t^REFACEJ. V 



writers, Dr. Wliewell, he lias occasion frequently to express ditferences 

 of opinion, it is more particularly incumbent on him in this place 

 to declare, that without the aid derived from the facts and ideas 

 contained in that gentleman's History of the Inductive Sciences, the 

 corresponding portion of this work would probably not have been 

 written. 



The concluding Book is an attempt to contribute towards the solu- 

 tion of a question, which the decay of old opinions, and the agitation 

 that disturbs Euiopean society to its inmost depths, render as impor- 

 tant in the present day to the practical interest of human life, as it 

 must at all times be to the completeness of our speculative know- 

 ledge : viz. Whether moral and social phenomena are really exceptions 

 to the general certainty and uniformity of the course of nature ; and 

 how far the methods, by which so many of the laws of the physical 

 world have been numbered among truths irrevocably acquired and 

 universally assented to, can be made instrumental to the formation 

 of a similar body of received doctrine in moral and political science. 



PREFACE TO THE THIRD AND FOURTH 

 EDITIONS. 



Several criticisms, of a more or less controversial character, on this 

 work, have appeared since the publication of the second edition ; and 

 Dr. Whewell has lately published a reply to those parts of it in which 

 some of his opinions were controverted.* 



1 have carefully reconsidered all the points on an hieh my conclu- 

 sions have been assailed ; but, I have not to announce a change of 

 opinion on any matter of importance. Such minor oversights as have 

 been detected, either by myself or by my critics, I have, in general 

 silently, corrected ; but it is not to be inferred that I agree with the 

 objections which have been made to a passage in every instance in 

 which I have altered or cancelled it. I have often done so, merely 

 that it might not remain a stumbling-block, when the amount of dis- 

 cussion necessary to place the matter in its true light would have 

 exceeded what was suitable to the occasion. 



To several of the arguments which have been urged against me, I 

 have thought it useful to reply with some degree of minuteness ; not 



* Kow forming a cLajiter in his volume on The Philosophy of Di&covei~y. 



