ETHOLOGY. 605 



age of humanity ; and the premises for the deductions are now sufficient- 

 ly complete. Excepting the degree of uncertainty which still exists as to 

 the extent of the natural differences of individual minds, and the physical 

 circumstances on which these may be dependent (considerations which are 

 of secondary importance when we are considering mankind in the average, 

 or en wiasse), I believe most competent judges will agree that the general 

 laws of the different constituent elements of human nature are even now 

 sufficiently understood to render it possible for a competent thinker to de- 

 duce from those laws, with a considerable approach to certaintyj the par- 

 ticular type of character which would be formed in mankind generally by 

 any assumed set of circumstances. A science of Ethology, founded on the 

 laws of Psychology, is therefore possible ; though little has yet been done, 

 and that little not at all systematically, toward forming it. The progress 

 of this important but most imperfect science will depend on a double proc- 

 ess : first, that of deducing theoretically the ethological consequences of 

 particular circumstances of position, and comparing them with the recog- 

 nized results of common experience ; and,,secondly, the reverse operation ; 

 increased study of the various types of human nature that are to be found 

 in the world ; conducted by persons not only capable of analyzing and re- 

 cording the circumstances in which these types severally prevail, but also 

 sufficiently acquainted with psychological laws to be able to explain and 

 account for the characteristics of the type, by the peculiarities of the cir- 

 cumstances : the residuum alone, when there proves to be any, being set 

 down to the account of congenital predispositions. 



For the experimental or a posteriori part of this process, the materials 

 are continually accumulating by the observation of mankind. So far as 

 thought is concerned, the great problem of Ethology is to deduce the requi- 

 site middle principles from the general laws of Psychology. The subject 

 to be studied is, the origin and sources of all those qualities in human be- 

 ings which are interesting to us, either as facts to be produced, to be avoid- 

 ed, or merely to be understood; and the object is, to determine, from the 

 general laws of mind, combined with the general position of our species in 

 the universe, what actual or possible combinations of circumstances are 

 capable of promoting or of preventing the production of those qualities. 

 A science which possesses middle principles of this kind, arranged in the 

 order, not of causes, but of the effects which it is desirable to produce or 

 to prevent, is duly prepared to be the foundation of the corresponding 

 Art. And when Ethology shall be thus prepared, practical education will 

 be the mere transformation of those principles into a parallel system of 

 precepts, and the adaptation of these to the sum total of the individual cir- 

 cumstances which exist in each particular case. 



It is hardly necessary again to repeat that, as in every other deductive 

 science, verification a posteriori must proceed pari passu with deduction 

 a priori. The inference given by theory as to the type of character which 

 would be formed by any given circumstances must be tested by specific 

 experience of those circumstances whenever obtainable; and the conclu- 

 sions of the science as a whole must undergo a perpetual verification and 

 correction from the general remai'ks afforded by common experience re- 

 specting human nature in our own age, and by history respecting times gone . 

 by. The conclusions of theory can not be trusted, unless confirmed by ob- 

 servation ; nor those of observation, unless they can be affiliated to theory,, 

 by deducing them from the laws of human nature, and from a close analysis 

 of the circumstances of the particular situation. It is the accordance of 



