Elements of the philosophy of the human mind. By Dugald Stewart. Rev. and abridged, with critical and explanatory notes, for the use of colleges and schools. By Francis Bowen ...

REASONING AND DEDUCTIVE EVIDENCE. 473
ance preserved in the case of a numerous society! What more
precarious than the duration of life in an individual? and yet,
in a long list of persons of the same age, and placed in the
same circumstances, the mean duration of life is found to vary
within very narrow limits. In an extensive district, too, a considerable degree of regularity may sometimes be traced for a
course of years, in the proportion of births and of deaths to the
number of the whole inhabitants. Thus, in France, Necker
infdrms us, that " the number of births is in proportion to that
of the inhabitants as one to twenty-three and twenty-four, in
the districts that are not favored by nature, nor by moral circumstances; this proportion is as one to twenty-five, twentywere not, at least in certain respects, subject to law. The reality and tle
possibility of such sciences as politics and political economy, depend on
the known facts, that the actions of men are influenced by motives, that
there are certain leading motives, such as the desire of life, health, free.
dom, and property, which are common to all men, and therefore that the
conduct of men on certain occasions, and to a certain extent, can be anticipated with full confidence that the prediction will be justified by the
result. Were it not so, no general maxims could be established in political
or social science, and no lessons could be derived from history. The conduct of men offers the same combination of uniformity with variety, of
unity of principle underlying innumerable differences of detail, which is
seen in the works of God in the external universe. According as the observer stands nearer or further off, according as his object is to arrange
and classify for the purposes of science, or to particularize for the sake of
description, so will he be more struck with the evidences of order and uniformity, or with those of diversity and fluctuation. Look at great masses
of men only from a distance, at which minute peculiarities are lost in the
general effects, (just as the sounds from a distant city are blended in one
hollow murmur,) and they appear like machines, or rather the multitude
itself seems one great machine. But examine microscopically the conduct
of an individual for two successive hours, and it appears a mass of incon.
sistencies, motiveless alterations, and oddities that baffle all computation
and foresight. The will alone, it is true, is changeful and irregular, its
very caprice indicating its freedom; but will, when influenced by some
ruling passion and enlightened by reason, is comparatively steady and uniform in its operations; and uill enlightelied by infinite wisdom, we may
presume, knows no change of purpose or shifting of means, but reconciles
perfect order with endless variety. And such is the character, both of the
material and moral universe.]
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