574 



LOGIC OF THE MORAL SCIENCES. 



have heard that Bacon taught man- 

 kind to follow experience, and to 

 ground their conclusions on facts 

 instead of metaphysical dogmas — 

 think that, by treating political facts 

 in as directly experimental a method 

 as chemical facts, they are showing 

 themselves true Baconians, and prov- 

 ing their adversaries to be mere syllo- 

 gisers and schoolmen. As, however, 

 the notion of the applicability of ex- 

 perimental methods to political philo- 

 sophy cannot co-exist with any just 

 conception of these methods them- 

 selves, the kind of arguments from 

 experience which the chemical theory 

 brings forth as its fruits (and which 

 form the staple, in this country es- 

 pecially, of parliamentary and hust- 

 ings oratory) are such as, at no time 

 since Bacon, would have been ad- 

 mitted to be valid in chemistry itself, 

 or in any other branch of experimental 

 science. They are such as these : that 

 the prohibition of foreign commodi- 

 ties must conduce to national wealth, 

 because England has flourished under 

 it; or because countries in general which 

 have adopted it have flourished ; that 

 our laws, or our internal adminstra- 

 tion, or our constitution, are excellent 

 for a similar reason ; and the eternal 

 arguments from historical examples, 

 from Athens or Rome, from the fires 

 in Smithfield or the French Revolu- 

 tion. 



I will not waste time in contending 

 against modes of argumentation which 

 no person, with the smallest practice 

 in estimating evidence, could possibly 

 be betrayed into ; which draw con- 

 clusions of general application from a 

 single unanalysed instance, or arbi- 

 trarily refer an effect to some one 

 among its antecedents, without any 

 process of elimination or comparison 

 of instances. It is a rule both of jus- 

 tice and of good sense to grapple not 

 with the absurdest, but with the most 

 reasonable form of a wrong opinion. 

 We shall suppose our inquirer ac- 

 quainted with the true conditions of 

 experimental investigation, and com- 

 petent in point of acquirements for 



realising them, so far as they can be 

 realised. He shall know as much of 

 the facts of history as mere erudition 

 can teach — as much as can be proved 

 by testimony without the assistance 

 of any theory ; and if those mere facts, 

 properly collated, can fulfil the condi- 

 tions of a real induction, he shall be 

 qualified for the task. 



But that no such attempt can have 

 the smallest chance of success, has 

 been abundantly shown in the tenth 

 chapter of the Third Book.* We 

 there examined whether effects which 

 depend on a complication of causes 

 can be made the subject of a true 

 induction by observation and experi- 

 ment ; and concluded, on the most 

 convincing grounds, that they cannot. 

 Since, of all effects, none depend on 

 so great a complication of causes as 

 social phenomena, we might leave our 

 case to rest in safety on that previous 

 showing. But a logical principle as 

 yet so little familiar to the ordinary 

 run of thinkers requires to be insisted 

 on more than once in order to make 

 the due impression ; and the present 

 being the case which of all others 

 exemplifies it the most strongly, there 

 will be advantage in re-stating the 

 grounds of the general maxim, as 

 applied to the specialities of the class 

 of inquiries now under consideration. 



§ 2. The first difficulty which meets 

 us in the attempt to apply experi- 

 mental methods for ascertaining the 

 laws of social phenomena, is that we 

 are without the means of making 

 artificial experiments. Even if we 

 could contrive experiments at leisure, 

 and try them without limit, we should 

 do so under immense disadvantage ; 

 both from the impossibility of ascer- 

 taining and taking note of all the 

 facts of each case, and because (those 

 facts being in a perpetual state of 

 change) before sufficient time had 

 elapsed to ascertain the result of the 

 experiment, some material circum- 

 stances would always have ceased to be 



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