646 LOGIC OF THE MORAL SCIENCES. 



and partly of partial causes the whole round of whose variations has been 

 included, will be, practically speaking, invariable. 



Literally and mathematically invariable it is not, and could not be expect- 

 ed to be : because the period of a year is too short to include all the possi- 

 ble combinations of partial causes, while it is, at the same time, sufficiently 

 long to make it probable that in some years at least, of every series, there 

 will have been introduced new influences of a more or less general charac- 

 ter; such as a more vigorous or a more relaxed police; some temporary 

 excitement from political or religious causes ; or some incident generally 

 notorious, of a nature to act morbidly on the imagination. That in spite of 

 these unavoidable imperfections in the data, there should be so very trifling 

 a margin of variation in the annual results, is a brilliant confirmation of the 

 general theory. 



§ 2. The same considerations which thus strikingly corroborate the evi- 

 dence of the doctrine, that historical facts are the invariable effects of 

 causes, tend equally to clear that doctrine from various misapprehensions, 

 the existence of which has been put in evidence by the recent discussions. 

 Some persons, for instance, seemingly imagine the doctrine to imply, not 

 merely that the total number of murders committed in a given space and 

 time is entirely the effect of the general circumstances of society, but that 

 every particular murder is so too — that the individual murderer is, so to 

 speak, a mere instrument in the hands of general causes that he himself 

 has no option, or, if he has, and chose to exercise it, some one else would 

 be necessitated to take his place; that if any one of the actual murderers 

 had abstained from the crime, some person who would otherwise have re- 

 mained innocent, would have committed an extra murder to make up the 

 average. Such a corollary would certainly convict any theory which nec- 

 essarily led to it of absurdity. It is obvious, however, that each particular 

 murder depends, not on the general state of society only, but on that com- 

 bined with causes special to the case, which are generally much more pow- 

 erful; and if these special causes, which have greater influence than the 

 general ones in causing every particular murder, have no influence on the 

 mimber of murders in a given period, it is because the field of observation 

 is so extensive as to include all possible combinations of the special causes 

 — all varieties of individual character and individual temptation compatible 

 with the genei'al state of society. The collective experiment, as it may be 

 termed, exactly separates the effect of the general from that of the special 

 causes, and shows the net result of the former ; but it declares nothing at 

 all respecting the amount of influence of the special causes, be it greater or 

 smaller, since the scale of the experiment extends to the number of cases 

 within which the effects of the special causes balance one another, and dis- 

 appear in that of the general causes. 



I will not pretend that all the defenders of the theory have always kept 

 their language free from this same confusion, and have shown no tendency 

 to exalt the influence of general causes at the expense of special. I am of 

 opinion, on the contrary, that they have done so in a very great degree, 

 and by so doing have encumbered their theory with difficulties, and laid it 

 open to objections, Avhich do not necessarily affect it. Some, for example 

 (among whom is Mr. Buckle himself), have inferred, or allowed it to be 

 supposed that they inferred, from the regularity in the recurrence of events 

 which depend on moral qualities, that the moral qualities of mankind are 

 little capable of being improved, or are of little importance in the general 



