494 LOGIC OF THE MORAL SCIENCES. 



us to predict the places and the occupations of the 

 heavenly bodies. It needs scarcely be stated that 

 nothing approaching to this can be done. The 

 actions of individuals could not be predicted with 

 scientific accuracy, were it only because we cannot 

 foresee the whole of the circumstances in which those 

 individuals will be placed. But further, even in any 

 given combination of (present) circumstances, no 

 assertion, which is both precise and universally true, 

 can be made respecting the manner in which human 

 beings will think, feel, or act. This is not, however, 

 because every person's modes of thinking, feeling, and 

 acting, do not depend upon causes; nor can we doubt 

 that if, in the case of any individual, our data could 

 be complete, we even now know enough of the 

 ultimate laws by which mental phenomena are deter- 

 mined to enable us to predict with tolerable certainty, 

 if not with perfect precision, what, under any given 

 set of circumstances,, his conduct or sentiments would 

 be. But the impressions and actions of human beings 

 are not solely the result of their present circumstances, 

 but the joint result of those circumstances and of 

 the characters of the individuals: and the agencies 

 which determine human character are so numerous 

 and diversified (nothing which has happened to the 

 person throughout life being without its portion of 

 influence) , that in the aggregate they are never in any 

 two cases exactly similar. Hence, even if our science 

 of human nature were theoretically perfect, that is, if 

 we could calculate any character as we can calculate 

 the orbit of any planet, from given data; still as the 

 data are never all given, nor ever precisely alike in 

 different cases, we could neither make infallible pre- 

 dictions, nor lay down universal propositions. 



Inasmuch, however, as many of those effects 



