476 LOGIC OF THE MORAL SCIENCES. 



are still abandoned to the uncertainties of vague and 

 popular discussion. Although several other sciences 

 have emerged from this state at a comparatively recent 

 date^ none now remain in it except those which relate 

 to man himself, the most complex and most difficult 

 subject of study on which the human mind can be 

 engaged. 



Concerning the physical nature of man, as an 

 organized being, although there is still much uncer- 

 tainty and much controversy, which can only be 

 terminated by the general acknowledgment and em- 

 ployment of stricter rules of induction than are com- 

 monly recognised, there is, however, a considerable 

 body of truths which all who have attended to the 

 subject consider to be fully established; nor is there 

 now any radical imperfection in the method observed 

 in this department of science by its most distinguished 

 modern teachers. But the laws of Mind, and, in 

 even a greater degree, those of Society, are so far from 

 having attained a similar state of even partial recogni-^ 

 tion, that it is still a controversy whether they are 

 capable of becoming subjects of science, "in the strict 

 sense of the term ; and among those who are agreed 

 on this point there reigns the most irreconcilable 

 diversity on almost every other. Here, therefore, if 

 anywhere, the principles laid down in the preceding 

 Books may be expected to be useful. 



If on matters so much the most important with 

 which human intellect can occupy itself, a more 

 general agreement is ever to exist among thinkers; 

 if what has been pronounced "the proper study of 

 mankind" is not destined to remain the only subject 

 which Philosophy cannot succeed in rescuing from 

 Empiricism; the same processes through which the 

 laws of simpler phenomena have by general acknow- 



