But although it is true that, in such inquiries as we are now dealing with, induction generally takes the lead; yet I cannot think that the mere order in which the two logical processes occur is the essential distinction between the two ways of combining them.  For, in the first place, in investigations of any complexity both induction and deduction recur again and again in whatever order may be most convenient; and, in the second place, the so-called ‘inverse order’ is sometimes resorted to in Astronomy and Physics.  For example, Kepler’s Laws were first collected empirically from observations of the planetary motions, and afterwards deduced by Newton from the Law of Gravitation; this, then, was the Inverse Method; but the result is something very different from any that can be obtained by the Historical Method.  The essential difference between the Physical and Historical Methods is that, in the former, whether Direct or Inverse, the deductive process, when complete, amounts to exact demonstration; whereas, in the latter, the deductions may consist of qualitative reasonings, and the results are indefinite.  They establish—­(1) a merely probable connection between the phenomena according to an empirical law (say, between City-democracy and fickle politics); (2) connect this with other historical or social generalisations, by showing that they all alike flow from the same causes, namely, from the nature of races of men under certain social and geographical conditions; and (3) explain why such empirical laws may fail, according to the differences that prevail among races of men and among the conditions under which they live.  Thus, seeing how rapidly excitement is propagated by the chatter, grimacing, and gesticulation of townsmen, it is probable enough that the democracy of a City-state should be fickle (and arbitrary, because irresponsible).  A similar phenomenon of panic, sympathetic hope and despair, is exhibited by every stock-exchange, and is not peculiar to political life.  And when political opinion is not manufactured solely in the reverberating furnace of a city, fickleness ceases to characterise democracy; and, in fact, is not found in Switzerland, or the United States, nor in France so far as politics, depend upon the peasantry.

This is called the Historical Method, then, because it is especially useful in explaining the movements of history, and in verifying the generalisations of political and social science.  We must not, however, suppose that its use is confined to such studies.  Only a ridiculous pedantry would allot to each subject its own method and forbid the use of any other; as if it were not our capital object to establish truth by any means.  Wherever the forces determining a phenomenon are too numerous or too indefinite to be combined in a deductive demonstration, there the Historical Method is likely to be useful; and this seems often to be the case in Geology and Biology, as well as in the Science of History, or Sociology, and its various subsidiary studies.