68 SCIENTIFIC AND LITERARY NOTES. 
political sciences. This has not been done from undervaluing their importance 
and denying their sacred right to the special attention of mankind, but from a 
desire to deal with those subjects only which can be reduced to positive proof, 
and do not rest on opinion or faith. The subjects of the moral and political 
sciences involve not only opinions but feelings; and their discussion frequently 
rouses passions. For feelings are “subjective,” as the German metaphysician has 
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 every- 
body—they remain the same facts at all times and under all circumstances : they 
ean 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 differ- 
ences of opinion on these also, but the process of removing them and resolving 
them into agreement isa 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 logieally correct, and the point of departure, which may be 
arbitrarily selected, is disputed, no agreement is possible ; whilst we proceed here 
by the inditctive process, taking nothing on trust, nothing for granted, but rea- 
soning 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 
awide and extensive view which is spread below the feet of the astonished be- 
holder. This road has been shown us by the great Bacon; and who can contem 
plate 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 iaws derived from well-authenticated 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 in 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 hap- 
pier 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 Association, as far back 
as 1833, made is 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 scienee—and I beg to be understood, henceforth, 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 condition for its success is :—Ac- 
curate observation and collection of facts in such comprehensiveness and come 
