Social movements of these various orders severally conform to the two derivative principles named at the outset. In the first place we may observe how, once set up in given directions, such movements, like all others, tend to continue in these directions. A commercial mania or panic, a current of commodities, a social custom, a political agitation, or a popular delusion, maintains its course for a long time after its original source has ceased; and requires antagonistic forces to arrest it. In the second place it is to be noted that in proportion to the complexity of social forces is the tortuousness of social movements. The involved series of muscular contractions gone through by the artizan, that he may get the wherewithal to buy a loaf lying at the baker’s next door, show us how extreme becomes the indirectness of motion when the agencies at work become very numerous—a truth still better illustrated by the more public social actions; as those which end in bringing a successful man of business, towards the close of his life, into parliament. * * * * * § 92. And now of the general truth set forth in this chapter, as of that dealt with in the last, let us ask—what is our ultimate evidence? Must we accept it simply as an empirical generalization? or is it to be established as a corollary from a still deeper truth? The reader will anticipate the answer. We shall find it deducible from that datum of consciousness which underlies all science.