254 REASONING. 



This, however, the man found himself quite unable to 

 do, and therefore could impart his skill to nobody. 

 He had, from the individual cases of his own experi- 

 ence, established a connexion in his mind between 

 fine effects of colour, and tactual perceptions in hand- 

 ling his dyeing materials ; and from these perceptions 

 he could, in any particular cases, infer the means to 

 be employed, and the effects which would be pro- 

 duced, but could not put others in possession of the 

 grounds on which he proceeded, from having never 

 generalized them in his own mind, or expressed them 

 in language. 



Almost every one knows Lord Mansfield's advice 

 to a man of practical good sense, who, being appointed 

 governor of a colony, had to preside in its court of 

 justice, without previous judicial practice or legal 

 education. The advice was, to give his decision boldly, 

 for it would probably be right ; but never to venture 

 on assigning reasons, for they would almost infallibly 

 be wrong. In cases like this, which are of no 

 uncommon occurrence, it would be absurd to suppose 

 that the bad reason was the source of the good deci- 

 sion. Lord Mansfield knew that if any reason were 

 assigned it would be necessarily an afterthought, the 

 judge being in fact guided by impressions from past 

 experience, without the circuitous process of framing 

 general principles from them, and that if he attempted 

 to frame any such he would assuredly fail. Lord 

 Mansfield, however, would not have doubted that a 

 man of equal experience, who had also a mind stored 

 with general propositions derived by legitimate induc- 

 tion from that experience, would have been greatly 

 preferable as a judge, to one, however sagacious, who 

 could not be trusted with the explanation and justifi- 

 cation of his own judgments. The cases of able men 



