5i8 



FAL^ACtES. 



assuming that human nature arid so- 

 ciety will for ever revolve in the same 

 orbit, and exhibit essentially the same 

 phenomena — which is also the vul- 

 gar error of the ostentatiously practi- 

 cal, the votaries of so-called common 

 sense, in our day, especially in Great 

 Britain — the more thinking minds 

 of the present age, having applied a 

 more minute analysis to the past re- 

 cords of our race, have for the most 

 part adopted a contrary opinion, that 

 the human species is in a state of ne- 

 cessary progression, and that from the 

 terms of the series which are past we 

 may infer positively those which are 

 yet to come. Of this doctrine, con- 

 sidered as a philosophical tenet, we 

 shall have occasion to speak more 

 fully in the concluding Book. If not, 

 in all its forms, free from error, it is 

 at least free from the gross and stupid 

 error which we previously exemplified. 

 But, in all except the most eminently 

 philosophical minds, it is infected with 

 precisely the same kind of fallacy as 

 that is. For we must remember that 

 even this other and better generalisa- 

 tion, the progressive change in the 

 condition of the human species, is, 

 after all, bxit an empirical law, to 

 which, too, it is not difficult to point 

 out exceedingly large exceptions; and 

 even if these could be got rid of, either 

 by disputing the facts or by explaining 

 and limiting the theory, the general 

 objection remains valid against the 

 supposed law, as applicable to any 

 other than what, in our Third Book, 

 were termed Adjacent Cases. For 

 not only is it no ultimate, but not 

 even a causal law. Changes do in- 

 deed take place in human affairs, but 

 every one of those changes depends on 

 determinate causes ; the *' progres- 

 siveness of the species " is not a cause, 

 but a summary expression for the 

 general result of all the causes. So 

 soon as, by a quite different sort of 

 induction, it shall be ascertained what 

 causes have produced these successive 

 changes from the beginning of his- 

 tory, in so far as they have really 

 taken place, and by what cauBes of a 



contrary tendency they haV6 been- 

 occasionally checked or entirely coun- 

 teracted, we may then be prepared to 

 predict the future with reasonable 

 foresight ; we may be in possession of 

 the real laxv of the future, and may 

 be able to declare on what circum- 

 stances the continuance of the same 

 onward movement will eventually de- 

 pend. But this it is the error of many 

 of the more advanced thinkers in the 

 jiresent age to overlook, and to ima- 

 gine that the empirical law collected 

 from a mere comparison of the condi- 

 tion of our species at different past 

 -imes is a real law, is the law of its 

 changes, not only past, but also to 

 come. The truth is, that the causes 

 on which the phenomena of the moral 

 world depend are in every age, and 

 almost in every coimtry, combined in 

 some different proportion ; so that it 

 is scarcely to b* expected that the 

 general result of them all should con- 

 form very closely, in its details at 

 least, to any uniformly progressive 

 series. And all generalisations which 

 affirm that mankind have a tendency 

 to grow better or worse, richer or 

 poorer, more cultivated or more barba- 

 rous ; that population increases faster 

 than subsistence, or subsistence than 

 population ; that inequality of fortune 

 has a tendency to increase or to break 

 down, and the like — propositions of 

 considerable value as empirical laws 

 within certain (but generally rather 

 narrow) limits — are in reality true or 

 false according to times and circum- 

 stances. 



What we have said of empirical 

 generalisations from times past to 

 times still to come, holds equally true 

 of similar generalisations from present 

 times to times past ; when persons 

 whose acquaintance with moral and 

 social facts is confined to their own 

 age, take the men and the things of 

 that age for the type of men and 

 things in general, and apply without 

 scruple to the interpretation of the 

 events of history the empirical laws 

 which represent suflSciently for daily 

 guidance the common phenomena of 



I 



