516 LOGIC OF THE MORAL SCIENCES. 



even to the propositions which are true in the great 

 majority of cases. 



Although, however, there is scarcely any mode of 

 feeling or conduct which is, in the absolute sense, com- 

 mon to all mankind ; and though the generalizations 

 which assert that any given variety of conduct or 

 feeling will be found universally, (however nearly 

 they may approximate to truth within given limits of 

 observation,) will be considered as scientific proposi- 

 tions by no one who is at all familiar with scientific 

 investigation ; ',yet all modes of feeling and conduct 

 met with among' mankind have causes which produce 

 them ; and in the propositions which assign those 

 causes will be found the explanation of the empirical 

 laws, and the limiting principle of our reliance on them. 

 Men do not all feel and act alike in the same circum- 

 stances ; but it is possible to determine what makes 

 one man, in a given position, feel or act in one way, 

 another in another; how any given mode of feeling and 

 conduct, compatible with the general laws (physical 

 and mental) of human nature, has been, or may be, 

 formed. In other words, mankind have not one uni- 

 versal character, but there exist universal laws of the 

 Formation of Character. And since it is by these laws, 

 combined with the facts of each particular case, that 

 the whole of the phenomena of human action and feel- 

 ing are produced, it is upon these that every rational 

 attempt to construct the science of human nature in 

 the concrete, and for practical purposes, must proceed. 



3. The laws then of the formation of character 

 being the principal object of scientific inquiry into 

 human nature; it remains to determine the method of 

 investigation best fitted for ascertaining them . And the 



