596 



LOGIC OF THE MORAL SCIENCES. 



their own laws and to the laws of 

 human nature, form the characters of 

 the human beings ; but the human 

 beings, in their turn, mould and shape 

 the circumstances for themselves and 

 for those who come after them. From 

 this reciprocal action there must neces- 

 sarily result either a cycle or a pro- 

 gress. In astronomy also, every fact is 

 at once effect and cause ; the succes- 

 sive positions of the various heavenly 

 bodies produce changes both in the 

 direction and in the intensity of the 

 forces by which those positions are 

 determined. But in the case of the 

 solar system, these mutual actions 

 bring round again, after a certain 

 number of changes, the former state 

 of circumstances ; which of course 

 leads to the perpetual recurrence of 

 the same series in an unvarying order. 

 Those bodies, in short, revolve in or- 

 bits : but there are (or, conformably 

 to the laws of astronomy, there might 

 be) others which, instead of an orbit, 

 describe a trajectory — a course not 

 returning into itself. One or other 

 of these must be the type to which 

 human affairs must conform. 



One of the thinkers who earliest 

 conceived the succession of historical 

 events as subject to fixed laws, and 

 endeavoured to discover these laws 

 by an analytical survey of history, 

 Vico, the celebrated author of Scienza 

 Nuova, adopted the former of these 

 opinions. He conceived the pheno- 

 mena of human society as revolving 

 in an orbit ; as going through perio- 

 dically the same series of changes. 

 Though there were not wanting cir- 

 cumstances tending to give some plau- 

 sibility to this view, it would not bear 

 a close scrutiny ; and those who have 

 succeeded Vico in this kind of specu- 

 lations have universally adopted the 

 idea of a trajectory or progress, in lieu 

 of an orbit or cycle. 



The words Progress and Progres- 

 siveness are not here to be understood 

 as synonymous with improvement and 

 tendency to improvement. It is con- 

 ceivable that the laws of human nature 

 might determine, and even necessitate, 



a certain series of changes in man and 

 society, which might not in every case, 

 or which might not on the whole, be 

 improvements. It is my belief indeed 

 that the general tendency is, and will 

 continue to be, saving occasional and 

 temporary exceptions, one of improve- 

 ment — a tendency towards a better 

 and happier state. This, however, is 

 not a question of the method of the 

 social science, but a theorem of the 

 science itself. For our purpose it is 

 sufficient that there is a progressive 

 change, both in the character of the 

 human race and in their outward cir- 

 cumstances so far as moulded by them- 

 selves; that in each successive age 

 the principal phenomena of society are 

 different from what they were in the 

 age preceding, and still more different 

 from any previous age : the periods 

 which most distinctly mark these suc- 

 cessive changes being intervals of one 

 generation, during which a new set 

 of human beings have been educated, 

 have grown up from childhood, and 

 taken possession of society. 



The progressiveness of the human 

 race is the foundation on which a 

 method of philosophising in the social 

 science has been of late years erected, 

 far superior to either of the two modes 

 which had previously been prevalent, 

 the chemical or experimental, and the 

 geometrical modes. This method, 

 which is now generally adopted by i 

 the most advanced thinkers on thej 

 Continent, consists in attempting, by| 

 a study and analysis of the geners 

 facts of history, to discover (what thes 

 philosophers term) the law of progress j 

 which law, once ascertained, must ac- 

 cording to them enable us to predict fu- 

 ture events, just as after a few terms of 

 an infinite series in algebra we are able 

 to detect the principle of regularity ii 

 their formation, and to predict the res 

 of the series to any number of tert 

 we please. The principal aim of hisi^ 

 torical speculation in France, of lat 

 years, has been to ascertain this law.^ 

 But while I gladly acknowledge the 

 great services which have been ren- 

 dered to historical knowledge by this 



