PHYSICAL METHOD. 577 



resting phenomenon which that state of society can 

 possibly present. Secondly, it is also a fact which 

 enters largely into the production of all the other phe- 

 nomena. And above all, the character, that is, the 

 opinions, feelings, and habits, of the people, though 

 greatly the results of the state of society which pre- 

 cedes them, are also greatly the causes of the state of 

 society which follows them; and are the power by 

 which all those of the circumstances of society which 

 are artificial, laws and customs for instance, are alto- 

 gether moulded: customs evidently, laws no less 

 really, either by the direct influence of public senti- 

 ment upon the ruling powers, or by the effect which 

 the state of national opinion and feeling has in deter- 

 mining the form of government and shaping the cha- 

 racter of the governors. 



As might be expected, the most imperfect part of 

 those branches of sociology which have been culti- 

 vated as separate sciences, is the theory of the manner 

 in which their conclusions are affected by ethological 

 considerations. The omission is no defect in them as 

 abstract or hypothetical sciences, but it vitiates them 

 in their practical application as branches of the 

 comprehensive social science. In political economy 

 for instance, empirical laws of human nature are 

 tacitly assumed by English thinkers, which are calcu- 

 lated only for Great Britain and the United States. 

 Among other things, an intensity of competition is 

 constantly supposed, which, as a general mercantile 

 fact, exists in no country in the world except those 

 two. An English political economist, like his coun- 

 trymen in general, has seldom learned that it is pos- 

 sible that men, in conducting the business of selling 

 their goods over a counter, should care more about 

 their ease or their vanity than about their pecuniary 



VOL. II. 2 P 



