APPROXIMATE GENERALIZATIONS. 153 



since what is true approximately of all individuals is 

 true absolutely of all masses. And even when the 

 operations of individual men have a part to play in 

 his deductions, as when he is reasoning of kings, or 

 other single rulers, still as he is providing for indefi- 

 nite duration, involving an indefinite succession of 

 such individuals, he must in general botri reason and 

 act as if what is true of most persons were true 

 of all. 



The two kinds of considerations above adduced 

 are a sufficient refutation of the popular error, that 

 speculations on society and government, as resting 

 upon merely probable evidence, must be inferior in 

 certainty and scientific accuracy to the conclusions of 

 what are called the exact sciences, and less to be relied 

 upon in practice. There are reasons enough why the 

 moral sciences must remain inferior to at least the 

 more perfect of the physical ; why the laws of their 

 more complicated phenomena cannot be so completely 

 deciphered, nor the phenomena predicted with the 

 same degree of assurance. But though we cannot 

 attain to so many truths, there is no reason that those 

 we can attain should deserve less reliance, or have 

 less of a scientific character. Of this topic, however, 

 we shall treat more systematically in the concluding 

 Book, to which place any further consideration of it 

 must be deferred. 



