512 LOGIC OF THE MORAL SCIENCES. 



local circumstances, are much less considerable than the points 

 of agreement, there will naturally be a certain degree of uni- 

 formity in the progressive development of the species and of 

 its works. And this uniformity tends to become greater, not 

 less, as society advances ; since the evolution of each people, 

 which is at first determined exclusively by the nature and 

 circumstances of that people, is gradually brought under the 

 influence (which becomes stronger as civilization advances) of 

 the other nations of the earth, and of the circumstances by 

 which they have been influenced. History accordingly does, 

 when judiciously examined, afford Empirical Laws of Society. 

 And the problem of general sociology is to ascertain these, 

 and connect them with the laws of human nature, by de- 

 ductions showing that such were the derivative laws natu- 

 rally to be expected as the consequences of those ultimate 

 ones. 



It is, indeed, hardly ever possible, even after history has 

 suggested the derivative law, to demonstrate a priori that 

 such was the only order of succession or of coexistence in 

 which the effects could, consistently with the laws of human 

 nature, have been produced. We can at most make out that 

 there were strong a priori reasons for expecting it, and that 

 no other order of succession or coexistence would have been 

 so likely to result from the nature of man and the general 

 circumstances of his position. Often we cannot do even this ; 

 we cannot even show that what did take place was probable 

 a priori, but only that it was possible. This, however, 

 which, in the Inverse Deductive Method that we are now 

 characterizing, is a real process of verification, is as indis- 

 pensable, as verification by specific experience has been shown 

 to be, where the conclusion is originally obtained by the direct 

 way of deduction. The empirical laws must be the result of 

 but a few instances, since few nations have ever attained at 

 all, and still fewer by their own independent development, a 

 high stage of social progress. If, therefore, even one or two 

 of these few instances be insufficiently known, or imperfectly 

 analysed into their elements, and therefore not adequately 

 compared with other instances, nothing is more probable than 



