PHYSICAL METHOD. 569 



States of cultivation ami laiuk'd propeily set forth in tlio foiiv!^n»iiig 

 exti-act.* 



§ 4. I woukl not here undertake to decitle what other hyj>othttical 

 or abstract sciences, similar to PoHtical l^conomy, may admit of ht:\wr 

 carved out of the c;eneral body of the social science ; wiiat other ])or- 

 tions of the social phenomena are in a sufHciently close and complete 

 dependence, in the tirst resort, upon a peculiar class of causes, to make 

 it convenient to create a preliminary science of those causes ; post- 

 poning the consideration of the causes which net through them, or in 

 concurrence with them, to a later period of the iiwpiiry. Tlu're is 

 however among these separate departments one whicli cannot be 

 passed over in silence, being of a more comprehensive and connnand- 

 ing character than any of the other branches into which the social 

 science may admit of being divided. Like them, it is directly con- 

 versant with the causes of only one class of social facts, but a class 

 which exercises, immediately or remotely, a paramount influence over 

 the rest. I allude to what may be termed Political Ethology, or the 

 science of the causes whicli determine the typi' of character Ijelonging 

 to a people or to an age. Of all the subordinate branches of the social 

 science, this is the most completely in its infancy. The causes of 

 national character are scarcely at all understood, and the effect of 

 institutions or social airangements upon national character is generally 

 that portion of their effects which is least attended to, and least com- 

 prehended. Nor is this wonderful, when we consider the infant state 

 of the Science of Ethology itself, from whence the laws must be drawn 

 of which the truths of political ethology are but results and exemplifi- 

 cations. 



Yet, to whoever well considers the matter, it must appear that the 

 laws of national character are by far the most important class of socio- 

 logical laws. In the first place, the character which is formed by any 

 state of social circumstances is in itself the most interesting phe- 

 nomenon which that state of society can possibly present. Secondly, 

 it is also a fact which enters largely into the production of all the other 

 phenomena. And above all, the character, that is, the opinions, feel- 

 ings, and habits, of the people, though greatly the results of the state 

 of society which precedes them, are also greatly the causes of the 

 state of society which folhnvs them ; and are th(! power by which all 

 those of the circumstances of society whicli are artificial, laws and 

 customs for instance, are altogether moulded : customs (evidently, laws 

 no less really, either by the direct influence of public sentiment upon 

 th(! ruling powers, or by the effect which the state of national opinion 

 and feeling has in detennining the form of government and sliapiiig the 

 character of the governors. 



As might be expected, the mo.st imperfect part of those brandies of 

 sociology which have been cultivated as separate sciences, is the 

 theory of the manner in which their conclusions are aflectr-d by t^tho- 

 logical considerations. The omission is no defect in them as abstract 

 or hypothetical sciences, but it vitiates them in their practical applica- 

 tion as branches of the comprehensive social science. In political 



* The quotations in this parufraph are from a paper wTittcn by Uio author, an'l puhhshcd 

 in a periodical in 1934. 



4C 



