628 LOGIC OF THE MORAL SCIENCES. 



deductive method. But before we quit the subject of those sociological 

 speculations which proceed by way of direct deduction, we must examine 

 in what relation they stand to that indispensable element in all deductive 

 sciences, Verification by Specific Experience — comparison between the con- 

 clusions of reasoning and the results of observation. 



§ 5. We have seen that, in most deductive sciences, and among the rest 

 in Ethology itself, which is the immediate foundation of the Social Science, 

 a preliminary work of preparation is performed on the observed facts, to 

 fit them for being rapidly and accurately collated (sometimes even for 

 being collated at all) with the conclusions of theory. This preparatory 

 treatment consists in finding general propositions which express concisely 

 what is common to large classes of observed facts ; and these are called the 

 empirical laws of the phenomena. We have, therefore, to inquire, whether 

 any similar preparatory process can be performed on the facts of the social 

 science ; whether there are any empirical laws in history or statistics. 



In statistics, it is evident that empirical laws may sometimes be traced ; 

 and the tracing them forms an important part of that system of indirect 

 observation on which we must often rely for the data of the Deductive 

 Science. The process of the science consists in inferring effects from their 

 causes ; but we have often no means of observing the causes, except through 

 the medium of their effects. In such cases the deductive science is unable 

 to predict the effects, for want of the necessary data; it can determine 

 what causes are capable of producing any given effect, but not with what 

 frequency and in what quantities those causes exist. An instance in point 

 is afforded by a newspaper now lying before me. A statement Avas fur- 

 nished by one of the official assignees in bankruptcy showing among the 

 various bankruptcies which it had been his duty to investigate, in how 

 many cases the losses had been caused by misconduct of different kinds, 

 and in how many by unavoidable misfortunes. The result was, that the 

 number of failures caused by misconduct greatly preponderated over those 

 arising from all other causes whatever. Nothing but specific experience 

 could have given sufficient ground for a conclusion to this purport. To 

 collect, therefore, such empirical laws (which are never more than approx- 

 imate generalizations) from direct observation, is an important part of the 

 process of sociological inquiry. 



The experimental process is not here to be regarded as a distinct road to 

 the truth, but as a means (happening accidentally to be the only, or the best, 

 available) for obtaining the necessary data for the deductive science. When 

 the immediate causes of social facts are not open to direct observation, the 

 empirical law of the effects gives us the empirical law (which in that case 

 is all that we can obtain) of the causes likewise. But those immediate 

 causes depend on remote causes ; and the empirical law, obtained by this 

 indirect mode of observation, can only be relied on as applicable to unob- 

 served cases, so long as there is reason to think that no change has taken 

 place in any of the remote causes on which the immediate causes depend. 

 In making use, therefore, of even the best statistical generalizations for the 

 purpose of inferring (though it be only conjecturally) that the same em- 

 pirical laws will hold in any new case, it is necessary that we be well ac- 

 quainted with the remoter causes, in order that we may avoid applying the 

 empirical law to cases which differ in any of the circumstances on which 

 the truth of the law ultimately depends. And thus, even where conclu- 

 sions derived from specific observation are available for practical infer- 



