452 OPERATIONS SUBSIDIARY TO INDUCTION. 



§ 3. If, in the simplest observation, or in wliat passes for such, there is a 

 large part which is not observation but something else ; so in the simplest 

 description of an observation, there is, and must always be, much more as- 

 serted than is contained in the perception itself. We can not describe a 

 fact, without implying more than the fact. The perception is only of one 

 individual thing; but to describe it is to affirm a connection between it 

 and every other thing which is either denoted or connoted by any of the 

 terms used. To begin with an example, than which none can be conceived 

 more elementary : I have a sensation of sight, and I endeavor to describe 

 it by saying that I see something white. In saying this, I do not solely af- 

 firm my sensation; I also class it. I assert a resemblance between the 

 tiling I see, and all things which I and others are accustomed to call white. 

 I assert that it resembles them in the circumstance in which they all 

 resemble one another, in that which is the ground of their being called by 

 the name. This is not merely one way of describing an observation, but 

 the only way. If I would either register my observation for my own fu- 

 ture use, or make it known for the benefit of others, I must assert a resem- 

 blance between the fact which I have observed and something else. It is 

 inherent in a description, to be the statement of a resemblance, or resem- 

 blances. 



We thus see that it is impossible to express in words any result of ob- 

 servation, without performing an act possessing what Dr. Whewell consid- 

 ers to be characteristic of Induction. There is always something intro- 

 duced which was not included in the observation itself; some conception 

 common to the phenomenon with other phenomena to which it is com- 

 pared. An observation can not be spoken of in language at all without 

 declaring more than that one observation ; without assimilating it to other 

 phenomena already observed and classified. But this identification of an 

 object — this recognition of it as possessing certain known characteristics — 

 has never been confounded with Induction. It is an operation which pre- 

 cedes all induction, and supplies it with its materials. It is a perception of 

 resemblances, obtained by comparison. 



These resemblances are not always apprehended directly, by merely com- 

 paring the object observed with some other present object, or with our 

 recollection of an object which is absent. They are often ascertained 

 through intermediate marks, that is, deductively. In describing some new 

 kind of animal, suppose me to say that it measures ten feet in length, from 

 the forehead to the extremity of the tail. I did not ascertain this by the 

 unassisted eye. I had a two-foot rule which I applied to the object, and, 

 as we commonly say, measured it ; an operation which was not wholly man- 

 ual, but partly also mathematical, involving the two propositions. Five 

 times two is ten, and Things which are equal to the same thing are equal 

 to one another. Hence, the fact that the animal is ten feet long is not an 

 immediate perception, but a conclusion from reasoning ; the minor prem- 

 ises alone being furnished by observation of the object. Nevertheless, this 

 is called an observation, or a description of the animal, not an induction re- 

 specting it. 



To pass at once from a very simple to a very complex example : I affirm 

 that the earth is globular. The assertion is not grounded on direct percep- 

 tion ; for the figure of the earth can not, by us, be directly perceived, though 

 the assertion would not be true unless circumstances could be supposed 

 under which its truth could be so perceived. That the form of the earth 

 is globular is inferred from certain marks, as for instance from this, that its 



