INDUCTIONS IMPROPERLY SO CALLED. 329 



by no means follows that the conception is necessarily pre- 

 existent, or constructed by the mind out of its own materials. 

 If the facts are rightly classed under the conception, it is 

 because there is in the facts themselves something of which 

 the conception is itself a copy ; and which if we cannot 

 directly perceive, it is because of the limited power of our 

 organs, and not because the thing itself is not there. The 

 conception itself is often obtained by abstraction from the 

 very facts which, in Dr. Whewell's language, it is afterwards 

 called in to connect. This he himself admits, when he ob* 

 serves, (which he does on several occasions,) how great a 

 service would be rendered to the science of physiology by the 

 philosopher " who should establish a precise, tenable, and con- 

 sistent conception of life."* Such a conception can only be 

 abstracted from the phenomena of life itself; from the very 

 facts which it is put in requisition to connect. In other cases, 

 no doubt, instead of collecting the conception from the very 

 phenomena which we are attempting to colligate, we select it 

 from among those which have been previously collected 

 by abstraction from other facts. In the instance of Kepler's 

 laws, the latter was the case. The facts being out of the 

 reach of being observed, in any such manner as would 

 have enabled the senses to identify directly the path of 

 the planet, the conception requisite for framing a general 

 description of that path could not be collected by abstrac- 

 tion from the observations themselves ; the mind had to 

 supply hypothetically, from among the conceptions it had 

 obtained from other portions of its experience, some one 

 which would correctly represent the series of the observed 

 facts. It had to frame a supposition respecting the general 

 course of the phenomenon, and ask itself, If this be the 

 general description, what will the details be ? and then com- 

 pare these with the details actually observed. If they agreed, 

 the hypothesis would serve for a description of the pheno- 

 menon : if not, it was necessarily abandoned, and another tried. 

 It is such a case as this which gives rise to the doctrine that 



* Novum Organum Renovatum, p. 32. 



