JOHN STUART MILL'S PHILOSOPHY TESTED. 



319 



about Resemblance is clearly stated in the sec- 

 ond section of the same chapter, as follows: 



" Resemblance and its opposite, except in the 

 case in which they assume the names of Equality 

 and Inequality, are seldom regarded as subjects of 

 science; they are supposed to be perceived by 

 simple apprehension ; by merely applying our 

 senses or directing our attention to the two ob- 

 jects at once, or in immediate succession." 



After pointing out that we cannot always bring 

 two things into suitable proximity, he adds : 



" The comparison of two things through the 

 intervention of a third thing, when their direct 

 comparison is impossible, is the appropriate scien- 

 tific process for ascertaining resemblances and dis- 

 similarities, and is the sum total of what Logic 

 has to teach on the subject. 



" An undue extension of this remark induced 

 Locke to consider reasoning itself as nothing but 

 the comparison of two ideas through the medium 

 of a third, and knowledge as the perception of the 

 agreement or disagreement of two ideas: doctrines 

 which the Condillac school blindly adopted, with- 

 out the qualifications and distinctions with which 

 they were studiously guarded by their illustrious 

 author. Where, indeed, the agreement or dis- 

 agreement (otherwise called resemblance or dis- 

 similarity) of any two things is the very matter to 

 be determined, as is the case particularly in the 

 sciences of quantity and extension, there the pro- 

 cess by which a solution, if not attainable by direct 

 perception, must be indirectly sought, consists in 

 comparing these two things through the medium 

 of a third. But this is far from being true of all 

 inquiries. The knowledge that bodies fall to the 

 ground is not a perception of agreement or dis- 

 agreement, but of a series of physical occurrences, 

 a succession of sensations. Locke's definitions of 

 knowledge and of reasoning required to be limited 

 to our knowledge of, and reasoning about, Resem- 

 blances." 



"We learn from these passages, then, that 

 science and knowledge have little to do with 

 resemblances. Except in the case of equality 

 and inequality, resemblance is seldom regarded as 

 the subject of science, and Mill apparently accepts 

 what he holds to be the prevailing opinion. The 

 sum total of what logic has to teach on this sub- 

 ject is that two things may be compared through 

 the intervention of a third thing, when their di- 

 rect comparison is impossible. Locke unduly 

 extended this remark when he considered reason- 

 ing itself as nothing but the comparison of two 

 ideas through the medium of a third. Locke's 

 definitions of knowledge and of reasoning require 

 to be limited to our knowledge of, and reasoning 

 about, resemblances. 



In the preceding part of the third book of 

 the " System of Logic," then, we have not been 

 concerned with Resemblance. The subjects dis- 

 cussed have been contained in propositions which 

 affirm Order in Time, in either of its modes, Co- 

 existence and Succession. Resemblance is an- 

 other matter of fact, which has been postponed 

 to the twenty-fourth chapter of the third book, and 

 there dismissed in one short section, as being 

 seldom regarded as a subject of science. Under 

 these circumstances we should hardly expect to 

 find that Mill's so-called Experimental Methods 

 are wholly concerned with resemblance. Cer- 

 tainly these celebrated methods are the subject 

 of science; they are, according to Mill, the great 

 methods of scientific discovery and inductive 

 proof; they form the main topic of the third 

 book of the Logic, indeed, they form the central 

 pillars of the whole " System of Logic." It is a 

 little puzzling, then, to find that the names of 

 these methods seem to refer to Resemblance, or 

 to something which much resembles resemblance. 

 The first is called the Method of Agreement ; the 

 second is the Method of Difference ; the third is 

 the Joint Method of Agreement and Difference ; 

 and the remaining two methods are confessedly 

 developments of these principal methods. Now, 

 does Agreement mean Resemblance or not? If 

 it does, then the whole of the third book may be 

 said to treat of a relation which Mill has pro- 

 fessedly postponed to the second section of the 

 twenty-fourth chapter. 



Let us see what these methods involve. The 

 canon of the first method is stated in the follow- 

 ing words, 1 which many an anxious candidate for 

 academic honors has committed to memory: 



"If two or more- instances of the phenomenon 

 under investigation have only one circumstance in 

 common, the circumstance in which alone all the 

 instances agree, is the cause (or effect) of the given 

 phenomenon." 



Now, when two or more instances of the 

 phenomenon under investigation agree, do they, 

 or do they not, resemble each other ? Is agree- 

 ment the same relation as resemblance, or is it 

 something different ? If, indeed, it be a separate 

 kind of relation, it must be matter of regret that 

 Mill did not describe this relation of agreement 

 when treating of the "Import of Propositions." 

 Surely the propositions in which we record our 

 observations of " the phenomenon under investi- 

 gation" must affirm agreement or difference, and 

 as the experimental methods are the all-important 



1 Book III., chapter viii.. section 1, near the end. 



