abolishing monarchy or introducing universal suffrage, in the 

 present condition of society and civilization in any European 

 country, or under any other given supposition with regard to 

 the circumstances of society in general : without reference to 

 the changes which might take place, or which may already be 

 in progress, in those circumstances. But there is also a 

 second inquiry, namely, what are the laws which determine 

 those general circumstances themselves. In this last the 

 question is, not what will be the effect of a given cause in a 

 certain state of society, but what are the causes which produce, 

 and the phenomena which characterize, States of Society 

 generally. In the solution of this question consists the 

 general Science of Society ; by which the conclusions of the 

 other and more special kind of inquiry must be limited and 

 controlled. 



2. In order to conceive correctly the scope of this 

 general science, and distinguish it from the subordinate de- 

 partments of sociological speculation, it is necessary to fix 

 the ideas attached to the phrase, " a State of Society." What 

 is called a state of society, is the simultaneous state of all the 

 greater social facts or phenomena. Such are, the degree of 

 knowledge, and of intellectual and moral culture, existing in 

 the community, and in every class of it ; the state of industry, 



