206 



REASONING. 



from something else ; but do we, in reality, conclude it from 

 the proposition, All rnen are mortal ? I answer, no. 



The error committed is, I conceive, that of overlooking 

 the distinction between two parts of the process of philo- 

 sophizing, the inferring part, and the registering part; and 

 ascribing to the latter the functions of the former. The 

 mistake is that of referring a person to his own notes for 

 the origin of his knowledge. If a person is asked a question, 

 and is at the moment unable to answer it, he may refresh 

 his memory by turning to a memorandum which he carries 

 about with him. But if he were asked, how the fact came 

 to his knowledge, he would scarcely answer, because it was 

 set down in his note-book : unless the book was written, 

 like the Koran, with a quill from the wing of the angel 

 Gabriel. 



Assuming that the proposition, The Duke of Wellington 

 is mortal, is immediately an inference from the proposition, 

 All men are mortal ; whence do we derive our knowledge of 

 that general truth ? Of course from observation. Now, all 

 which man can observe are individual cases. From these all 

 general truths must be drawn, and into these they may be 

 again resolved ; for a general truth is but an aggregate of 

 particular truths ; a comprehensive expression, by which an 

 indefinite number of individual facts are affirmed or denied 

 at once. But a general proposition is not merely a com- 

 pendious form for recording and preserving in the memory 

 a number of particular facts, all of which have been observed. 

 Generalization is not a process of mere naming, it is also a 

 process of inference. From instances which we have ob- 

 served, we feel warranted in concluding, that what we found 

 true in those instances, holds in all similar ones, past, 

 present, and future, however numerous they may be. We 

 then, by that valuable contrivance of language which enables 

 us to speak of many as if they were one, record all that we 

 have observed, together with all that we infer from our 

 observations, in one concise expression; and have thus only 

 one proposition, instead of an endless number, to remember 

 or to communicate. The results of manv observations and 



