A System of Logic: Ratiocinative and Inductive

of Logic, according to the conception I have formed of the science. We have found, that the mental process with which Logic is conversant, the op

nd obtained a clear view of the principles to which it must

either necessarily presupposed in all induction, or are instrumental to the more difficult and complicated inductive processes. The present book will be devoted to the

is not, however, the place to lay down rules for making good observers; nor is it within the competence of Logic to do so, but of the art of intellectual Education. Our business with observation is only in its connexion with the appropriate pro

ally have been observed; that it be an observation, not an inference. For in almost every act of our perceiving faculties, observation and inference are i

ly saw a certain coloured surface; or rather I had the kind of visual sensations which are usually produced by a coloured surface; and from these as marks, known to be such by previous experience, I concluded that I saw my brother. I might have had sensations precisely similar, when my brother was not there. I might have seen some other person so nearly resembling him in appearance, as, at the distance, and with the degree of attention which I bestowed, to be mistaken for him. I might have been asleep, and have dreamed that I saw

ted by giving me the same sensations which I should have had if such a symmetrical combination had really been presented to me. If I cross two of my fingers, and bring any small object, a marble for instance, into contact with both, at points not usually touched simultaneously by one object, I can hardly, if my eyes are shut, help believing that there are two marbles instead of one. But it is not my touch in this case, nor my sight in the other, which is deceived; the deception, whether durable or only momentary, is in my judgment. From my senses I have only the sensations, and those are genuine. Being accustomed to have those or similar sensations when, and only when, a certain arrangement of outward objects is present to my organs, I have the habit of instantly, when I experience the sensations,

e mostly to the objects themselves. In every act of what is called observation, there is at least one inference-from the sensations to the presence of the object; from the marks or diagnostics, to the entire phenomenon. And hence, among other consequences, follows the seeming paradox, that a general proposition collected from particulars is often more certainly true than any one of the particular propositions from which, by an act of induction, it was inferred. For, each of those par

ains. There remains, in the first place, the mind's own feelings or states of consciousness, namely, its outward feelings or sensations, and its inward feelings-its thoughts, emotions, and volitions. Whether anything else remains, or all else is inference from this; whether the mind is capable of directly perceiving or apprehending anything except states of its own consciousness-is a problem of metaphysics not to b

which is either denoted or connoted by any of the terms used. To begin with an example, than which none can be conceived more elementary: I have a sensation of sight, and I endeavour to describe it by saying that I see something white. In saying this, I do not solely affirm my sensation; I also class it. I assert a resemblance between the thing I see, and all things which I and others are accustomed to call white. I assert that it resembles them in the circumst

nception common to the phenomenon with other phenomena to which it is compared. An observation cannot be spoken of in language at all without declaring more than that one observation; without assimilating it to other phenomena already observed and classified. But this ident

in length, from the forehead to the extremity of the tail. I did not ascertain this by the unassisted eye. I had a two-foot rule which I applied to the object, and, as we commonly say, measured it; an operation which was not wholly manual, but partly also mathematical, involving the two propositions, Five times two is ten, and Things which a

e earth is that particular kind of globe which is termed an oblate spheroid; because it is found by measurement in the direction of the meridian, that the length on the surface of the earth which subtends a given angle at its centre, diminishes as we recede from the equator and approach the poles. But these propositions, that the earth is globular, and that it is an oblate spheroid, assert, each of them, an individual fact; in its own nature capable of being perceived by the senses when the requisite organs and the necessary position are supposed, and only not actually perceived because those organs and that position are wanting. This identification of the earth

nd finding afterwards, on examination, that the observations were in harmony with the hypothesis. According to Dr. Whewell, however, this process of guessing and verifying our guesses is not only induction, but the whole of induction: no other exposition can be given of that logical operation. That he is wrong in the latter assertion, the whole of the preceding book has, I hope, suffi

ference. Now, though this real induction is one thing, and the description another, we are in a very different condition for making the induction before we have obtained the description, and after it. For inasmuch as the description, like all other descriptions, contains the assertion of a resemblance between the phenomenon described and something else; in pointing out something which the series of observed places of a planet resembles, it points out something in which the several places themselves agree. If the series of places correspond to as many points of an ellipse, the places th

gree. The Colligation of Facts is no other than this preliminary operation. When Kepler, after vainly endeavouring to connect the observed places of a planet by various hypotheses of circular motion, at last tried the hypothesis of an ellipse and found it answer to the phenomena; what he really attempted, first unsuccessfully and at last successfully, was to discover the circumstan

onfined myself to those better understood expressions, and persevered to the end in the same abstinence which I have hitherto observed from ideological discussions; considering the mechanism of our thoughts to be a topic distinct from and irrelevant to the principles and rules by which the trustworthiness of the results of thinking is to be estimated. Since, however, a