414 FALLACIES. 



the terms of the series which are past we may infer 

 with certainty those which are yet to come. Of this 

 doctrine, considered as a philosophical tenet, we shall 

 have occasion to speak fully in the concluding book. 

 If not, in all its forms, free from error, it is at least 

 always free from the gross and stupid error which we 

 previously exemplified. But, in all except the most 

 eminently philosophical minds, it is infected with pre- 

 cisely the same kind of fallacy as that is. For we 

 must remember that even this other and better gene- 

 ralization, the progressive change in the condition of 

 the human species, is, after all, but an empirical law: 

 to which, moreover, it is not difficult to point out 

 exceedingly large exceptions ; and even if these could 

 be got rid of, either by disputing the facts or by 

 explaining and limiting the theory, the general objec- 

 tion remains valid against the supposed law, as appli- 

 cable to any other than what,, in our third book, were 

 termed Adjacent Cases. For not only is it no ulti- 

 mate, but not even a causal law. Changes do indeed 

 take place in human affairs, but every one of those 

 changes depends upon determinate causes; the " pro- 

 gressibility of the species" is not a cause, but a sum- 

 mary expression for the general result of all the 

 causes. So soon as, by a quite different sort of induc- 

 tion, it shall be ascertained what causes have produced 

 these successive changes from the beginning of history 

 in so far as they have really taken place, and by what 

 causes of a contrary tendency they have been occa- 

 sionally checked or entirely counteracted, we shall 

 then be prepared to predict the future with reasonable 

 foresight : we shall be in possession of the real law of 

 the future ; and shall be able to declare upon what 

 circumstances the continuance of the same onward 

 movement will eventually depend. But this it is the 



