FALLACIES OF GENERALIZATION. 549 



tion antecedent and a color consequent. The mode in which any one of 

 the motions produces the next, may possibly be susceptible of explanation 

 by some general law of motion: but the mode in which the last motion 

 produces the sensation of color, can not be explained by any law of mo- 

 tion ; it is the law of color : which is, and must always remain, a peculiar 

 thing. Where our consciousness recognizes between two phenomena an 

 inherent distinction; where we are sensible of a difference which is not 

 merely of degree, and feel that no adding one of the phenomena to itself 

 would produce the other; any theory which attempts to bring either un- 

 der the laws of the other must be false; though a theory which merely 

 treats the one as a cause or condition of the other, may jiossibly be true. 



§ 4. Among the remaining forms of erroneous generalization, several of 

 those most worthy of and most requiring notice have fallen under our ex- 

 amination in former places, where, in investigating the rules of correct in- 

 duction, we have had occasion to adv<3rt to the distinction between it and 

 some common mode of the incorrect. In this number is what I have for- 

 merly called the natural Induction of uninquiring minds, the induction of 

 the ancients, which proceeds joer enumerationem simplicem: "This, that, 

 and the other A are B, I can not think of any A which is not B, therefore 

 every A is B." As a final condemnation of this rude and slovenly mode 

 of generalization, I will quote Bacon's emphatic denunciation of it ; the 

 most important part, as I have more than once ventured to assert, of the 

 permanent service rendered by him to philosophy. "Inductio quae pro- 

 cedit per enumerationem simplicem, res puerilis est, et precario concludit" 

 (concludes only by your leave, or provisionally), " et periculo exponitur ab 

 instantia contradictoria, et plerumque secundum pauciora quam par est, et 

 ex his tantummodo qum "proisto sunt pronunciat. At Inductio quae ad in- 

 ventionem et demonstrationem Scientiarum et Artium erit utilis, Naturara 

 separare debet, per rejectiones et exclusiones debitas ; ac deinde post nega- 

 tivas tot quot sutficiunt, super afiirmativas concludere." 



I have already said that the mode of Simple Enumeration is still the 

 common and received method of Induction in whatever relates to man and 

 society. Of this a very few instances, more by way of memento than of 

 instruction, may suffice. What, for example, is to be thought of all the 

 "common-sense" maxims for which the following may serve as the uni- 

 versal formula, " Whatsoever has never been, will never be." As for ex- 

 ample: negroes have never been as civilized as whites sometimes are, 

 therefore it is impossible they should be so. Women, as a class, are sup- 

 posed not to have hitherto been equal in intellect to men, therefore they 

 are necessarily inferior. Societj' can not prosper without this or the other 

 institution ; e. g., in Aristotle's time, without slavery ; in later times, with- 

 out an established priesthood, without artificial distinctions of rank, etc. 

 One poor person in a thousand, educated, while the nine hundred and nine- 

 ty-nine remain uneducated, has usually aimed at raising himself out of his 

 class, therefore education makes people dissatisfied with the condition of a 

 laborer. Bookish men, taken from speculative pursuits and set to work 

 on something they know nothing about, have generally been found or 

 thought to do it ill; therefore philosophers are unfit for business, etc., 

 etc. All these are inductions by simple enumeration. Reasons having 

 some reference to the canons of scientific investigation have b«jjuaUempt- 

 ed to be given, however unsuccessfully, for some of thesj 

 but to the multitude of those who parrot them, the enumi 



