LOGIC OF THE MORAL SCIENCES. 



578 



we have shown that these cannot 

 have been known by specific experi- 

 ence, they must have been leamt by 

 deduction from principles of human 

 nature, experience being called in 

 only as a supplementary resource, to 

 determine the causes which produced 

 an unexplained residue. But if the 

 principles of human nature may be 

 had recourse to for the establishment 

 of some political truths, they may for 

 all. If it be admissible to say, Eng- 

 land must have prospered by reason 

 of the prohibitory system, because 

 after allowing for all the other ten- 

 dencies which have been operating, 

 there is a portion of prosperity still 

 to be accounSted for ; it must be ad- 

 missible to go to the same source for 

 the effect of the prohibitory system, 

 and examine what account the laws 

 of human motives and actions will 

 enable us to give of its tendencies. 

 Nor, in fact, will the experimental 

 argument amount to anything, ex- 

 cept in verification of a conclusion 

 drawn from those general laws. For 

 we may subtract the effect of one, 

 two, three, or four causes, but we 

 shall never succeed in subtracting 

 the effect of all causes except one ; 

 while it would be a curious instance 

 of the dangers of too much caution, 

 if, to avoid depending on d priori 

 reasoning concerning the effect of a 

 single cause, we should oblige our- 

 selves to depend on as many separate 

 d priori reasonings as there are causes 

 operating concurrently with that par- 

 ticular cause in some given instance. 

 We have now sufficiently charac- 

 terised the gross misconception of 

 the mode of investigation proper to 

 political phenomena, which I have 

 termed the Chemical Method. So 

 lengthened a discussion would not 

 l>ave been necessary if the claim to 

 decide authoritatively on political 

 doctrines were confined to persons 

 who had competently studied any 

 one of the higher departments of phy- 

 wcal science. But since the genera- 

 lity of those who reason on political 

 subjects, satisfactorily to then^selvee 



and to a more or less numerous body 

 of admirers, know nothing whatever 

 of the methods of physical investiga- 

 tion beyond a few precepts which 

 they continue to parrot after Bacon, 

 being entirely unaware that Bacon's 

 conception of scientific inquiry has 

 done its work, and that science has 

 now advanced into a higher stage, 

 there are probably many to whom 

 such remarks as the foregoing may 

 still be useful. In an age in which 

 chemistry itself, when attempting U) 

 deal with the more complex chemical 

 sequences, those of the animal, or even 

 the vegetable organism, has found 

 it necessary to become, and has suc- 

 ceeded in becoming, a Deductive 

 Science, it is not to be apprehended 

 that any person of scientific habits, 

 who has kept pace with the general 

 progress of the knowledge of nature, 

 can be in danger of applying the me 

 thods of elementary chemistry to ex- 

 plore the sequences of the most com- 

 plex order of phenomena in existence. 



CHAPTER VIIL 



OF THE GKOMETRICAI,, OB ABSTRACT 

 METHOD. 



§ I. The misconception discussed 

 in the preceding chapter is, as we said, 

 chiefly committed by persons not much 

 accustomed to scientific investigation : 

 practitioners in politics, who rather 

 employ the commonplaces of philo- 

 sophy to justify their practice, than 

 seek to guide their practice by philo- 

 sophic principles : or imperfectly edu- 

 cated persons, who, in ignorance of 

 the careful selection and elaborate 

 comparison of instances required for 

 the formation of a sound theory, at- 

 tempt to found one upon a few coin- 

 cidences which they have casually 

 noticed. 



The erroneous method of which we 

 are now to treat, is, on the contrary, 

 peculiar to thinking and studious 

 minds. It never could have suggested 

 itself but to persons of son^e f airxiliarity 



