TRAINS OF REASONING. 277 



of garlic, and so forth. Next, we, or others before 

 us, have examined various specimens which possessed 

 this metallic and volatile character, whose vapour had 

 this smell, &C., and have invariably found that they 

 were poisonous. The first observation we judge that 

 we may extend to all substances whatever which 

 yield the precipitate : the second, to all metallic and 

 volatile substances resembling those we examined ; 

 and consequently, not to those only which are seen to 

 be such, but to those which are concluded to be such 

 by the prior induction. The substance before us is 

 only seen to come within one of these inductions ; but 

 by means of this one, it is brought within the other. 

 We are still, as before, concluding from particulars to 

 particulars ; but we are now concluding from parti- 

 culars observed, to other particulars whicb are not, 

 as in the simple case, seen to resemble them in the 

 material points, but inferred to do so, because resem- 

 bling them in something else, which we have been led 

 by quite a different set of instances to consider as a 

 mark of the former resemblance. 



This first example of a train of reasoning is still 

 extremely simple, the series consisting of only two 

 syllogisms. The following is somewhat more com- 

 plicated : No government, which earnestly seeks the 

 good of its subjects, is liable to revolution ; the 

 Prussian government earnestly seeks the good of its 

 subjects, therefore it is not in danger of revolution. 

 The major premiss in this argument we shall suppose 

 not to be derived from considerations a priori, but to 

 be a generalisation from history, which, whether 

 correct or erroneous, must have been founded upon 

 observation of governments concerning whose desire 

 of the good of their subjects there was no doubt. It 

 has been found, or thought to be found, that these 



