522 ItOGIC OF THE MORAL SCIENCES. 



accurate propositions respecting the formation of cha- 

 racter from observation and experiment alone, we are 

 driven perforce to that which, even if it had not been 

 the indispensable, would have been the most perfect 

 mode of investigation, and which it is one of the 

 principal aims of philosophy to extend ; namely, that 

 which tries its experiments not upon the complex 

 facts, but upon the simple ones of which they are 

 compounded ; and after ascertaining the laws of the 

 causes, the composition of which gives rise to the 

 complex phenomena, then considers whether these 

 will not explain and account for the approximate 

 generalizations which have been framed empirically 

 respecting the sequences of those complex phenomena. 

 The laws of the formation of character are, in short, 

 derivative laws, resulting from the general laws of the 

 mind ; and they are to be obtained by deducing them 

 from those general laws ; by supposing any given set of 

 circumstances, and then considering what, according 

 to the laws of mind, will be the influence of those 

 circumstances on the formation of character. 



A science is thus formed, to which I would pro- 

 pose to give the name of Ethology, or the Science of 

 Character; from fjOos, a word more nearly correspond- 

 ing to the term " character" as I here use it, than 

 any other word in the same language. The name is 

 perhaps etymologically applicable to the entire science 

 of our mental and moral nature ; but if, as is usual 

 and convenient, we employ the name Psychology for 

 the science of the elementary laws of mind, Ethology 

 will serve for the subordinate science which determines 

 the kind of character produced, in conformity to those 

 general laws, by any set of circumstances, physical and 

 moral. According to this definition, Ethology is the 

 science which corresponds to the art of education ; in 



