THE GEOMETRICAL METHOD. 551 



appear to have been formed of the social science, in 

 the minds of the earlier of those who have attempted 

 to cultivate it by a deductive method. Mechanics 

 would be a science very similar to geometry, if every 

 motion resulted from one force alone, and not from a 

 conflict of forces. In the geometrical theory of 

 society, it seems to be supposed that this is really the 

 case with the social phenomena; and that each of 

 them results always from only one force, one single 

 property of human nature. 



At the point which we have now reached, it cannot 

 be necessary to say anything either in proof or in 

 illustration of the assertion that such is not the true 

 character of the social phenomena. There is not, 

 among these most complex and (for that reason) most 

 modifiable of all phenomena, any one over which 

 innumerable forces do not exercise influence ; which 

 does not depend upon a conjunction of very many 

 causes. We have not, therefore, to prove the notion 

 in question to be an error, but to prove that the error 

 has been committed; that so mistaken a conception 

 of the mode in which the phenomena of society are 

 produced, has actually been entertained. 



2. One numerous division of the reasoners who 

 have treated social facts according to geometrical 

 methods, not admitting of any modification of one 

 law by another, must for the present be left out of 

 consideration; because in them this error is compli- 

 cated with, and is the effect of, another fundamental 

 misconception, of which we have already taken some 

 notice, and which will be treated of more fully before 

 we conclude. I speak of those who deduce political 

 conclusions not from laws of nature, not from 

 sequences of phenomena, real or imaginary, but from 



