LOGIC OF THE MORAL SCIENCES. 



59S 



a certain degree of uniformity in the 

 progressive development o the species 

 and of its works. And this uniformity 

 tends to become greater, not less, as 

 society advances ; since the evolution 

 of each people, which is at first deter- 

 mined exclusively by the nature and 

 circumstances of that people, is gra- 

 dually brought under the influence 

 (which becomes stronger as civilisa- 

 tion advances) of the other nations of 

 the earth, and of the circumstances 

 by which they have been influenced. 

 History accordingly does, when judi- 

 ciously examined, afford Empirical 

 Laws of Society. And the problem 

 of general sociology is to ascertain 

 these, and connect them with the laws 

 of human nature, by deductions show- 

 ing that such were the derivative laws 

 naturally to be expected as the conse- 

 quences of those ultimate ones. 



It is, indeed, hardly ever possible, 

 even after history has suggested the 

 derivative law, to demonstrate dpjnoH 

 that such was the only order of suc- 

 cession or of co-existence in which the 

 effects could, consistently with the 

 laws of human nature, have been pro- 

 duced. We can at most make out 

 that there were strong d priori reasons 

 for expecting it, and that no other 

 order of succession or co-existence 

 would have been so likely to result 

 from the nature of man and the gene- 

 ral circumstances of his position. 

 Often we cannot do even this ; we 

 cannot even show that what did take 

 place was probable d priori, but only 

 that it was possible. This, however, 

 — which, in the Inverse Deductive 

 Method that we are now characteris- 

 ing, is a real process of verification, — 

 is as indispensable as verification by 

 specific experience has been shown to 

 be, where the conclusion is originally 

 obtained by the direct way of deduc- 

 tion. The empirical laws must be the 

 result of but a few instances, since 

 few nations have ever attained at all, 

 and still fewer by their own indepen- 

 dent development, a high stage of 

 social progress. If, therefore, even 

 one or two of these few instances be 



insufficiently known, or imperfectly 

 analysed into their elements, and 

 therefore not adequately compared 

 with other instances, nothing is more 

 probable than that a wrong empirical 

 law will emerge instead of the right 

 one. Accordingly, the most errone- 

 ous generalisations are continually 

 made from the course of history : not 

 only in this country, where history 

 cannot yet be said to be at all culti- 

 vated as a science, but in other coun- 

 tries where it is so cultivated, and by 

 persons well versed in it. The only 

 check or corrective is constant verifi- 

 cation by psychological and ethological 

 laws. We may add to this, that no 

 one but a person competently skilled 

 in those laws is capable of preparing 

 the materials for historical generalisa- 

 tion by analysing the facts of history, 

 or even by observing the social pheno- 

 mena of his own time. No other will 

 be aware of the comparative import- 

 ance of different facts, nor conse- 

 quently know what facts to look fori 

 or to observe ; still less will he be] 

 capable of estimating the evidence of ^ 

 facts which, as is the case with most,] 

 cannot be ascertained by direct ob- 

 servation or learnt from testimony, 

 but must be inferred from marks. 



§ 5. The Empirical Laws of Society] 

 are of two kinds ; some are unifor- 

 mities of co-existence, some of succes- 

 sion. According as the science is] 

 occupied in ascertaining and verify- 

 ing the former sort of uniformities orj 

 the latter, M. Comte gives it th« 

 title of Social Statics or of Socia 

 Dynamics, conformably to the dis- 

 tinction in mechanics between the! 

 conditions of equilibrium and thosej 

 of movement, or in biology betweei 

 the laws of organisation and those 

 life. The first branch of the science' 

 ascertains the conditions of stability 

 in the social union ; the second, the 

 laws of progress. Social Dynamics! 

 is the theory of society considered] 

 in a state of progressive movement 

 while Social Statics is the theory of 

 the consensus already spoken of 



