HISTORICAL METHOD. 509 



One of the thinkers who earliest conceived the succession 

 of historical events as subject to fixed laws, and endeavoured 

 to discover these laws by an analytical survey of history, Vico, 

 the celebrated author of the Scienza Nuova, adopted the 

 former of these opinions. He conceived the phenomena of 

 human society as revolving in an orbit; as going through 

 periodically the same series of changes. Though there were 

 not wanting circumstances tending to give some plausibility 

 to this view, it would not bear a close scrutiny : and those 

 who have succeeded Vico in this kind of speculations have 

 universally adopted the idea of a trajectory or progress, in lieu 

 of an orbit or cycle. 



The words Progress and Progressiveness are not here to 

 be understood as synonymous with improvement and tendency 

 to improvement. It is conceivable that the laws of human 

 nature might determine, and even necessitate, a certain series 

 of changes in man and society, which might not in every case, 

 or which might not on the whole, be improvements. It is my 

 belief indeed that the general tendency is, and will continue 

 to be, saving occasional and temporary exceptions, one of im- 

 provement; a tendency towards a better and happier state. 

 This, however, is not a question of the method of the social 

 science, but a theorem of the science itself. For our purpose 

 it is sufficient, that there is a progressive change both in the 

 character of the human race, and in their outward circumstances 

 so far as moulded by themselves : that in each successive age 

 the principal phenomena of society are different from what 

 they were in the age preceding, and still more different from 

 any previous age : the periods which most distinctly mark 

 these successive changes being intervals of one generation, 

 during which a new set of human beings have been educated, 

 have grown up from childhood, and taken possession of 

 society. 



The progressiveness of the human race is the foundation 

 on which a method of philosophizing in the social science has 

 been of late years erected, far superior to either of the two 

 modes which had previously been prevalent, the chemical or 

 experimental, and the geometrical modes. This method, 



