tHE f HYslCAL MEtltOU. 



587 



Pan be framed by the deductive science 

 are, therefore, in the strictest sense of 

 the word, hypothetical. They are 

 grounded on some supposititious set 

 of circumstances, and declare how 

 some given cause w^ould operate in 

 those circumstances, supposing that 

 no others were combined with them. 

 If the set of circumstances supposed 

 have been copied from those of any 

 existing society, the conclusions will 

 be true of that society, provided, and 

 in as far as, the effect of those circum- 

 stances shall not be modified by others 

 which have not been taken into the ac- 

 count. If we desire a nearer approach 

 to concrete truth, we can only aim at 

 it by taking, or endeavouring to take, 

 a greater number of individualising 

 circumstances into the computation. 



Considering, however, in how ac- 

 celerating a ratio the uncertainty of 

 our conclusions increase as we at- 

 tempt to take the effect of a greater 

 number of concurrent causes into our 

 calculations, the hypothetical combi- 

 nations of circumstances on which we 

 construct the general theorems of the 

 science cannot be made very complex 

 without so rapidly accumulating a lia- 

 bility to error as must soon deprive our 

 conclusionsof all value. Thismodeof in- 

 quiry, considered as a means of obtain- 

 ing general propositions, must there- 

 fore, on pain of frivolity, be limited 

 to those classes of social facts which, 

 though influenced like the rest by all 

 sociological agents, are under the im- 

 mediate influence, principally at least, 

 of a few only. 



§ 3. Notwithstanding the universal 

 consensus of the social phenomena, 

 whereby nothing which takes place in 

 any part of the operations of society is 

 without its share of influence on every 

 other part ; and notwithstanding the 

 paramount ascendancy which the gen- 

 eral state of civilisation and social pro- 

 gress in any given society must hence 

 exercise over all the partial and sub- 

 ordinate phenomena ; it is not the 

 less true that different species of social 

 facts are in the main dependent, im- 



mediately and in the first resort, on 

 different kinds of causes ; and there- 

 fore not only may with advantage, 

 but must, be studied apart : just as in 

 the natural body we study separately 

 the physiology and pathology of each 

 of the principal organs and tissues, 

 though every one is acted upon by 

 the state of all the others ; and though 

 the peculiar constitution and general 

 state of health of the organism co-ope- 

 rates with, and often preponderates 

 over, the local causes, in determining 

 the state of any particular organ. 



On these considerations is grounded 

 the existence of distinct and separate, 

 though not indepen den t, branches or de - 

 partmentsof sociological speculation. 



There is, for example, one large 

 class of social phenomena in which the 

 immediately determining causes are 

 principally those which act through 

 the desire of wealth, and in which 

 the psychological law mainly con- 

 cerned is the familiar one that a 

 greater gain is preferred to a smaller. 

 I mean, of course, that portion of the 

 phenomena of society which emanates 

 from the industrial or productive ope- 

 rations of mankind, and from those 

 of their acts through which the distri- 

 bution of the products of those indus- 

 trial operations take place, in so far 

 as not effected by force or modified 

 by volvmtary gift. By reasoning from 

 that one law of human nature, and 

 from the principal outward circum- 

 stances (whether universal or confined 

 to particular states of society) which 

 operate upon the human mind through 

 that law, we may be enabled to ex- 

 plain and predict this portion of the 

 phenomena of society, so far as they 

 depend on that class of circumstances 

 only, overlooking the influence of any 

 other of the circumstances of society, 

 and therefore neither tracing back 

 the circumstances which we do take 

 into account to their possible origin 

 in some other facts in the social state, 

 nor making allowance for the manner 

 in which any of those other circum- 

 stances may interfere with and coun- 

 teract or modify the effect of the for* 



