182 DISCOURSE ON THE STUDY 



of Bacon, by which he understands characteristic 

 phenomena, selected from the great miscellaneous 

 mass of facts which occur in nature, and which, by 

 their number, indistinctness, and complication, tend 

 rather to confuse than to direct the mind in its 

 search for causes and general heads of induction. 

 Phenomena so selected on account of some pecu- 

 liarly forcible way in which they strike the reason, 

 and impress us with a kind of sense of causation, 

 or a particular aptitude for generalization, he con- 

 siders, and justly, as holding a kind of prerogative 

 dignity, and claiming our first and especial attention 

 in physical enquiries. 



(191.) We have already observed that, in form- 

 ing inductions, it will most commonly happen that 

 \ve are led to our conclusions by the especial 

 force of some two or three strongly impressive 

 facts, rather than by affording the whole mass of 

 cases a regular consideration; and hence the need 

 of cautious verification. Indeed, so strong is this 

 propensity of the human mind, that there is hardly 

 a more common thing than to find persons ready to 

 assign a cause for every thing they see, and, in so 

 doing, to join things the most incongruous, by ana- 

 logies the most fanciful. This being the case, it is 

 evidently of great importance that these first ready 

 impulses of the mind should be made on the con- 

 templation of the cases most likely to lead to good 

 inductions. The misfortune, however, is, in natural 

 philosophy, that the choice does not rest with us. 

 We must take the instances as nature presents 

 them. Even if we are furnished with a list of them 

 in tabular order, we must understand and compare 





