546 



LOGIC OF THE MORAL SCIENCES. 



several other sciences have emerged 

 from this state at a comparatively 

 recent date, none now remain in it 

 except those which relate to man 

 himself, the most complex and most 

 difficult subject of study on which 

 the human mind can be engaged. 



Concerning the physical nature of 

 man as an organised being, — though 

 there is still much uncertainty and 

 much controversy, which can only be 

 terminated by the general acknow- 

 ledgment and employment of stricter 

 rules of induction than are commonly 

 recognised, — there is, however, a con- 

 siderable body of truths which all 

 who have attended to the subject 

 consider to be fully established ; nor 

 is there now any radical imperfection 

 in the method observed in this de- 

 partment of science by its most dis- 

 tinguished modem teachers. But the 

 laws of Mind, and, in even a greater 

 degree, those of Society, are so far 

 from having attained a similar state 

 of even partial recognition, that it is 

 still a controversy whether they are 

 capable of becoming subjects of science 

 in the strict sense of the term ; and 

 among those who are agreed on this 

 point there reigns the most irrecon- 

 cilable diversity on almost every other. 

 Here, therefore, if anywhere, the prin- 

 ciples laid down in the preceding Books 

 may be expected to be useful. 



If, on matters so much the most 

 important with which human intel- 

 lect can occupy itself, a more general 

 agreement is ever to exist among 

 thinkers ; if what has been pronounced 

 " the proper study of mankind " is not 

 destined to remain the only subject 

 which Philosophy cannot succeed in 

 rescuing from Empiricism ; the same 

 process through which the laws of 

 many simpler phenomena have by 

 general acknowledgment been placed 

 beyond dispute must be consciously 

 and deliberately applied to those more 

 difficult inquiries. If there are some 

 subjects on which the results obtained 

 have finally received the unanimous 

 assent of all who have attended to 

 the proof, ftud others on which man- 



kind have not yet been equally suc- 

 cessful ; on which the most sagacious 

 minds have occupied themselves from 

 the earliest date, and have never suc- 

 ceeded in establishing any consider- 

 able body of truths, so as to be beyond 

 denial or doubt ; it is by generalising 

 the methods successfully followed in 

 the former inquiries, and adapting 

 them to the latter, that we may hope 

 to remove this blot on the face of 

 science. The remaining chapters are 

 an endeavour to facilitate this most 

 desirable object 



§ 2. In attempting this, I am not 

 unmindful how little can be done 

 towards it in a mere treatise on Logic, 

 or how vague and unsatisfactory all 

 precepts of Method must necessarily 

 appear when not practically exempli- 

 fied in the establishment of a body of 

 doctrine. Doubtless, the most effec- 

 tual mode of showing how the sciences 

 of Ethics and Politics may be con- 

 structed would be to construct them : 

 a task which, it needs scarcely be 

 said, I am not about to undertake. 

 But even if there were no other ex- 

 amples, the memorable one of Bacon 

 would be sufficient to demonstrate 

 that it is sometimes both possible and 

 iiseful to point out the way, tl]ough 

 without being oneself prepared to ad- 

 venture far into it. And if more were 

 to be attempted, this at least is not a 

 proper place for the attempt. 



In substance, whatever can be done 

 in a work like this for the Logic of 

 the Moral Sciences, has been or ought 

 to have been accomplished in the five 

 preceding Books ; to which the present 

 can be only a kind of supplement or 

 appendix, since the methods of in- 

 vestigation applicable to moral and 

 social science must have been already 

 described, if I have succeeded in enu- 

 merating and characterising those 

 of science in general. It remains, 

 however, to examine which of those 

 methods are more especially suited to 

 the various branches of moral inc^uiry ; 

 under what peculiar faculties or diffi- 

 culties they are there employed ; how 



