532 LOGIC OF THE MORAL SCIENCES. 



of civilization. On the other part, the great variety of in- 

 fluences special to the individual : his temperament, and other 

 peculiarities of organization, his parentage, habitual associates, 

 temptations, and so forth. If we now take the whole of the 

 instances which occur within a sufficiently large field to ex- 

 haust all the combinations of these special influences, or in 

 other words, to eliminate chance; and if all these instances 

 have occurred within such narrow limits of time, that no 

 material change can have taken place in the general influences 

 constituting the state of civilization of the country ; we may 

 be certain, that if human actions are governed by invariable 

 laws, the aggregate result will be something like a constant 

 quantity. The number of murders committed within that 

 space and time, being the effect partly of general causes which 

 have not varied, and partly of partial causes the whole round 

 of whose variations has been included, will be, practically 

 speaking, invariable. 



Literally and mathematically invariable it is not, and could 

 not be expected to be : because the period of a year is too 

 short to include all the possible combinations of partial causes, 

 while it is, at the same time, sufficiently long to make it pro- 

 bable that in some years at least, of every series, there will 

 have been introduced new influences of a more or less general 

 character; such as a more vigorous or a more relaxed police; 

 some temporary excitement from political or religious causes ; 

 or some incident generally notorious, of a nature to act 

 morbidly on the imagination. That in spite of these unavoid- 

 able imperfections in the data, there should be so very trifling 

 a margin of variation in the annual results, is a brilliant con- 

 firmation of the general theory. 



2. The same considerations which thus strikingly cor- 

 roborate the evidence of the doctrine, that historical facts are 

 the invariable effects of causes, tend equally to clear that 

 doctrine from various misapprehensions, the existence of which 

 has been put in evidence by the recent discussions. Some 

 persons, for instance, seemingly imagine the doctrine to imply, 

 not merely that the total number of murders committed in a 



