622 LOGIC OF THE MORAL SCIENCES. 



acting upon society in general are numerous, those which influence any one 

 feature of society were limited in number ; for we might then insulate any 

 particular social phenomenon, and investigate its laws without disturbance 

 from the rest. But the truth is the very opposite of this. Whatever af- 

 fects, in an appreciable degree, any one element of the social state, affects 

 through it all the other elements. The mode of production of all social 

 phenomena is one gi'eat case of Intermixture of Laws. We can never ei- 

 ther understand in theory or command in practice the condition of a so- 

 ciety in any one respect, without taking into consideration its condition in 

 all other respects. There is no social phenomenon which is not more or 

 less influenced by every other part of the condition of the same society, 

 and therefore by every cause which is influencing any other of the contem- 

 poraneous social phenomena. There is, in short, what physiologists term 

 a consensus, similar to that existing among the various organs and func- 

 tions of the physical frame of man and the more perfect animals ; and con- 

 stituting one of the many analogies which have rendered universal such 

 expressions as the "body politic" and "body natural." It follows from 

 this consensus, that unless two societies could be alike in all the circum- 

 stances which surround and influence them (which would imply their be- 

 ing alike in their previous history), no portion whatever of the phenomena 

 will, unless by accident, precisely correspond ; no one cause will produce 

 exactly the same effects in both. Every cause, as its effect spreads through 

 society, comes somewhei'e in contact with different sets of agencies, and 

 thus has its effects on some of the social phenomena differently modified ; 

 and these differences, by their reaction, produce a difference even in those 

 of the effects which would otherwise have been the same. We can never, 

 therefore, affirm with certainty that a cause which has a particular tend- 

 ency in one people or in one age will have exactly the same tendency in 

 another, without referring back to our premises, and performing over again 

 for the second age or nation, that analysis of the whole of its influencing 

 circumstances which we had already performed for the first. The deduct- 

 ive science of society will not lay down a theorem, asserting in a univei*- 

 sal manner the effect of any cause ; but will rather teach us how to frame 

 the proper theorem for the circumstances of any given case. It will not 

 give the laws of society in general, but the means of determining the phe- 

 nomena of any given society from the particular elements or data of that 

 society. 



All the general propositions which can be framed by the deductive sci- 

 ence, are therefore, in the strictest sense of the word, hypothetical. They 

 are grounded on some suppositious set of circumstances, and declare how 

 some given cause would operate in those circumstances, supposing that no 

 others were combined with them. If the set of circumstances supposed 

 have been copied from those of any existing society, the conclusions will 

 be true of that society, provided, and in as far as, the effect of those cir- 

 cumstances shall not be modified by others which have not been taken into 

 the account. If we desire a nearer approach to concrete truth, we can only 

 aim at it by taking, or endeavoring to take, a greater number of individ- 

 ualizing circumstances into the computation. 



Considering, however, in how accelerating a ratio the uncertainty of our 

 conclusions increases as we attempt to take the effect of a greater number 

 of concurrent causes into our calculations, the hypothetical combinations 

 of circumstances on which we construct the general theorems of the sci- 

 ence, can not be made very complex, without so rapidly accumulating a 



