THE CUEMICAL METHOD. r>53 



Yot, that it is incoiiclusive, si-avccly nvjuiros to bo pointed out. W'iiy 

 must the prosp«'rous mitioii have piospcrt'tl from one cuuso exchisivcly I 

 National pfosperity is always the coHoctivo n\sult of a muUitiKh^ of 

 fuvorahle ciiiumstam-rs : and of ihi-se, tho ivstrictivi- nation may unite 

 a i^ieater number than either of the others, akhouirh it may have all of 

 those cireumstantes in (-(mimon with either one or the other of tln'm. 

 Its prosperity may be partly owin<r to eircumslanees «oiiun(»n to it 

 with one of those nations, and partly with the other, while tiury, having 

 each of them only half the number of favorable cireumstances, have 

 remained inferior. So that the closest imitation which can be made, in 

 the social science, of a genuine induction from direct experience, gives 

 but a specious semblance of conclusiveness, without any real value 



§ 4. The Method of Difference in cither of its forms being thus 

 completely out of the question, there remains the Method of Aijree- 

 ment. But we are already aware- of how little value this method is, 

 in cases admitting Plurality of Causes : and social phenomena are 

 those in which the plurality prevails in the utmost possible ext(5nt. 



Suppose that the observer makes the luckiest hit which could bo 

 given him by any conceivable combination of chances : that he finds 

 two nations which agree in no circumstance whatever, except in having 

 a restrictive system, and in being prosperous; or a lumiber of nations, 

 all prosperous, which have no atitecedent circumstances common to 

 them all but that of having a restrictive policy. It is inuiecessary to go 

 into the consideration of the impossibility oP ascertaining from history, 

 or even from contemporary observation, that such is nally the fact ; 

 that the nations agree in no other circumstance capable of influencing 

 the case. Let us suppose this impossibility van(|uished, and the fact 

 ascertained that tliey agreed only in a restrictive system as an antece- 

 dent, and industrial prosperity as a consequent. What degree of pro- 

 sumption does this raise, that the restrictive system caused the pros- 

 perity ] One so trifling as to be ecjuivalent to none at all. That some 

 one antecedent is the cause of a given effect, because all otlu-r antece- 

 dents have been found capable of being eliminated, is a just inference, 

 only if the effect can have but one cause. If it admits of several, no- 

 thing is more natural than that t;ach of these should separately admit of 

 being eliminated. Now, in the case of political phenomena, the suppo- 

 sition of unity of cause is not oidy wide of the truth, but at an immeas- 

 urable distance from it. The causes of every social {ihenomenon which 

 we arc particularly interested about, security, wealth, frced(»m, good 

 government, jjublic virtue, public intelligence, or their oppositcK, are 

 infinitely numerous : especially the external or remote causes, which 

 alone are. for the most part, accessible to direct obs»rvali<»n. N(* one 

 cause suffices of itself to produce any one of these plienomena; while 

 there are countle.><8 causes which have some influence over them, and 

 may cooperate cither in their production nr in their proventi«»ii. From 

 the mere fact, therefore, of our having been able to eliminate some 

 circumstances, we can by no means infer that this circumstanct; wa.H not 

 instrumental to the efl\;ct evi;n in the very instances from which wo 

 have eliminated it. We may conclude that the effect is sometimes 

 produced without it; but not that, when present, it docs not contribute 

 its part. 



Similar objections will be found to uj)ply to the Method of Ct^nctJtn- 

 4A 



