168 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pt. ii. 



if we tate out what we want and let the rest go, we can 

 spell whatever we please ; I spell out the Ptolemaic hypo- 

 thesis, and will therefore abide by it ; " — he would have been 

 talking much after the manner of Mr. Froude. It is true, as 

 Mr. Froude further says, that one philosopher believes in 

 progress, a second in retrogression, and a third, like Vico, 

 in ever-recurring cycles. But is this because the facts are 

 undecipherable, or because the investigation is one-sided ? 

 Because Agassiz still believes organic species to be fixed, 

 while almost all other naturalists believe them to be variable 

 in character, are we to infer that there is no science of biology ? 

 In such unworthy plight does Mr. Froude retreat before the 

 problem he has encountered. He starts to show us that a 

 science of history is as ridiculous an impossibility as a scarlet 

 B-flat or a westerly proportion ; and he ends by mildly observ- 

 ing that history is a difficult subject, in which a series of par- 

 tial examinations may bring forth contradictory conclusions ! 

 The next bit of inference concerns us more intimately. 

 " Will a time ever be when the lost secret of the foundation 

 of Eome can be recovered by historic laws ? If not, where 

 is our science ? " Just where it was before. The science of 

 history has nothing to do with dates, except to take them, so 

 far as they can be determined, from the hands of historical 

 criticism. They are its data, not its conclusions. As Mr. 

 Morley reminds us, we do not dispute the possibility of a 

 science of meteorology, because such a science cannot tell 

 us whether it was a dry or a wet day at Jericho two thousand 

 years ago. Facts like these show us that sciences dealing with 

 phenomena which are the products of many and complex 

 factors, cannot hope to attain that minute precision which is 

 attained by sciences dealing with phenomena which are the 

 products of few and simple factors. They show that sociology 

 cannot, like astronomy, be brought under the control of mathe- 

 matical deduction. But it was not necessary for Mr. Froude 

 to write an essay to prove this. 



