564 LOGIC OF THE MORAL SCIENCES. 



plication, and this in so rapid a ratio as soon to be- 

 come entirely worthless ; but the reliance to be placed 

 in the concurrence of the two sorts of evidence, not 

 only does not diminish in anything like the same pro- 

 portion, but is not necessarily much diminished at all. 

 Nothing more results than a disturbance in the order 

 of precedency of the two processes, sometimes amount- 

 ing to its actual inversion: insomuch that instead of 

 deducing our conclusions by reasoning, and verifying 

 them by observation, we in some cases begin by 

 obtaining them conjecturally from specific experience, 

 and afterwards connect them with the principles of 

 human nature by a priori reasonings, which reasonings 

 are thus a real Verification. 



The greatest living authority on scientific methods 

 in general, and the only philosopher who, with a 

 competent knowledge of those methods, has attempted 

 to characterize the Method of Sociology, M. Comte, 

 considers this inverse order as inseparably inherent in 

 the nature of sociological speculation. He looks upon 

 the social science as essentially consisting of generali- 

 zations from history, verified, not originally suggested, 

 by deduction from the laws of human nature. Such 

 an opinion, from such a thinker, deserves the most 

 serious consideration ; but though I shall presently 

 endeavour to show the eminent importance of the 

 truth which it contains, I cannot but think that this 

 truth is enunciated in too unlimited a manner, and 

 that there is considerable scope in sociological in- 

 quiry for the direct, as well as for the inverse, De- 

 ductive Method. 



It will, in fact, be shown in the next chapter, that 

 there is a kind of sociological inquiries to which, from 

 their prodigious complication, the method of direct 

 deduction is altogether inapplicable, while by a happy 



