Page:Ethical Studies (reprint 1911).djvu/28

 It is common to find some such belief as this. Either the human world is subject to law, or it is not; and if it is subject, then there is no reason in the nature of things, why you should not so understand the characters of men and the principles of historical developement, as to be able to say beforehand, what a man or a stage in history is to be. As a matter of fact, you can not go beyond ‘tendencies;’ but that is only because you never have a sufficiency of particular data; and, given these, it would be possible rationally to foresee the future man or stage in history. Such a notion, I think, is altogether erroneous; and, if we ask what the proposal comes to in plain language, it is this,—à priori to construe an individual man or state of society out of its elements, such individual being unknown, and not yet in existence. Let us see what there is to be said against that.

I am far from suggesting that the human world is not ‘under law;’ partly, because I am not sure that I know what that means. And, though I consider the phrase ‘result’ inaccurate and here misleading, I do not deny that the character of a man does follow, as a result, from his natural endowment together with his environment. If his self is the negation of all its particulars, that does not mean that it is not determined by them. But I do say that, given the knowledge of a man’s innate disposition, and given the knowledge of his outward world (in the fullest possible sense), yet you can not, from these data, deduce his character. I do say that, given historical materials, and given any knowledge of laws which you please, it does not follow that you can construe from them a future state of society; and, if society is organic (and a better theory tells us it is more than organic), and if history is progressive, then you may guess and foresee many things by a practical insight; but, give you what knowledge of ‘laws’ and what particular existing data you please, you can not calculate the future. You can predict the result, only so far as your experience goes, i.e. so far as you know the result; and as long as history does not repeat itself, and while no two men are ever born the same, so long will the individual result you want be lacking to you.

Even if we suppose, what is very hard to suppose, that the character is inborn; yet even then it is knowable only so far as