20 NATURE AND DESIGN OF THIS WORK. [CHAP. I. 



a re-statement of the original problem. Admitting, however, 

 the hypothesis of the independent formation of opinion in the 

 individual mind, either absolutely, as in the speculations of 

 Laplace and Poisson, or under limitations imposed by the actual 

 data, as will be seen in this treatise, Chap, xxi., the problem as- 

 sumes a far more definite character. It will be manifest that the 

 ulterior value of the theory of Probabilities must depend very 

 much upon the correct formation of such mediate hypotheses, 

 where the purely experimental data are insufficient for definite 

 solution, and where that further experience indicated by the in- 

 terpretation of the final logical equation is unattainable. Upon 

 the other hand, an undue readiness to form hypotheses in sub- 

 jects which from their very nature are placed beyond human 

 ken, must re-act upon the credit of the theory of Probabilities, 

 and tend to throw doubt in the general mind over its most legi- 

 timate conclusions. 



18. It would, perhaps, be premature to speculate here upon 

 the question whether the methods of abstract science are likely at 

 any future day to render service in the investigation of social 

 problems at all commensurate with those which they have ren- 

 dered in various departments of physical inquiry. An attempt 

 to resolve this question upon pure d priori grounds of reasoning 

 would be very likely to mislead us. For example, the conside- 

 ration of human free-agency would seem at first sight to preclude 

 the idea that the movements of the social system should ever ma- 

 nifest that character of orderly evolution which we are prepared 

 to expect under the reign of a physical necessity. Yet already 

 do the researches of the statist reveal to us facts at variance with 

 such an anticipation. Thus the records of crime and pauperism 

 present a degree of regularity unknown in regions in which the 

 disturbing influence of human wants and passions is unfelt. On 

 the other hand, the distemperature of seasons, the eruption of 

 volcanoes, the spread of blight in the vegetable, or of epidemic 

 maladies in the animal kingdom, things apparently or chiefly the 

 product of natural causes, refuse to be submitted to regular and 

 apprehensible laws. " Fickle as the wind," is a proverbial ex- 

 pression. Reflection upon these points teaches us in some degree 

 to correct our earlier judgments. We learn that we are not to 



