safe ground for predicting (and consequently for practically dealing with) what has not yet happened, is the degree in which it would have enabled us to predict what has actually occurred. Before our theory of the influence of a particular cause, in a given state of circumstances, can be entirely trusted, we must be able to explain and account for the existing state of all that portion of the social phenomena which that cause has a tendency to influence. If, for instance, we would apply our speculations in political economy to the prediction or guidance of the phenomena of any country, we must be able to explain all the mercantile or industrial facts of a general character, appertaining to the present state of that country; to point out causes sufficient to account for all of them, and prove, or show good ground for supposing, that these causes have really existed. If we can not do this, it is a proof either that the facts which ought to be taken into account are not yet completely known to us, or that although we know the facts, we are not masters of a sufficiently perfect theory to enable us to assign their consequences. In either case we are not, in the present state of our knowledge, fully competent to draw conclusions, speculative or practical, for that country. In like manner, if we would attempt to judge of the effect which any political institution would have, supposing that it could be introduced into any given country, we must be able to show that the existing state of the practical government of that country, and of whatever else depends thereon, together with the particular character and tendencies of the people, and their state in respect to the various elements of social well-being, are such as the institutions they have lived under, in conjunction with the other circumstances of their nature or of their position, were calculated to produce.
To prove, in short, that our science, and our knowledge of the particular case, render us competent to predict the future, we must show that they would have enabled us to predict the present and the past. If there be any thing which we could not have predicted, this constitutes a residual phenomenon, requiring further study for the purpose of explanation; and we must either search among the circumstances of the particular case until we find one which, on the principles of our existing theory, accounts for the unexplained phenomenon, or we must turn back, and seek the explanation by an extension and improvement of the theory itself.
Chapter X.
Of The Inverse Deductive, Or Historical, Method.
§ 1. There are two kinds of sociological inquiry. In the first kind, the
question proposed is, what effect will follow from a given cause, a
certain general condition of social circumstances being presupposed. As,
for example, what would be the effect of imposing or of repealing corn
laws, of abolishing monarchy or introducing universal suffrage, in the
present condition of society and civilization in any European country, or
under any other given supposition with regard to the circumstances of
society in general, without reference to the changes which might take
place, or which may already be in progress, in those circumstances. But
there is also a second inquiry, namely, what are the laws which determine
those general circumstances themselves. In this last the question is, not
what will be the effect of a given cause in a certain state of society,
but what are the
