KTllOI.OGV. 515 



generalizations first, hut in niakiiiij;^ tlu-in willinut tlu> aid or wini-nnt of 

 rigorous inchictive niotlnxls, and applyinLr tliein dodurtivoly witliout 

 tlic needful use of that important part of the Deductive Method termed 

 Verification. 



The order in which truths of the various deirrees of generality 

 should be ascertained, cannot, I apprehend, be prescribed by any un- 

 bending rule. I know of no maxim which can be laid dou-n on the 

 subject, hut to obtain those first, in respect to which the conditions of 

 a real induction can be first and most comphtely realized. Now, 

 wherever our means of investiirafion can reach causes, without stopping 

 at the empirical laws of the ell'ects, the simplest cases, being those in 

 which fewest causes are simultaneously concerned, will be most 

 amenable to the inductive process ; and tliese are the cases which 

 elicit laws of the greatest comprehensiveness. In every science, there- 

 fore, which has reached the stage at which it becomes a .science of 

 causes, it will be usual, as well as desirable, first to obtain tin- hitrhcst 

 generalizations, and then deduce the more special ones from them. 

 Nor can I discover any foundation for the Baconian maxim, so much 

 extolled by subsequent writers, except this : That before we attempt 

 to explain "deductively from more general laws any new class of phe- 

 nomena, it is desirable to have gone as far as is practicable in ascer- 

 taining the emf)irical laws of those phenomena ; so as to compare the 

 results of deduction, not with one individual instance after another, 

 but Avith sjcneral propositions expressive of the points of agreement 

 which have been found among many instances. For if Newton had 

 been obliged to verify the theory of gravitation, not by deducing from 

 it Kepler's laws, but by deducing all the observed planetary positions 

 which had served Kepler to establish those laws, the Newtonian theory 

 would probably never have emerged from the state of an hypothesis. 



The applicability of these remarks to the special ca.se under con- 

 sideration, cannot admit of question. The science of the formation of 

 character is a science of causes. The subject is one to which those 

 among the canons of induction, by which laws of causation are ascer- 

 tained, can be rigorously aj)plied. It is, therefore, both natural and 

 advisable to ascertain the simplest, which are necessarily the most 

 general, laws of causation first, and to deduce the middle principles 

 from them. In other wortLs, Ethology, the deductive science, is a sys- 

 tem of corollaries firom Psychology, tin? experimental science. 



§ G. Of these, the earlier alone has been, as yet, really conceived or 

 studied as a science: the other, Ethology, is still to be created. Hut 

 all things are prepared for its creation. The em})iri< al laws, destined 

 to verify its dedtictions, have been afforded in abundance by every 

 successive age of humanity ; and the premisses for the deductions are 

 now sufficiently complete. Excepting the degree of uncertainty which 

 still exists as to the extent of the natural differences of human minds, 

 and the physical circumstances on which these rnay be dependent, 

 (considerations which are of secondai-y importance when we are con- 

 sidenng mankind in the average, or en vki.ssp,) I believe most compe- 

 tent judges will agree that the general laws of the difii-rcnt constituent 

 elements of human nature are now sufficiently understood, to render 

 it pos.sii)le for a competent thinker to deduce from those laws the 

 particular type of character which would be formed, in mankind gen- 

 3Z 



