576 LOGIC OF THE MORAL SCIENCES. 



Political Economy, may admit of being carved out of 

 the general body of the social science; what other 

 portions of the social phenomena are in a suffi- 

 ciently close and complete dependence, in the first 

 resort, upon a peculiar class of causes, to make it 

 convenient to create a preliminary science of those 

 causes; postponing the consideration of the causes 

 which act through them, or in concurrence with them, 

 ; to a later period of the inquiry. There is however 

 among these separate departments [one which cannot 

 be passed over in silence, being of a more compre- 

 hensive and commanding character than any of the 

 other branches into which the social science may 

 L admit of being divided. Like them, it is directly 

 conversant with the causes of only one class of 

 social facts, but a class which exercises, immediately 

 for remotely, a paramount influence over the rest, I 

 allude to what may be termed Political Ethology, or 

 the science of the causes which determine the type 

 of character belonging to a people or to an age. Of 

 all the subordinate branches of the social science, this 

 is the most completely in its infancy. The causes of 

 national character are scarcely at all understood, and 

 the effect of institutions or social arrangements upon 

 national character is generally that portion of their 

 effects which is least attended to, and least compre- 

 ijhended. Nor is this wonderful, when we consider the 

 infant state of the Science of Ethology itself, from 

 whence the laws must be drawn of which the truths of 

 political ethology are but results and exemplifications. 

 Yet to whoever well considers the matter, it must 

 appear that the laws of national character are by far 

 the most important class of sociological laws. In the 

 first place, the character which is formed by any 

 state of social circumstances is in itself the most inte- 



