576 LOGIC OF THE MORAL SCIENCES. 



The words Progress and Progresshenesa, are not here to be under- 

 stood as sjTionymous with improvement and tendency to improvement. 

 It is conceivable that the laws of human nature might determine, and 

 even necessitate, a certain series of changes in man and society, which 

 might not in every case, or which might not on the whole, be improve- 

 ments. It is my belief indeed that the general tendency is, and will 

 continue to be, saving occa.sional exceptions, one of improvement ; a 

 tendency towards a better and happier state. But this is not a ques- 

 tion of the method of the social science, but an ultimate result of the 

 science itself. For our purpose it is sufficient, that there is a progress- 

 ive change both in the character of the human race, and in their out- 

 ward circumstances so far as moulded by themselves : that in each suc- 

 cessive age the principal phenomena of society are different from what 

 they were in the age preceding, and still more different from any pre- 

 vious age. The periods at which these successive changes are most 

 apparent (according to the judicious remark of M. Comte) are inter- 

 vals of one generation, during which a new set of human beings have 

 been educated, have grown uj) from childhood, and taken possession 

 of society. 



The progi-essiveness of the human race is the foundation on which a 

 method of philosophizing in the social science has been of late years 

 erected, far superior to either of the two modes which had previously 

 been prevalent, the chemical or experimental, and the geometrical 

 modes. This method, which is now generally adopted by the most 

 advanced thinkers on the Continent, and especially in France, consists 

 in attempting, by a study and analysis of the general facts of history, 

 to discover (what these philosophers term) the law of progress : which 

 law, once ascertained, must according to them enable us to predict 

 future events, just as after a few terms of an infinite series in algebra 

 we are able to detect the principle of regularity in their recurrence, 

 and to predict the rest of the series to any number of teiTns we please. 

 The principal aim of historical speculation in France, of late years, 

 has been to ascertain the law. But while I gladly acknowledge the 

 great sei-vices which have been rendered to historical knowledge by 

 this school, I cannot but deem them (with the single exception of M. 

 Comte) to be chargeable M-ith a fundamental misconception of the 

 true method of social philosophy. The misconception consists in sup- 

 posing that the order of succession which we may be able to trace 

 among the different states of society and civilization which history 

 presents to us, even if that order were more rigidly uniform than it 

 has yet been proved to be, could ever amount to a law of nature. It 

 can only be an empirical law. The succession of states of the human 

 mind and of human society cannot have an independent law of its own; 

 it must depend upon the psychological and ethological laws which 

 govern the action of circumstances on men and of men on circum- 

 stances. It is conceivable that those laws may be such, and the 

 general circumstances of the human race such, as to deteiTnine the 

 successive transformations of man and society to one given and un- 

 varying order. But even if the case be so, it cannot be the ultimate 

 aim of science to discover an empirical law. Until that law can be 

 connected with the psychological and ethological laws upon which it 

 depends, and, by the consilience of deduction a priori with historical 

 evidence, can be converted from an empirical law into a scientific one, 



