586 



LOGIC OF THii MORAL SCIENCES. 



that we should be able to foresee 

 infallibly the results of what we do. 

 We must seek our objects by means 

 which may perhaps be defeated, and 

 take precautions against dangers which 

 possibly may never be realised. The 

 aim of practical politics is to surround 

 any given society with the greatest 

 possible number of circumstances of 

 which the tendencies are beneficial, 

 and to remove or counteract, as far 

 as practicable, those of which the 

 tendencies are injurious. A know- 

 ledge of the tendencies only, though 

 without the power of accurately pre- 

 dicting their conjunct result, gives us 

 to a considerable extent this power. 



It would, however, be an error to 

 suppose that, even with respect to 

 tendencies, we could arrive in this 

 manner at any great number of pro- 

 positions which will be true in all 

 societies without exception. Such a 

 supposition would be inconsistent with 

 the eminently modifiable nature of the 

 social phenomena, and the multitude 

 and variety of the circumstances by 

 which they are modified ; circum- 

 stances never the same, or even 

 nearly the same, in two different 

 societies, or in two different periods 

 of the same society. This would not 

 be so serious an obstacle if, though 

 the causes acting upon society in 

 general are numerous, those which 

 influence any one feature of society 

 were limited in number ; for we 

 might then insulate any particular 

 social phenomenon, and investigate 

 its laws without disturbance from 

 the rest. But the truth is the very 

 opposite of this. Whatever affects, 

 in an appreciable degree, any one 

 element of the social state, affects 

 through it all the other elements. 

 The mode of production of all social 

 phenomena is one great case of Inter- 

 mixture of Laws. We can never 

 either understand in theory or com- 

 mand in practice the condition of a 

 society in any one respect, without 

 taking into consideration its condi- 

 tion in all other respects. There is 

 no social phenomenon which is not 



more or less influenced by every 

 other part of the condition of the 

 same society, and therefore by every 

 cause which is influencing any other 

 of the contemporaneous social pheno- 

 mena. There is, in short, what phy- 

 siologists term a consensus, similar to 

 that existing among the various organs 

 and functions of the physical frame 

 of man and the more perfect animals, 

 and constituting one of the many ana- 

 logies which have rendered universal 

 such expressions as the " body politic " 

 and " body natural." It follows from 

 this consensus, that unless two societies 

 could be alike in all the circumstances 

 which surround and influence them, 

 (which would imply their being alike 

 in their previous history,) no portion 

 whatever of the phenomena will, un- 

 less by accident, precisely correspond ; 

 no one cause will produce exactly the 

 same effects in both. Every cause, 

 as its effect spreads through society, 

 comes somewhere in contact with 

 different sets of agencies, and thus 

 has its effects on some of the social 

 phenomena differently modified ; and 

 these differences, by their reaction, 

 produce a difference even in those of 

 the effects which would otherwise 

 have been the same. We can never, 

 therefore, affirm with certainty that 

 a cause whiph has a particular ten- 

 dency in one people or in one age will 

 have exactly the same tendency in 

 another, without referring back to our 

 premises, and performing over again 

 for the second age or nation that 

 analysis of the whole of its influ- 

 encing circumstances which we had 

 already performed for the first. The 

 deductive science of society will not 

 lay down a theorem, asserting in an 

 universal manner the effect of any 

 cause ; but will rather teach us how 

 to frame the proper theorem for the 

 circumstances of any given case. It 

 will not give the laws of society in 

 general, but the means of determin- 

 ing the phenomena of any given 

 society from the particular elements 

 or data of that society. 



All the general propositions which 



