FALLACIES OF GENERALIZATION. 489 



age, having applied a more minute analysis to the past rcconls oi' uur 

 race, have lor the most part adopted the contrary opinion, that the 

 human species is in a state of necessary progression, and that from tho 

 tenns of the series which are past we may infer with certainty llmsd 

 which are yet to come. Of this doctrine, considered as a philoso])lii( al 

 tenet, we shall have occasion to speak fully in the concluding IJook. 

 If not, in all its forms, free from error, it is at least always free from 

 the gross and stupid error which we previously oxem|»lilied. But, in all 

 except the most eminently philosophical minds, it is infected with pre- 

 cisely the same kind of fallacy as that is. For wo must remember that 

 even this other and better generalization, the progressive change in the 

 condition of the human spi-cit-s, is, alter all, but an empirical law : to 

 which, moreover, it is nut diilicult to point out exceedingly large excep- 

 tions ; and even if these could be got rid of, either by disputing the facts 

 or by explaining and limiting the theory, the general objectif)n remains 

 valid against the supposed law, as applicable to any other than what, in 

 our third Book, were tenned Adjacent Cases, For not only is it no ulti- 

 mate, but not even a causal law. Changes do indeed take place in 

 human affairs, but every one of those changes depends upon determi- 

 nate causes ; the " progressibility of the species" is not a cause, but a 

 summary expression for the general result of all the causes. So soon 

 aa, by a quite different sort of induction, it shall be ascertained what 

 causes have produced these successive changes from the beginning of 

 history in so far as they have really taken place, and by what causes of a 

 contrary tendency they have been occasionally checked or entirely coun- 

 teracted, we shall then be prepared to predict the future with reason- 

 able foresight : we shall be in possession of the real /aw of the future; 

 and shall be able to declare upon what circumstances the continuance 

 of the same onward movement will eventually depend. But this it is 

 the enor of many of the more advanqcd thinkers, in the present age, 

 to overlook ; and to imagine that the empirical law collected from a 

 mere comparison of the condition of our species at different past times, 

 is a real law, is the law of its changes, not only past but also to come. 

 The truth is, that the causes upon which the phenomena of the moral 

 world depend, are in every age, and almost in every country, com- 

 bined in some different proportion; so that it is scarcely to be expect- 

 ed that the general result of them all sIkjuUI conform very closely, in 

 its details at least, to any uniforndy progressive series. And all 

 generalizations which afhrm that mankind have a tendency to grow 

 better or worse, ncher or poorer, more cultivated or more barbarous, 

 that population increases faster than subsistence, or subsistence than 

 population, that inequality of fortunes has a tendency to increase or to 

 break down, and the like, propositions of considerable value jis empiri- 

 cal laws within certain (but gc^nerally rather narrow) limits, are. in 

 reality true or false according to times and circumstances. 



What wo have saJd of empirical generalizations from times past to 

 times still to come, holds ecpially tnie of similar generalizations from 

 present times to times past ; wlu;n men whoso acf|uainlance with moral 

 and social facts is confined to their own age;, take tlie men and the 

 things of that age for the typo of men and things in general, and apply 

 without scruple to the interpretation of the events of history, the em- 

 pirical laws which represent sufficiently for daily guidance the com- 

 mon phenomena of human nature at that time and in tiiat particular 

 3Q 



