II. 



ON THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF HUMAN 

 NA TURE. 



PERHAPS the most correct conception of science that 

 has yet been formed is that which regards it as the high- 

 est stage of growing knowledge. Ideas about men, like 

 those about other subjects, undergo development. There 

 is a rude acquaintance with human nature among barba- 

 rians : they observe that the young can be trained, and that 

 men are influenced by motives and passions ; for without 

 some such knowledge their limited social relations would 

 be impossible. These primitive notions have been gradu- 

 ally unfolded by time into the completer and more accurate 

 ideas which mark the civilized state. Yet the prevailing 

 knowledge of human nature is still imperfect and empir- 

 ical that is, it has not expanded into rational principles 

 and general laws. That it will become still more perfect 

 accords with all analogy ; and if this process continues, as 

 it undoubtedly must, there seems reasonable hope of the 

 formation of something like a definite Science of Human 

 Nature. 



That the scientific method of inquiry is inadequate and 

 inapplicable to the higher study of man, is a widely preva- 

 lent notion, and one which seems, to a great extent, to be 

 shared alike by the ignorant and the educated. Holding 

 the crude idea that science pertains only to the material 

 world, they denounce all attempts to make human nature a 

 subject of strict scientific inquiry, as an intrusion into an 

 illegitimate sphere. Maintaining that man's position is 



(451) 



