FALLACIES OF GENERALIZATION. 651 



free from the gross and stupid error which we previously exemplified. But, 

 in all except the most eminently philosophical minds, it is infected with pre- 

 cisely the same hind of fallacy as that is. For we must remember that even 

 this other and better generalization, the progressive change in the condition 

 of the human species, is, after all, but an empirical law ; to which, too, it is 

 not difficult to point out exceedingly large exceptions ; and even if these 

 could be got rid of, either by disputing the facts or by explaining and lim- 

 iting the theory, the general objection remains valid against the supposed 

 law, as applicable to any other than what, in our third book, were termed 

 Adjacent Cases. For not only is it no ultimate, but not even a causal law. 

 Changes do indeed take place in human affairs, but every one of those 

 changes depends on determinate causes ; the " progressiveness of the spe- 

 cies" is not a cause, but a summary expression for the general result of all the 

 causes. So soon as, by a quite different sort of induction, it shall be ascer- 

 tained what causes have produced these successive changes, from the begin- 

 ning of history, in so far as they have really taken place, and by what causes 

 of a contrary tendency they have been occasionally checked or entirely 

 counteracted, we may then be prepared to predict the future with reason- 

 able foresight ; we may be in possession of the real law of the future ; and 

 may be able to declare on what circumstances the continuance of the same 

 onward movement will eventually depend. But this it is the error of many 

 of the more advanced thinkers, in the present age, to overlook ; and to im- 

 agine that the empirical law collected from a mere comparison of the con- 

 dition of our species at different past times, is a real law, is the law of its 

 changes, not only past but also to come. The truth is, that the causes on 

 which the phenomena of the moral world depend, are in every age, and al- 

 most in every country, combined in some different proportion ; so that it is 

 scarcely to be expected that the general result of them all should conform 

 very closely, in its details at least, to any uniformly progressive series. And 

 all generalizations which affirm tliat mankind have a tendency to grow bet- 

 ter or worse, richer or pooi'er, more cultivated or more barbarous, that pop- 

 ulation increases faster than subsistence, or subsistence than population, 

 that inequality of fortune has a tendency to increase or to break down, and 

 the like, propositions of considerable value as empirical laws within certain 

 (but generally rather narrow) limits, are in reality true or false according 

 to times and circumstances. 



What we have said of empirical generalizations from times past to times 

 still to come, holds equally true of similar generalizations from present 

 times to times past ; when persons whose acquaintance with moral and so- 

 cial facts is confined to their own age, take the men and the things of that 

 age for the type of men and things in general, and apply without scruple 

 to the interpretation of the events of history, the empirical laws which rep- 

 resent sufficiently for daily guidance the common phenomena of human 

 nature at that time and in that particular state of society. If examples 

 are wanted, almost every historical work, until a very recent period, abound- 

 ed in them. The same may be said of those who generalize empirically 

 from the people of their own country to the people of other countries, as 

 if human beings felt, judged, and acted everywhere in the same manner. 



§ 6. In the foregoing instances, the distinction is confounded between 

 empirical laws, which express merely the customary order of the succession 

 of effects, and the laws of causation on which the effects depend. There 

 may, however, be incorrect generalization when this mistake is not com- 



