hemaining laws oi* nature. 



39S' 



as when he is reasoning of kings, or 

 other single rulers, still, as he is pro- 

 viding for indefinite duration, involv- 

 ing an indefinite succession of such 

 individuals, he must in general both 

 reason and act as if what is true of 

 most persons were true of all. 



The two kinds of consideration 

 above adduced are a sufficient refu- 

 tation of the popular error, that 

 speculations on society and govern- 

 ment, as resting on merely probable 

 evidence, must be inferior in cer- 

 tainty and scientific accuracy to the 

 conclusions of what are called the 

 exact sciences, and less to be relied 

 on in practice. There are reasons 

 enough why the moral sciences must 

 remain inferior to at least the more 

 perfect of the physical : why the laws 

 of their more complicated phenomena 

 cannot be so completely deciphered, 

 nor the phenomena predicted with 

 the same degree of assurance. But 

 though we cannot attain to so many 

 truths, there is no reason that those 

 we can attain should deserve less re- 

 liance, or have less of a scientific 

 character. Of this topic, however, I 

 shall treat more systematically in the 

 concluding Book, to which place any 

 further consideration of it must be 

 deferred. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 



OF THE REMAINING LAWS OF NATURE. 



§ I. In the First Book we found 

 that all the assertions which can be 

 conveyed by language express some 

 one or more of five different things : 

 Existence ; Order in Place ; Order in 

 Time ; Causation ; and Resemblance.* 

 Of these. Causation, in our view of 

 the subject, not being fundamentally 

 different from Order in Time, the five 

 species of possible assertions are re- 

 duced to four. The propositions 

 which affirm Order in Time, in either 

 of its two modes, Co-existence and 

 Succession, have formed, thus far, the 

 subject of the present Book. And 

 * Supra, book i. chap. v. 



we have now concluded the exposi- 

 tion, so far as it falls within the limits 

 assigned to this work, of the nature 

 of the evidence on which these pro- 

 positions rest, and the processes of 

 investigation by which they are as- 

 certained and proved. There remain 

 three classes of facts : Existence, 

 Order in Place, and Resemblance ; 

 in regard to which the same ques- 

 tions are now to be resolved. 



Regarding the first of these, very 

 little needs be said. Existence in 

 general is a subject not for our 

 science, but for metaphysics. To de- 

 termine what things can be recog- 

 nised as really existing, independently 

 of our own sensible or other impres- 

 sions, and in what meaning the 

 term is, in that case, predicated of 

 them, belongs to the consideration 

 of "Things in themselves," from 

 which, throughout this work, we 

 have as much as possible kept aloof. 

 Existence, so far as Logic is con- 

 cerned about it, has reference only 

 to phenomena ; to actual or possible 

 state.s of external or internal con- 

 sciousness, in ourselves or others. 

 Feelings of sensitive beings, or pos- 

 sibilities of having such feelings, are 

 the only things the existence of 

 which can be a subject of logical 

 induction, because the only things of 

 which the existence in individual cases 

 can be a subject of experience. 



It is true that a thing is said by us 

 to exist even when it is absent, and 

 therefore is not and cannot be per- 

 ceived. But even then, its existence 

 is to us only another word for our 

 conviction that we should perceive it 

 on a certain supposition, namely, if 

 we were in the needful circumstances 

 of time and place, and endowed with 

 the needful perfection of organs. My 

 belief that the Emperor of China 

 exists, is simply my belief that if 

 I were transported to the imperial 

 palace or some other locality in Pekin, 

 I should see him. My belief that 

 Julius Caesar existed, is my belief 

 that I should have seen him if I had 

 been present in the field of Pharsalis^ 



