634 LOGIC OF THE MORAL SCIENCES. 



as a whole, manifest any regularity, we should in vain attempt to construct 

 a general science of society. We must in that case have contented our- 

 selves with that subordinate order of sociological speculation formerly no- 

 ticed, namely, with endeavoring to ascertain what would be the effect of 

 the introduction of any new cause, in a state of society supposed to be fix- 

 ed — a knowledge sufficient for the more common exigencies of daily polit- 

 ical practice, but liable to fail in all cases in which the progressive move- 

 ment of society is one of the influencing elements; and therefore more 

 precarious in proportion as the case is more important. But since both the 

 natural varieties of mankind, and the original diversities of local circum- 

 stances, are much less considerable than the points of agreement, there will 

 naturally be a certain degree of uniformity in the progressive development 

 of the species and of its works. And this uniformity tends to become 

 greater, not less, as society advances ; since the evolution of each people, 

 which is at first determined exclusively by the nature and circumstances 

 of that people, is gradually brought under the influence (which becomes 

 stronger as civilization advances) of the other nations of the earth, and of 

 the circumstances by which they have been influenced. History accord- 

 ingly does, when judiciously examined, afford Empirical Laws of Society. 

 And the problem of general sociology is to ascertain these, and connect 

 them with the laws of human nature, by deductions showing that such 

 were the derivative laws naturally to be expected as the consequences of 

 those ultimate ones. 



It is, indeed, hardly ever possible, even after history has suggested the 

 derivative law, to demonstrate a priori that such was the only order of 

 succession or of co-existence in which the effects could, consistently with 

 the laws of human nature, have been produced. We can at most make out 

 that there were strong a priori reasons for expecting it, and that no other 

 order of succession or co-existence would have been so hkely to result from 

 the nature of man and the general circumstances of his position. Often 

 we can not do even this; we can not even show that what did take place 

 was probable a priori, but only that it Avas possible. This, however — 

 which, in the Inverse Deductive Method that we are now characterizing, is 

 a real process of verification — is as indispensable, as verification by specific 

 experience has been shown to be, where the conclusion is originally obtain- 

 ed by the direct way of deduction. The empirical laws must be the result 

 of but a few instances, since few nations have ever attained at all, and still 

 fewer by their own independent development, a high stage of social prog- 

 ress. If, therefore, even one or two of these few instances be insufficiently 

 known, or imperfectly analyzed into their elements, and therefore not ade- 

 quately compared with other instances, nothing is more probable than that 

 a wrong empirical law will emerge instead of the right one. Accordingly, 

 the most erroneous generalizations are continually made from the course of 

 history ; not only in this country, where history can not yet be said to be 

 at all cultivated as a science, but in other countries where it is so culti- 

 vated, and by persons well versed in it. The only check or corrective is, 

 constant verification by psychological and ethological laws. We may add 

 to this, that no one but a person competently skilled in those laws is 

 capable of preparing the materials for historical generalization, by analyz- 

 ing the facts of history, or even by observing the social phenomena of his 

 own time. No other will be aware of the comparative importance of dif- 

 ferent facts, nor consequently know what facts to look for, or to observe ; 

 still less will he be capable of estimating the evidence of facts which, as is 



