160 REASONING. 



tion, inferred that the particular government spoken of, desires the good of 

 the people. This brings that government into known resemblance with the 

 other governments which were thought likely to escape revolution, and 

 thence, by a third induction, it is concluded that this particular govern- 

 ment is also likely to escape. This is still reasoning from particulars to 

 particulars, but we now reason to the new instance from three distinct sets 

 of former instances : to one only of those sets of instances do we directly 

 perceive the new one to be similar; but from that similarity we induc- 

 tively infer that it has the attribute by which it is assimilated to the next 

 set, and brought within the corresponding induction ; after which by a 

 repetition of the same operation we infer it to be similar to the third set, 

 and hence a third induction conducts us to the ultimate conclusion. 



§ 3. Notwithstanding the superior complication of these examples, com- 

 pared with those by which in the preceding chapter we illustrated the 

 general theory of reasoning, every doctrine which we then laid down holds 

 equally true in these more intricate cases. The successive general proposi- 

 tions are not steps in the reasoning, are not intermediate links in the chain 

 of inference, between the particulars observed and those to which we ap- 

 ply the observation. If we had sufficiently capacious memories, and a suf- 

 ficient power of maintaining order among a huge mass of details, the rea- 

 soning could go on without any general propositions ; they are mere for- 

 mulae for inferring particulars from particulars. The principle of gener- 

 al reasoning is (as before explained), that if, from observation of certain 

 known particulars, what was seen to be true of them can be inferred to be 

 true of any others, it may be inferred of all others which are of a certain 

 description. And in order that we may never fail to draw this conclusion 

 in a new case when it can be drawn correctly, and may avoid drawing it 

 when it can not, we determine once for all what are the distinguishing marks 

 by which such cases may be recognized. The subsequent process is mere- 

 ly that of identifying an object, and ascertaining it to have those marks; 

 whether we identify it by the very marks themselves, or by others which 

 we have ascertained (through another and a similar process) to be marks 

 of those marks. The real inference is always from particulars to particu- 

 lars, from the observed instances to an unobserved one : but in drawing 

 this inference, we conform to a formula which we have adopted for our 

 guidance in such operations, and which is a record of the criteria by which 

 we thought we had ascertained that we might distinguish when the infer- 

 ence could, and when it could not, be drawn. The real premises are the in- 

 dividual observations, even though they may have been forgotten, or, being 

 the observations of others and not of ourselves, may, to us, never have been 

 known : but we have before us proof that we or others once thought them 

 sufficient for an induction, and we have marks to show whether any new 

 case is one of those to which, if then known, the induction would have been 

 deemed to extend. These marks we either recognize at once, or by the 

 aid of other marks, which by another previous induction we collected to be 

 marks of the first. Even these marks of marks may only be recognized 

 through a third set of marks ; and we may have a train of reasoning, of 

 any length, to bring a new case within the scope of an induction ground- 

 ed on particulars its similarity to which is only ascertained in this indirect 

 manner. 



Thus, in the preceding example, the ultimate inductive inference was, 

 that a certain government was not likely to be overthrown ; this inference 



