but tonight our friend pash , there , brought up the law of progress ; and we got onto statistics ; lily , there , saying we knew well enough before counting that in the same state of society the same sort of things would happen , and numbers give us no instruction , only setting us to consider the causes of difference between different social states ; at which we went off on the causes of social change , and when you came in i was going upon the power of ideas , which i hold to be the main transforming cause .