too great a distance from the elemen- | other progressions being appended, tary laws of human nature on which the succession of the facts would by they depend,-too many links inter- this alone be presented in a kind of vene, and the concurrence of causes spontaneous order, far more nearly at each link is far too complicated,- approaching to the real order of their to enable these propositions to be pre-filiation than could be obtained by sented as direct corollaries from those any other merely empirical process. elementary principles. They have, therefore, in the minds of most inquirers, remained in the state of empirical laws, applicable only within the bounds of actual observation, without any means of determining their real limits, and of judging whether the changes which have hitherto been in progress are destined to continue indefinitely, or to terminate, or even to be reversed.

$7. In order to obtain better empirical laws, we must not rest satisfied with noting the progressive changes which manifest themselves in the separate elements of society, and in which nothing is indicated but the relation of fragments of the effect to corresponding fragments of the cause. It is necessary to combine the statical view of social phenomena with the dynamical, considering not only the progressive changes of the different elements, but the contemporaneous condition of each, and thus obtain empirically the law of correspondence not only between the simultaneous states, but between the simultaneous changes, of those elements. This law of correspondence it is which, duly verified à priori, would become the real scientific derivative law of the development of humanity and human affairs.

In the difficult process of observation and comparison which is here required, it would evidently be a great assistance if it should happen to be the fact that some one element in the complex existence of social man is pre-eminent over all others as the prime agent of the social movement. For we could then take the progress of that one element as the central chain, to each successive link of which the corresponding links of all the

Now, the evidence of history and that of human nature combine, by a striking instance of consilience, to show that there really is one social element which is thus predominant, and almost paramount, among the agents of the social progression. This is the state of the speculative faculties of mankind, including the nature of the beliefs which by any means they have arrived at concerning themselves and the world by which they are surrounded.

It would be a great error, and one very little likely to be committed, to assert that speculation, intellectual activity, the pursuit of truth, is among the more powerful propensities of human nature, or hold a predominating place in the lives of any, save decidedly exceptional, individuals. But, notwithstanding the relative weakness of this principle among other sociological agents, its influence is the main determining cause of the social progress; all the other dispositions of our nature which contribute to that progress being dependent on it for the means of accomplishing their share of the work. Thus (to take the most obvious case first) the impelling force to most of the improvements effected in the arts of life is the desire of increased material comfort; but as we can only act upon external objects in proportion to our knowledge of them, the state of knowledge at any time is the limit of the industrial improvements possible at that time; and the progress of industry must follow, and depend on, the progress of knowledge. The same thing may be shown to be true, though it is not quite so obvious, of the progress of the fine arts. Further, as the strongest propensities of uncultivated or half-cultivated human nature (being the purely

selfish ones, and those of a sympa- | agent in making society what it was thetic character which partake most at each successive period, while society of the nature of sefishness) evidently was but secondarily instrumental in tend in themselves to disunite man-making them, each of them (so far as kind, not to unite them,-to make causes can be assigned for its exthem rivals, not confederates; social istence) being mainly an emanation existence is only possible by a discip- not from the practical life of the lining of those more powerful pro- period, but from the previous state of pensities, which consists in subordi- belief and thought. The weakness of nating them to a common system of the speculative propensity in mankind opinions. The degree of this sub- generally has not, therefore, prevented ordination is the measure of the com- the progress of speculation from govpleteness of the social union, and the erning that of society at large; it nature of the common opinions de- has only, and too often, prevented termines its kind. But in order that progress altogether, where the intelmankind should conform their actions lectual progression has come to an to any set of opinions, these opinions early stand for want of sufficiently must exist, must be believed by them. favourable circumstances. And thus the state of the speculative faculties, the character of the propositions assented to by the intellect, essentially determines the moral and political state of the community, as we have already seen that it determines the physical.

These conclusions, deduced from the laws of human nature, are in entire accordance with the general facts of history. Every considerable change historically known to us in the condition of any portion of mankind, when not brought about by external force, has been preceded by a change of proportional extent in the state of their knowledge or in their prevalent beliefs. As between any given state of speculation and the correlative state of everything else, it was almost always the former which first showed itself; though the effects, no doubt, reacted potently upon the cause. Every considerable advance in material civilisation has been preceded by an advance in knowledge; and when any great social change has come to pass, either in the way of gradual development or of sudden conflict, it has had for its precursor a great change in the opinions and modes of thinking of society. Polytheism, Judaism, Christianity, Protestantism, the critical philosophy of modern Europe, and its positive science --each of these has been a primary

From this accumulated evidence, we are justified in concluding that the order of human progression in all respects will mainly depend on the order of progression in the intellectual convictions of mankind, that is, on the law of the successive transformations of human opinions. The question remains, whether this law can be determined, at first from history as an empirical law, then converted into a scientific theorem by deducing it à priori from the principles of human nature. As the progress of knowledge and the changes in the opinions of mankind are very slow, and manifest themselves in a well-defined manner only at long intervals, it cannot be expected that the general order of sequence should be discoverable from the examination of less than a very considerable part of the duration of the social progress. It is necessary to take into consideration the whole of past time, from the first recorded condition of the human race, to the memorable phenomena of the last and present generations.

§ 8. The investigation which I have thus endeavoured to characterise has been systematically attempted, up to the present time, by M. Comte alone. His work is hitherto the only known example of the study of social phenomena according to this conception of

that which is grounded on the doc- | recordation and study, have yielded

trine of Free Will, or, in other words, on the denial that the law of invariable Causation holds true of human volitions; for if it does not, the course of history, being the result of human volitions, cannot be a subject of scientific laws, since the volitions on which it depends can neither be foreseen nor reduced to any canon of regularity even after they have occurred. I have discussed this question, as far as seemed suitable to the occasion, in a former chapter, and I only think it necessary to repeat that the doctrine of the Causation of human actions, improperly called the doctrine of Necessity, affirms no mysterious nexus or overruling fatality it asserts only that men's actions are the joint result of the general laws and circumstances of human nature, and of their own particular characters, those characters again being the consequence of the natural and artificial circumstances that constituted their education, among which circumstances must be reckoned their own conscious efforts. Any one who is willing to take (if the expression may be permitted) the trouble of thinking himself into the doctrine as thus stated, will find it, I believe, not only a faithful interpretation of the universal experience of human conduct, but a correct representation of the mode in which he himself, in every particular case, spontaneously interprets his own experience of that conduct.

conclusions, some of which have been very startling to persons not accustomed to regard moral actions as subject to uniform laws. The very events which in their own nature appear most capricious and uncertain, and which in any individual case no attainable degree of knowledge would enable us to foresee, occur, when considerable numbers are taken into the account, with a degree of regularity approaching to mathematical. What act is there which all would consider as more completely dependent on individual character, and on the exercise of individual free will, than that of slaying a fellow-creature? Yet in any large country, the number of murders, in proportion to the population, varies (it has been found) very little from one year to another, and in its variations never deviates widely from a certain average. What is still more remarkable, there is a similar approach to constancy in the proportion of these murders annually committed with every particular kind of instrument. There is a like approximation to identity, as between one year and another, in the comparative number of legitimate and of illegitimate births. The same thing is found true of suicides, accidents, and all other social phenomena of which the registration is sufficiently perfect; one of the most curiously illustrative examples being the fact, ascertained by the registers of the London and Paris But if this principle is true of in- post-offices, that the number of letters dividual man, it must be true of posted which the writers have forgotcollective man. If it is the law of ten to direct is nearly the same, in human life, the law must be realised proportion to the whole number of in history. The experience of human letters posted, in one year as in anaffairs when looked at en masse, must other. "Year after year," says Mr. be in accordance with it if true, or Buckle, "the same proportion of repugnant to it if false. The sup-letter-writers forget this simple act, port which this à posteriori verifica- so that for each successive period tion affords to the law is the part of we can actually foretell the number the case which has been most clearly of persons whose memory will fail and triumphantly brought out by Mr. them in regard to this trifling, and, Buckle. as it might appear, accidental occurrence."

The facts of statistics, since they have been made a subject of careful

Buckle's History of Civilisation, i. 30.

from political or religious causes; or some incident generally notorious, of a nature to act morbidly on the imagination. That in spite of these unavoidable imperfections in the data, there should be so very trifling a margin of variation in the annual results, is a brilliant confirmation of the general theory.

This singular degree of regularity | more vigorous or a more relaxed en masse, combined with the extreme police; some temporary excitement of irregularity in the cases composing the mass, is a felicitous verification à posteriori of the law of causation in its application to human conduct. Assuming the truth of that law, every human action, every murder, for instance, is the concurrent result of two sets of causes. On the one part, the general circunstances of the country and its inhabitants; the moral, educational, economical, and other influences operating on the whole people, and constituting what we term the state of civilisation. On the other part, the great variety of influences special to the individual : his temperament, and other peculiarities of organisation, his parentage, habitual associates, temptations, and so forth. If we now take the whole of the instances which occur within a sufficiently large field to exhaust all the combinations of these special influences, or, in other words, to eliminate chance; and if all these instances have occurred within such narrow limits of time that no material change can have taken place in the general influences constituting the state of civilisation of the country, we may be certain that if human actions are governed by invariable laws, the aggregate result will be something like a constant quantity. The number of murders committed within that space and time being the effect partly of general causes which have not varied, and partly of partial causes the whole round of whose variations has been included, will be, practically speaking, invariable.

§ 2. The same considerations which thus strikingly corroborate the evidence of the doctrine that historical facts are the invariable effects of causes, tend equally to clear that doctrine from various misapprehensions, the existence of which has been put in evidence by the recent discussions. Some persons, for instance, seemingly imagine the doctrine to imply, not merely that the total number of murders committed in a given space and time is entirely the effect of the general circumstances of society, but that every particular murder is so too; that the individual murderer is, so to speak, a mere instrument in the hands of general causes; that he himself has no option, or, if he has, and chose to exercise it, some one else would be necessitated to take his place; that if any one of the actual murderers had abstained from the crime, some person who would otherwise have remained innocent would have committed an extra murder to make up the average. Such a corollary would certainly convict any theory which necessarily led to it of absurdity. It is obvious, however, that each partiLiterally and mathematically in-cular murder depends, not on the variable it is not, and could not be expected to be; because the period of a year is too short to include all the possible combinations of partial causes, while it is, at the same time, sufficiently long to make it probable that in some years, at least, of every series, there will have been introduced new influences of a more or less general character; such as a

general state of society only, but on that combined with causes special to the case, which are generally much more powerful; and if these special causes, which have greater influence than the general ones in causing every particular murder, have no influence on the number of murders in a given period, it is because the field of observation is so extensive as to include

all possible combinations of the special | the short space of time comprised in causes-all varieties of individual the observations. If we admit the character and individual temptation supposition that they have varied; if compatible with the general state of society. The collective experiment, as it may be termed, exactly separates the effect of the general from that of the special causes, and shows the net result of the former; but it declares nothing at all respecting the amount of influence of the special causes, be it greater or smaller, since the scale of the experiment extends to the number of cases within which the effects of the special causes balance one another, and disappear in that of the general causes.

we compare one age with another, or one country with another, or even one part of a country with another, differing in position and character as to the moral elements, the crimes committed within a year give no longer the same, but a widely different numerical aggregate. And this cannot but be the case; for inasmuch as every single crime committed by an individual mainly depends on his moral qualities, the crimes committed by the entire population of the country must depend in an equal degree on their colI will not pretend that all the de- lective moral qualities. To render fenders of the theory have always kept this element inoperative upon the their language free from this same con- large scale it would be necessary to fusion, and have shown no tendency to suppose that the general moral averexalt the influence of general causes at age of mankind does not vary from the expense of special. I am of opi- country to country, or from age to nion, on the contrary, that they have age; which is not true, and even if it done so in a very great degree, and by were true, could not possibly be proved so doing have encumbered their theory by any existing statistics. I do not on with difficulties. and laid it open to ob- this account the less agree in the opijections which do not necessarily affect nion of Mr. Buckle, that the intellectual it. Some, for example, (among whom element in mankind, including in that is Mr. Buckle himself,) have inferred, expression the nature of their beliefs, or allowed it to be supposed that they the amount of their knowledge, and inferred, from the regularity in the re- the development of their intelligence, currence of events which depend on is the predominant circumstance in demoral qualities, that the moral quali-termining their progress. But I am of ties of mankind are little capable of this opinion, not because I regard their being improved, or are of little import- moral or economical condition either ance in the general progress of society, as less powerful or less variable agencompared with intellectual or econo-cies, but because these are in a great mic causes. But to draw this infer- degree the consequences of the intelence is to forget that the statistical lectual condition, and are, in all cases, tables from which the invariable aver-limited by it, as was observed in the ages are deduced were compiled from facts occurring within narrow geographical limits, and in a small number of successive years; that is, from a field the whole of which was under the operation of the same general causes, and during too short a time to allow of much change therein. All moral causes but those common to the country generally have been eliminated by the great number of instances taken; and those which are common to the whole country have not varied considerably in

preceding chapter. The intellectual changes are the most conspicuous agents in history, not from their superior force, considered in themselves, but because practically they work with the united power belonging to all three.*

of Mr. Buckle that he would not have with*I have been assured by an intimate friend held his assent from these remarks, and that he never intended to affirm or imply moral as well as in their intellectual qualithat mankind are not progressive in their ties. "In dealing with his problem, he availed