SOCIAL SCIJEKCE. 



S7i 



firmed by observation ; nor those of 

 observation, unless they can be affili- 

 ated to theory, by deducing them 

 from the laws of human nature, and 

 from a close analysis of the circum- 

 stances of the particular situation. 

 It is the accordance of these two 

 kinds of evidence separately taken — 

 the consilience of d priori reasoning 

 and specific experience — which forms 

 the only sufficient ground for the prin- 

 ciples of any science so " immersed in 

 matter," dealing with such complex 

 and concrete phenomena, as Ethology. 



CHAPTER VI. 



GENKBAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE 

 SOCIAL SCIENCE. 



§ I. Next after the science of in- 

 dividual man comes the science of 

 man in society ; of the actions of col- 

 lective masses of mankind, and the 

 various phenomena which constitute 

 social life. 



If the formation of individual char- 

 acter is already a complex subject of 

 study, this subject must be, in ap- 

 pearance at least, still more complex ; 

 because the number of concurrent 

 causes, all exercising more or less in- 

 fluence on the total eflFect, is greater, 

 in the proportion in which a nation, 

 or the species at large, exposes a 

 larger surface to the operation of 

 agents, psychological and physical, 

 than any single individual. If it 

 was necessary to prove, in opposition 

 to an existing prejudice, that the 

 simpler of the two is capable of being 

 a subject of science ; the prejudice is 

 likely to be yet stronger against the 

 possibility of giving a scientific char- 

 acter to the study of Politics, and of 

 the phenomena of Society. It is, ac- 

 cordingly, but of yesterday that the 

 conception of a political or social 

 science ha» exiited anywhere but 

 in the mind of here and there an 

 insulated thinker, generally very ill 

 prepared for its realisation : though 

 the subject itself has of all others 



engaged the most general attention, 

 and been a theme of interested and 

 earnest discussions, almost from the 

 beginning of recorded time. 



The condition indeed of politics, as 

 a branch of knowledge, was until 

 very lately, and has scarcely even 

 yet ceased to be, that which Bacon 

 animadverted on, as the natural state 

 of the sciences while their cultivation 

 is abandoned to practitioners ; not 

 being carried on as a branch of specu- 

 lative inquiry, but only with a view 

 to the exigencies of daily practice, 

 and the fructifera experimenta, there- 

 fore, being aimed at, almost to the 

 exclusion of the lucifera. Such was 

 medical investigation before physio- 

 logy and natural history began to be 

 cultivated as branches of general 

 knowledge. The only questions exa- 

 mined were, what diet is wholesome, 

 or what medicine will cure some given 

 disease, without any previous system- 

 atic inquiry into the laws of nutrition, 

 and of the healthy and morbid action 

 of the different organs, on which laws 

 the effect of any diet or medicine must 

 evidently depend. And in politics, 

 the questions which engaged general 

 attention were similar : — Is such an 

 enactment, or such a form of govern- 

 ment, beneficial or the reverse — either 

 universally, or to some particular com- 

 munity? without any previous inquiry 

 into the general conditions by which 

 the operation of legislative measures, 

 or the effects produced by forms of 

 government, are determined. Students 

 in politics thus attempted to study 

 the pathology and therapeutics of the 

 social body before they had laid the 

 necessary foundation in its physio- 

 logy ; to cure disease without under- 

 standing the laws of health. And 

 the result was such as it must always 

 be when persons, even of ability, at- 

 tempt to deal with the complex ques- 

 tions of a science before its simpler 

 and more elementary truths hav« been 

 established. 



No wonder that when the pheno- 

 mena of society have so rarely been 

 contemplated in the point of view 



