lxiv REPORT — 1859. 



it they are inseparable from the individual being — an attack upon them is 



felt as one upon the person itself; whilst facts are " objective " and belong to 

 everybody they remain the same facts at all times and under all circum- 

 stances : they can be proved ; they have to be proved, and when proved, are 

 finally settled. It is with facts only that the Association deals. There may 

 for a time exist differences of opinion on these also, but the process of re- 

 moving them and resolving them into agreement is a different one from that 

 in the moral and political sciences. These are generally approached by the 

 deductive process ; but if the reasoning be ever so acute and logically 

 correct, and the point of departure, which may be arbitrarily selected, is 

 disputed, no agreement is possible ; whilst we proceed here by the inductive 

 process, taking nothing on trust, nothing for granted, but reasoning upwards 

 from the meanest fact established, and making every step sure before going 

 one beyond it, like the engineer in his approaches to a fortress. We thus 

 gain ultimately a roadway, a ladder by which even a child may, almost 

 without knowing it, ascend to the summit of truth and obtain that immensely 

 wide and extensive view which is spread below the feet of the astonished 

 beholder. This road has been shown us by the great Bacon ; and who 

 can contemplate the prospects which it opens, without almost falling into a 

 trance similar to that in which he allowed his imagination to wander over 

 future ages of discovery ! 



From amongst the political sciences it has been attempted in modern 

 times to detach one which admits of being severed from individual political 

 opinions, and of being reduced to abstract laws derived from well authen- 

 ticated facts. I mean Political Economy, based on general statistics. A 

 new Association has recently been formed, imitating our perambulating 

 habits, and striving to comprehend in its investigations and discussions even 

 a still more extended range of subjects, in what is called " Social Science." 

 These efforts deserve our warmest approbation and good will. May they 

 succeed in obtaining a purely and strictly scientific character ! Our own 

 Association has, since its Meeting at Dublin, recognized the growing claims 

 of Political Economy to scientific brotherhood, and admitted it into its 

 Statistical Section. It could not have done so under abler guidance and 

 happier auspices than the Presidency of the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. 

 Whately, whose efforts in this direction are so universally appreciated. But 

 even in this Section, and whilst Statistics alone were treated in it, the Asso- 

 ciation as far back as 1833 made it a rule that, in order to ensure positive 

 results, only those classes of facts should be admitted which were capable 

 of being expressed by numbers, and which promised, when sufficiently 

 multiplied, to indicate general laws. 



If, then, the main object of Science — and I beg to be understood, hence-' 

 forth, as speaking only of that Section which the Association has under its 

 special care, viz. Inductive Science — if, I say, the object of science is the 

 discovery of the laws which govern natural phenomena, the primary condi- 



