574 LOGIC OF THE MORAL SCIENCES. 



CHAPTER X. 



OF THE INVERSE DEDUCTIVE, OR HISTORICAL METHOD. 



§ 1. There are two kinds of sociological inquiry. In the first kind, 

 the question proposed is, what effect will follow from a given cause, a 

 certain general condition of social circumstances being presupposed. 

 As, for example, what would be the effect of imposing or of repealing 

 corn laws, of abolishing monarchy, or introducing univei'sal sufii-age, 

 in the present condition of society and civilization in any European 

 country, or under any other given supposition with regard to the cir- 

 cumstances of society in general : without reference to the changes 

 which might take place, or which may already be in progress, in those 

 circumstances. But there is also a second inquiry, namely, what are 

 the laws which determine those general circumstances themselves. In 

 this last the question is, not what will be the effect of a given cause in 

 a certain state of society, but what are the causes which produce, and 

 the phenomena which characterize, States of Society generally. In 

 the solution of this question consists the general Science of Society ; by 

 which all the conclusions of the other and more special kind of inquiry 

 must be limited and controlled. 



§ 2. In order to conceive correctly the scope of this general science, 

 and distinguish it from the subordinate departments of sociological 

 speculation, it is necessary to fix with precision the ideas attached to 

 the phrase, " A State of Society." What is called a state of society, 

 is the simultaneous state of all the greater social facts, or phenomena. 

 Such are, the degree of knowledge, and of intellectual and moral cul- 

 ture, existing in the community, and in every class of it ; the state of 

 industry, of wealth and its distribution; the habitual occupations of the 

 community; their division into classes, and the relations of those 

 classes to one another ; the common beliefs which they entertain on 

 all the subjects most important to mankind, and the degree of assur- 

 ance with which those beliefs are held ; their tastes, and the character 

 and degree of their esthetic development ; their form of government, 

 and the more important of their laws and customs. The condition of 

 all these things, and of many more which will spontaneously suggest 

 themselves, constitute the state of society or the state of civilization at 

 any given time. 



When states of society, and the causes which produce them, are 

 spoken of as a subject of science, it is implied that there exists a natu- 

 ral correlation among these different elements; that not every variety 

 of combination of these general social facts is possible, but only cer- 

 tain combinations ; that, in short, there exist Uniformities of Coexist- 

 ence between the states of the various social phenomena. And such 

 is the truth : as is indeed a necessary consequence of the influence ex- 

 ercised by every one of those phenomena over every other. It is a 

 fact implied in the consensus of the various parts of the social body. ^ 



States of society are like different constitutions or different ages in 

 the physical frame ; they are conditions not of one or a few organs or 

 functions, but of the whole organism. Accordingly, the information 



