208 REASONING. 



sible to journey from one place to another unless we "march 

 up a hill, and then march down again." It may be the safest 

 road, and there may he a resting-place at the top of the hill, 

 affording a commanding view of the surrounding country ; 

 hut for the mere purpose of arriving at our journey's end, our 

 taking that road is perfectly optional ; it is a question of time, 

 trouble, and danger. 



Not only may we reason from particulars to particulars 

 without passing through generals, but we perpetually do so 

 reason. All our earliest inferences are of this nature. From 

 the first dawn of intelligence we draw inferences, but years 

 elapse before we learn the use of general language. Tne 

 child, who, having burnt his fingers, avoids to thrust them 

 again into the fire, has reasoned or inferred, though he has 

 never thought of the general maxim, Fire burns. He knows 

 from memory that he has been burnt, and on this evidence 

 believes, when he sees a candle, that if he puts his finger into 

 the flame of it, he will be burnt again. He believes this in 

 every case which happens to arise ; but without looking, in 

 each instance, beyond the present case. He is not generalizing ; 

 he is inferring a particular from particulars. In the same 

 way, also, brutes reason. There is no ground for attributing 

 to any of the lower animals the use of signs, of such a nature 

 as to render general propositions possible. But those animals 

 profit by experience, and avoid what they have found to cause 

 them pain, in the same manner, though not always with the 

 same skill, as a human creature. Not only the burnt child, 

 but the burnt dog, dreads the fire. 



I believe that, in point of fact, when drawing inferences 

 from our personal experience, and not from maxims handed 

 down to us by books or tradition, we much oftener conclude 

 from particulars to particulars directly, than through the 

 intermediate agency of any general proposition. We are 

 constantly reasoning from ourselves to other people, or from 

 one person to another, without giving ourselves the trouble 

 to erect our observations into general maxims of human or 

 external nature. When we conclude that some person will, 

 on some given occasion, feel or act so and so, we sometimes 



