562 



LOGIC OF THE MORAL SCIENCES. 



that contended for by Gall and his 

 followers, and that whatever may 

 hereafter be found to be the true 

 theory of the subject, phrenology at 

 least is untenable. 



CHAPTER V. 



OP ETHOLOGY, OR THE SCIENCE OF 

 THE FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 



§ I. The laws of mind, as char- 

 acterised in the preceding chapter, 

 compose the universal or abstract 

 portion of the philosophy of human 

 nature ; and all the truths of common 

 experience, constituting a practical 

 knowledge of mankind, must, to the 

 extent to which they are truths, be 

 results or consequences of these. Such 

 familiar maxims, when collected d 

 posteriori from observation of life, 

 occupy among the truths of the science 

 the place of what, in our analysis of 

 Induction, have so often been spoken 

 of under the title of Empirical Laws. 



An Empirical Law (it will be re- 

 membered) is an uniformity, whether 

 of succession or of co-existence, which 

 holds true in all instances within our 

 limits of observation, but is not of a 

 nature to afford any assurance that 

 it would hold beyond those limits, 

 either because the consequent is not 

 really the effect of the antecedent, but 

 forms part along with it of a chain of 

 effects, flowing from prior causes not 

 yet ascertained, or because there is 

 ground to believe that the sequence 

 (though a case of causation) is re- 

 solvable into simpler sequences, and, 

 depending therefore on a concurrence 

 of several natural agencies, is exposed 

 to an unknown multitude of pos- 

 sibilities of counteraction. In other 

 words, an empirical law is a gene- 

 ralisation, of which, not content with 

 finding it true, we are abliged to ask 

 why is it true ? knowing that its 

 truth is not absolute, but dependent 

 on some more general conditions, and 

 that it can only be relied on in so far 



as there is ground of assurance that 

 those conditions are realised. 



Now, the observations concerning 

 human affairs collected from common 

 experience are precisely of this na- 

 ture. Even if they were universally 

 and exactly true within the bounds of 

 experience, which they never are, still 

 they are not the ultimate laws of 

 human action ; they are not the prin- 

 ciples of human nature, but results 

 of those principles under the circum- 

 stances in which mankind have hap- 

 pened to be placed. When the Psal- 

 mist " said in his haste that all men 

 are liars," he enunciated what in some 

 ages and countries is borne out by 

 ample experience ; but it is not a law 

 of man's nature to lie, though it is 

 one of the consequences of the laws of 

 human nature that lying is nearly 

 universal when certain external cir- 

 cumstances exist universally, espe- 

 cially circumstances productive of 

 habitual distrust and fear. When 

 the character of the old is asserted to 

 be cautious, and of the young im- 

 petuous, this, again, is but an empiri- 

 cal law ; for it is not because of their 

 youth that the young are impetuous, 

 nor because of their age that the old 

 are cautious. It is chiefly, if not 

 wholly, because the old, during their ' 

 many years of life, have generally had 

 much experience of its various evils, 

 and having suffered or seen others 

 suffer much from incautious exposure 

 to them, have acquired associations 

 favourable to circumspection ; while 

 the young, as well from the absence 

 of similar experience as from the ! 

 greater strength of the inclinations 

 which urge them to enterprise, en- 

 gage themselves in it more readily. 

 Here, then, is the explanation of the 

 empirical law ; here are the conditions 

 which ultimately determine whether 

 the law holds good or not. If anoldman 

 has not been oftener than most young 

 men in contact with danger and diffi- 

 culty, he will be equally incautious : 

 if a youth has not stronger inclina- 

 tions than an old man, he probably 

 will be as little enterprising^. The 



