y to express differences of opinion, it is more
particularly incumbent on him in this place to declare, that without the
aid derived from the facts and ideas contained in that gentleman's
"History of the Inductive Sciences," the corresponding portion of this
work would probably not have been written.

The concluding Book is an attempt to contribute toward the solution of a
question which the decay of old opinions, and the agitation that disturbs
European society to its inmost depths, render as important in the present
day to the practical interests of human life, as it must at all times be
to the completeness of our speculative knowledge--viz.: Whether moral and
social phenomena are really exceptions to the general certainty and
uniformity of the course of nature; and how far the methods by which so
many of the laws of the physical world have been numbered among truths
irrevocably acquired and universally assented to, can be made instrumental
to the formation of a similar body of received doctrine in moral and
political science.

PREFACE TO THE THIRD AND FOURTH EDITIONS.

Several criticisms, of a more or less controversial character, on this
work, have appeared since the publication of the second edition; and Dr.
Whewell has lately published a reply to those parts of it in which some of
his opinions were controverted.(2)

I have carefully reconsidered all the points on which my conclusions have
been assailed. But I have not to announce a change of opinion on any
matter of importance. Such minor oversights as have been detected, either
by myself or by my critics, I have, in general silently, corrected: but it
is not to be inferred that I agree with the objections which have been
made to a passage, in every instance in which I have altered or canceled
it. I have often done so, merely that it might not remain a
stumbling-block, when the amount of discussion necessary to place the
matter in its true light would have exceeded what was suitable to the
occasion.

To several of the arguments which have been urged against me, I have
thought it useful to reply with some degree of minuteness; not from any
taste for controversy, but because the opportunity was favorable for
placing my own conclusions, and the grounds of them, more clearly and
completely before the reader. Truth on these subjects is militant, and can
only establish itself by means of conflict. The most opposite opinions can
make a plausible show of ev